Tennis Slice Serve

One of the most effective tennis serves you can hit is what is sometimes known as the “can opener”.

You see Federer and Nadal hit this serve a lot of the time.

This is when you slice the serve out wide and drag your opponent out of the tennis court.

It can often result in an ace or error but can also leave your opponent so far out of court that even if they do return the ball you have the whole court at your mercy to take advantage of.

But, so many people still struggle to hit the tennis slice serve well.

Well, try this.

Apart from learning to hit the side of the ball better and with more control (right handers to the right of the tennis ball and leftys to the left of the ball), you can help yourself by adjusting your serve position & stance.

If you are a right hander hitting it from the deuce (right) court then just move slightly to the right from your normal serve position on the baseline and move your right foot to the right a touch (towards the right tramline) when you are setting up (I am obviously assuming your right foot is normally further from the right tramline than your left foot in your normal service stance).

This will line your body up more towards your target and make hitting that area by the opposite tramline sooooo much easier.

Note for all you leftys, just reverse the above instruction i.e. serve from the left etc.

For those of you worried about telegraphing the serve to the opponent – don’t worry.

If you are unable to hit the wide serve from the “normal” stance, you AND your opponent are unlikely to be at the level where reading and taking advantage of serves are a natural part of the game.

PLUS!!!

If you hit it well enough, it is still a difficult serve to deal with.

I saw Pete Sampras (who Federer copied) serve every ad serve (from the left) at the French Open, Roland Garros from wide out towards the tramline with kick.

Everybody knew where most of the serves were going but like I said earlier if you hit these wide serves well the worst that can happen is that you end up with an empty court to play into on the next shot.

He lost in the Semi-Finals!!

I also saw him serve nearly every serve in the Australian Open final against Thomas Muster (a lefty) as a can opener from the right (deuce) court.

He Won!!

Listen, it’s really important for right handers to have this serve against a lefty.

I say this because it seems that all leftys have this serve when they play us right handers……dammned leftys :-)

Start working on it today!!

P.S. if you are a lefty and don’t have it as part of your service arsenal…………get it going...........TODAY!!

Here is Vaidisova hitting a tennis slice serve against Jankovic.

Note how far Jankovic would have been out of court if she had got the ball back!!



Tennis Slice Serve sorted - go HERE for more info