Kick Serve and Slice Serve Essentials with Peter Freeman and Kevin Garlington

Do you have a plan on how you are going to develop a spin serve? If that has been a challenge for you, you are lucky because I have teamed up with Keniv Garlington to make Kick serve and Slice serve easier for you.

Kevin from total tennis domination has developed his own course to help you master slice serve on the other hand I will show you my practice methods to make your kick serve more accurate and powerful. Do watch this video carefully as we show you the drill that you can do to start mastering your placement on the kick or slice serve, your control and ultimately the spin you are putting on the ball. Also, stick around till the end because we have added some bonus training for you.

So, let’s start with kick serve and I will show you the possibilities of getting ball off-of the court. The name of this drill is “kick-off”. You can do this drill alone or against your friend, the choice is yours.

Kick Serve Drill

1. Let’s go over first what do you need to do this drill, you will need 2 tennis courts adjacent to each other and 3 big colored balls. In this video I have got a red ball, a blue ball and an orange ball.
2. You need to place the balls in the court next to the one you would be standing somewhere between the singles sideline and center service line at equal distance from the net till service line.
3. You have to aim to hit between the balls and give yourself points. The scoring system is as follow-
   1. 3 points if your ball passes between the net and red ball
   2. 2 points if your ball passes between red and blue ball.
   3. 1 point if your ball passes between blue and orange ball.
4. I suggest you start the drill from very close to the net as you are standing on the doubles line of the next court. Try hitting your target as precisely as you can and continue practicing till you start to feel satisfied.
5. Now move your way up alone the doubles line, that is a few steps towards the baseline and continue doing so. The more your move up the harder it will be for you to aim the target.
6. You can further add more difficulty by going backwards in the court once you have reached the baseline.

You should continue practicing till you gather 50 points or so. This is a great drill to master your kick serves which goes off the court. Now it’s turn for Kevin’s drill to master the slice serve.

Let us first understand why slice serve is so important? Slice serve is a great way to open up the court, which means you slice your opponent out wide towards doubles line and it five you rest of the court to hit the return shot which could be an inside out forehand or a backhand to the open court. Either ways it gives your advantageous position to literally hurt the opponent. I call this “the walk back drill”.

Slice Serve Drill-

1. Place 3 balls or targets at an equal distance of about 1.5 feet back from the service line. These will be a measure of how well you can slice the ball. The shorter and wider you can get your ball to go, the better your slice is going to be.
2. It is important because the more you drive your opponent out wide; you get more option or advantage. Firstly, you put your opponent in the position which is off-of the court giving you more court. Also, when you do a slice serve you put your opponent in a position where he has to make a decision about what he should do now? Whether to go deep cross-court or go forward down the line, which ever ways you put your opponent under pressure from the very beginning.
3. On the other side of the court where you will be standing, line up some ball from the net till baseline, somewhere near center service line. Do keep few extra balls in your pocket too, so you can go back and make adjustment to your racquet face and try again if you miss once.
4. So, you start from the ball closest to the net and move backwards, practicing with each ball trying to hit the target.
5. Racquet face angle is very important for the slice serve. You should not make flat contact with the ball. For the slice serve the contact should be on the outside of the ball, the amount of slice you get depends upon the speed at which you are hitting the ball and brushing the side of the ball with racquet.
6. When you start the drill with first ball, don’t worry about the full motion serve or leg movement etc., instead just try to work on your racquet face angle.
7. Try to aim the target on the other side of the court and make sure your racquet face is looking in the direction of your target.
8. Give yourself 1 point if your ball passes between the line and first ball, 2 points if your ball passes between first and second ball and 3 points if your ball passes between second and third ball.
9. Keep practicing and move backwards each time. Once you are satisfied your can start to aim the targets from the baseline.

This is great dill to develop the feel of having the racquet in the right place and master slice serves.

I hope you really enjoyed these training sessions, now as mentioned earlier we have 2 programs for you call “5 most common mistakes you make during slice serve” and a free training on “Fix your number 1 problem on the kick serve”. Make sure you sign up for both, at the links given below.