Tennis Serve Q&A
Mental tips to help you serve better...

Questions and answers related to tennis serve and how to use your mind to improve your tennis service games...

The spelling and grammar of questions were left in their original form...

"Why do I start missing my first serve?"

A:
The reason why you start missing your serve is because you are thinking about it. Before it was automatic and now you interfere with your mind in this fragile system. You have to stop thinking about how good your serve is and just serve. ;)

How do you stop thinking? Have a ritual, visualize the path of the ball, clearly see the ball in the air when you toss it, ...

"How to improve my second serve? I get so nervous..."

A:
Now to your question: first, I understand what you are going through because removing this block was my first success in my journey through the mental tennis game.

I see two approaches here:

1. Just going through it with your decisions (courage)

2. Finding the cause - which is usually a hidden belief - former painful memory that is about to happen - or unrealistic view on the game (and yourself)

Let's see each one:

1. For the first approach you'll need to be more aware.

Because just before the serve, you become fearful that you'll miss it.

This fear affects your body and mind in way that disrupts the fine coordination of your movement and usually results in a miss.

So what you need to do is to stand back and realize that this approach is not working. You may say; of course it's not working.

But why don't you change it then?

That's what I mean being more aware. You know NOW when you read this or when you wrote to me that this approach is not working BUT in the moment that you are about to serve, you STILL do it.

So what is the other option?

Serve with courage and decisiveness.

Now, you will miss too. But a lot fewer times than with the fear approach.

With the courage approach you'll miss because we are not perfect and cannot hit every serve in. I call that statistics. Every time I miss my second serve it's statistics. Federer and Nadal miss too, why shouldn't I? ;)

But in order to override your automatic fearful response you'll need to be aware in that moment and do the OPPOSITE of what your mind is telling you.

You see - our mind is not realistic. We don't see the whole story (unless we train ourselves to do that), we just see, that the possibility of emotional pain (missing the second serve) is close and we start shaking and becoming fearful.

The whole story means - that if you hit with a fearful approach you'll miss 50% of your second serves (I'm guessing), but with a courageous approach you'll miss only 20% of your second serves.

So then you decide against your fear and serve with courage and decisiveness.

But can you accept that you'll miss an occasional second serve or do you think it is possible to hit every second serve in?

2. This where your beliefs about the tennis game and yourself come into play.

Perhaps you think that it is your fault when you make a double fault. (false)

This would mean that one could have such a second serve, that if he did everything correctly, the serve would go in. If you believe this, than ask yourself is that factually true?

Can anyone on this planet serve a second serve and never miss?

Or - can anyone do EVERYTHING correctly EVERY TIME he serves? Obviously - it's impossible.

So if you give yourself permission to miss and understand that this is a part of the game, you'll be fine.

You will still make double faults but a lot less times.

I encourage you to carefully observe professional matches and look for DOUBLE FAULTS. See how many they make, how many times they miss in critical situations, how they choke too, and how sometimes they only push the serve in (especially women) because they have the "tennis arm".

This will help you become more realistic in your expectations of your second serve.

I hope I've answered your question and I hope you can get through this.

I did - I decided that I'll serve with courage since I lost sets and matches because of my second serve.

Then I had to fight with my mind for a while. Every time I was about to serve a second serve, my fear appeared. I fought with it and said - NO,I will serve with courage.

Sometimes I won the battle and sometimes I didn't.

But eventually I won so many battles with my fear that IT STOPPED appearing.

I had (and still have) an empty mind before the serve.

There are no thoughts, no fears, no expectations, nothing. I just serve with the approach that statistically produces most good second serves.

"Help! I double fault under pressure!"

I know most players have trouble with this but in my case it is really extreme. 3 double faults per service game are no exception and I even had the horrible experience of “4 in a row” twice this season.

A:(part I)
There are so many reasons why you may miss your serve so I will just give you some and then you can check them one by one:

1. You may be trying to hit better serve than you are capable of - and I mean only technique and your feel. Maybe you haven't developed enough feel yet or you have some technical errors that prevent you from hitting with higher speed and still be consistent.

