Оригинал статьи - September 8, 2009, 1:40 pm
The Art of the Kick Serve
By GEOFF MACDONALD
Virtually all of the top men’s players use the kick serve as their second serve. Most right-handers use the American Twist, which bounces up and to the left of the receiver; when hit well, it is difficult to time on the return.
The kick serve allows a player to swing aggressively with a relaxed but whipping arm. With fast racket-head speed, the server can put tremendous spin on the ball. It not only enhances control, but can also explode off the court with great speed after the bounce. The trajectory allows for a safe margin over the net, then, as the ball lands and grips the court, the ball’s r.p.m.’s double as it bounds upward. John Yandell has extensively studied speed and spin on the kick serve. In a series of ground-breaking articles on his fine Web site (
www.tennisplayer.net) Yandell has analyzed how top pros hit this serve. The serve is not solely a spin serve, according to Yandell, nor is the spin mainly topspin. Instead the kick serve is a blend of speed and spin, with the spin being a hybrid of topspin and sidespin.
In analyzing Alicia Molik’s wonderful second serve, notice that her ball toss is to the left. Also notice that the ball toss is neither too far forward nor excessively high. Jim McLennan, who edits the popular tennis newsletter TennisOne.com, says that a main reason for the recent pandemic of double faults is the overly high ball toss of many players.
He points out that this throws off the rhythm and balance of the serve, especially in the feet and legs. But Molik’s toss here looks just right in terms of height and placement. In this position, she can impart topspin by hitting up on the ball, and also sidespin, by contacting the ball on its left side. For a right-handed player, visualize a clock face and think of brushing upward from 7 to 1. This action creates a good bit of topspin.
To add sidespin, the racket can brush from 8 to 2, which gives the ball its tricky kick to the left. If mastered, this serve is both safe and tough to handle, mainly because the spinning ball rises and tails away after the bounce. Returners facing Pete Sampras in his prime described his second serve as “heavy,” a concept Yandell also explores in the aforementioned articles on speed and spin in serving.
Few women on today’s tour have learned the kick serve. Molik and Samantha Stosur, both Australians, have superb kick serves, and they use both the American Twist (left bounding) and the topspin slice (right bounding). TennisOne’s McLennan has written of a fascinating study conducted at Stanford this summer during the Bank of the West tourney. Using multiple cameras, computer synching, laser body scanners, and old-fashioned human observation, the researchers filmed leading WTA players as they hit 18 serves — six flat, six slice and six kicks. Only Stosur could hit a real kick.
In watching many of the top women hit their second serves, you often see ball tosses to the right, a slowing racket head and a tentative leg thrust. There is also less of a whipping motion with a pronounced wrist and hand snap, which you see in the Molik video.
Players struggling to serve well, especially with the second serve, have their homework assignment for practicing after the Open. Learning a good kick serve is a challenge, but can be mastered with practice and repetition. One player who has worked hard to improve her serve is Elena Dementieva. She still needs to bring her ball toss farther to the left to develop a kick, but she has taken the weakest part of her game and worked hard to transform her serve into a weapon.
A couple of years ago, she seemed content just to put the serve into play, then rely on her formidable ground strokes to win. In this video, you can see how the pros work on their serves, alone on a practice court with a basket of balls and well-placed targets. Some clever editing makes Dementieva’s serve look even better.