You could tape yourself, upload a video to YouTube and I could see what is going on...

2. Maybe you are capable of hitting the serve quite consistently but the pressure situation makes you tense (choking).

Here we have a few options too:

- first of all - you already think that your serve is bad and that affects your serving even before you toss the ball. This is a tough nut to crack...

- you are afraid to miss - maybe you think, that if you miss a serve that it is ALWAYS your fault. It is not. No one can serve the ball in every time (with quality - speed and precision). The problem begins when you miss the first one and you DON'T ACCEPT that as a part of the game.

Did Michael Jordan always hit the basket? No, he even missed 26 shots where his team lost because of that. If he hit in, the team would have won. Did Michael stop trying? No, never. Missing is a part of the sport, not always our fault.

- you think too much while you are serving (or before) that you will miss - this affects your concentration and you don't focus on the ball or ball flight.

Ok these are some of the reasons that I can come up with without seeing you serve and seeing you serve in the match.

Tell me which of these might be your reason too and then we can move on.

Q&A(part II)

Hi Tomaz,

Thank you very much for your quick and extensive response. I will reply in your text.

1. You may be trying to hit better serve than you are capable of - and I mean only technique and your feel. Maybe you haven't developed enough feel yet or you have some technical errors that prevent you from hitting with higher speed and still be consistent.

This used to be the case. In fact my serve used to be quite good an had plenty of pace. But because of the low percentage of serves in, everyone advised me to develop a safer and slower serve with top spin. I have spent tons of money on private lessons and hours and hours of time but it has become worse and less reliable eversince....

The one word the bothers me there is "slower". Yes, top spin serve is slower but it shouldn't be slow. I'm afraid that by thinking "slow" your arm moves too slow. You lose a lot of speed anyway when you hit the ball with topspin, so the actual speed of movement is almost the same as with flat serve except that you brush on the ball.

I had a lesson today where I expained the player something similar - you cannot control tennis. You need to trust the serve and let go. Just do the motion of serve - relaxed and fluid and notice the results. You will miss at first.

But then continue serving like that and "want" the ball to go in. If you serve too long, "want" the ball to go shorter.

Similar to driving the car - you just "want" to go left, and then your right arm goes up and your left arm goes down (on the driving wheel) - you don't do that consciously. Tennis strokes are the same.

You could tape yourself, upload a video to YouTube and I could see what is going on...

2. Maybe you are capable of hitting the serve quite consistently but the pressure situation makes you tense (choking).

Here we have a few options too:

- first of all - you already think that your serve is bad and that affects your serving even before you toss the ball. This is a tough nut to crack...

Yep, that's me...

First you need to accept that. Don't fight it. Yes, I have a bad serve now. But it doesn't have to stay like that. Feed it with positive energy and encourage yourself when you make a mistake. (were you criticized a lot in your childhood? We develop a pattern which is the same as we experienced from our parents. You did something "wrong", they scolded you.

Now they are not around, so you do it for them. If you make a mistake, you MUST be criticized.

This doesn't work for me. I don't get good results with that approach. I let it go. I now help myself when I make a mistake.

- you are afraid to miss - maybe you think, that if you miss a serve that it is ALWAYS your fault. It is not. No one can serve the ball in every time (with quality - speed and precision). The problem begins when you miss the first one and you DON'T ACCEPT that as a part of the game.

I have come to the point where I can accept one double fault per service game. Two or more destroys my game since it will cost me the game and in the long run (if it happens over and over again) the match.

OK. Accepting means that when you make a double fault, you don't change anything with your next serve and you also don't think about missing again.

Did Michael Jordan always hit the basket? No, he even missed 26 shots where his team lost because of that. If he hit in, the team would have won. Did Michael stop trying? No, never. Missing is a part of the sport, not always our fault.

- you think too much while you are serving (or before) that you will miss - this affects your concentration and you don't focus on the ball or ball flight.

Yep, that's me again :-)

Stop. Imagine the ball flight. (Ball going in) Serve.

Thank you Tomaz!

This helps. I will need time to practice...

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