The Slice Service
Having taken the position near the centre of the baseline indicated previously, glance at your opponent’s court to get your final direction, then look at the ball in your left hand. Let the racquet swing slowly back to the right of the body and then up to the right of the head and above it. Much of your weight has now gone back on your right foot. As the racquet starts up, start the left hand, holding the ball, up with it, and from a point about shoulder-high toss the ball to a point as high as the racquet will comfortably reach, slightly to the right of the head and about eight inches forward, toward the net.
As your weight flows forward on to your left foot, throw the fiat face of the racquet against the ball, meeting it on the upper right surface, and keep your eye fixed on the ball as you hit it. Do not look down at your opponent’s court until the ball is hit. Having hit the ball, make the racquet head keep travelIing directly at your opponent’s service court.
The racquet head carries directly through to the very end of the swing, ending below the waist on the left of the body. This will impart a spin that will cause the ball to curve and bounce to your left (your opponent’s right). Do not feel your job is done when the ball is struck, and let your arm sag and your swing collapse. Rather feel that the racquet head is going after the ball into your opponent’s court.
The Cannonball or Flat Service
This is hit identically as described for the slice except that the ball is tossed directly over the head, and the racquet head meets the ball on the upper back surface, and hits directly trough it.
The so-called Cannonball is really nothing but a slice service with no slice.
The American Twist or Kick
Here the stance is the same, but the backswing carries the racquet he ad behind the back, which is bent. The ball is tossed to the left of the head and on a line parallel with it as regards the net.
Keep the eye fixed on it. The racquet head comes from below, meets the ball on the lower left surface, hits up and over it with a distinct wrist “kick,” and ends on the right of the body. In order to keep one’s balance, the right leg comes up just about at the time the ball is met, and is extended in front of the body, following the line of the racquet, during the hitting-up-and-over part of the swing.
The service curves from your right to left in the air but reverses on the bounce and goes from left to right or to your opponent’s backhand. This service should be the last to be learned, and it can be mastered only by hard practice. It is slow and high, and the bound is high. It is a good second service, and is also excellent in doubles to allow the server to follow in to the net.
One often hears much of the various trick services like the Reverse, the Underhand Cut, etc. Personally I do not consider them of any real value, only as amusements. They do not confuse any player who knows his business, and I strongly urge young players to let them severely alone.
The way to use service, once it is learned, is almost a book in itself, but at least I can point out a few generalities that will help you to understand the tremendous advantage that a good service should give to a player. Few services can be hit hard enough to win outright by speed alone. Placement, deception, and surprise are the elements that really make service valuable.
Players get too set in their attitude toward their service. They are apt either to decide it is all an attack and hit the ball much too hard for safety or control, on both first and second delivery, or decide it is just a means to start the point and merely hit the ball in court, with too little speed or direction. Actually, service should always be used to place your opponent on the defensive, but there are many more ways to do it than by trying to blast him off the court with speed. I believe that one’s total sum of service should consist of almost equal proportions of speed, spin, and direction, in the attempt to keep an opponent on the defensive, but these proportions should vary with each individual serve.
One of the greatest fallacies in tennis is the belief that a very fast service is hard to return just because of its speed. Actually, the faster a service is, the easier it is to turn that speed back at the server if you can reach it to get your racquet face against it. The great French stars Henri Cochet and Rene Lacoste proved it, and such players as Bryan Grant, Jnr., Clifford Sutter, Bobby Riggs, and Frank Parker have confirmed it in later years. The very fast service, to be really effective, must also have controlled direction. It is not Kramer’s, Kovacs’, and Gonzales’ speed of service alone that wins aces for them, but rather their ability to put that speed into the corners of their opponent’s service court.
The first requisite of a good server is control that allows him to put the ball on his opponent’s forehand or backhand at will. The second thing is a sufficient amount of spin or twist to control the ball in the air, and cause it to bounce to the desired place. Finally, I believe in a sound medium pace, hard enough to prevent the receiver from attacking the serve, but not so hard as to tune up the opponent so there is no element of surprise left when you hit with great speed at times. The really fine server is the man who consistently varies spin, speed, and direction with each delivery. Most players get into a rut in serving.
The great majority of players will serve a cross-court slice to the forehand in the right or number 1 court, and attempt to hit to the backhand in the left or number 2 court. They will do the same thing, game after game, set after set, so their opponent can practically stand in front of the coming delivery and not move. These players also always hit the first serve hard, and the second less hard. It is automatic, and not in any way due to intelligent thought. They throw away at least half the value of their service, no matter how good an actual stroke it may be.
It would be far better if they divided the direction, perhaps 60 per cent to the forehand and 40 per cent to the backhand in the right, or number 1 court, and 40 per cent to the forehand and 60 per cent to the backhand in the left or number 2 court. Let these figures, too, be flexible so that they may vary to 70-30 per cent or down to 50-50 per cent. Remember the lowest place in the net is the centre strap, which is three feet high, so if you are trying for an ace by speed alone, hit straight down the centre line in either court. If you are attempting to ace a man with a sharp-angle serve in either court, it is done by subtlety of disguised direction of a slow delivery coupled with spin.
Sheer speed won’t work, since the net is so high at the sides that a sharp-angled hard-hit ball will go out if it clears the net. Do not start out serving to the limit of your ability at the beginning of a match. First, your arm is not yet warmed up and you may hurt it. Second, you will have no reserve left to call upon at the critical moments and climax of each set, when, above all, you should make service an attacking weapon that will still have an element of surprise left in it.
The more critical the point, the greater care you should take in service. Above all, do not hurry your delivery. Never allow fear of error or nervousness to cause you to shorten your service swing, or cramp your style, for that will actually produce error. Do not waste your first service just because you have another coming if you miss. The amount of energy that can be wasted by hitting faults on the first service may be just enough to cost you victory at the end in a long, bitterly fought match.
There is another very important reason why you should concentrate on putting your first service in, even if it is not quite as severe as you might wish. Your opponent subconsciously expects you to waste a first service and is not quite set for it, whereas if you miss, he knows you must hit the second in, and is waiting and set to attack it. Above all, if you have run your opponent so far on the preceding point that he is winded, put that first ball in slow and safe.
He will miss it many times from sheer fatigue and lack of concentration. Always seek to disguise direction so as to keep your opponent guessing on which side he must receive the ball. If you catch him on the wrong foot, you will often force an error with a comparatively weak service. Only if you are coming to the net behind service in singles are power, speed, and depth imperative. I do not believe anyone should continuously rush the net behind service, since I am convinced that against a first-class ground stroke the physical toll is too great and must fail in the end.
The two greatest consistent net rushers behind service in the history of tennis were Jean Borotra and Vincent Richards, both of whom always met defeat in their important matches at the hands of such groundstroke players as Rene Lacoste, Henri Cochet, William M. Johnston, and myself.
On the other hand, I believe that every player should go in to the net behind service enough to keep the threat of it always in his opponent’s mind. I think it is often an excellent idea to go in behind service at the climax of a match. Once more, intelligent variation is the thing. Keep your style mixed, varying speed, spin, and controlled direction, and your opponent will be muddled. Service should always be an asset and never a liability to the server.
Service, above all other shots, is a matter of practice, practice, and then more practice. As long as a player plays tennis he would do well to take a little time off one e in a while, get a few dozen balls, and go out and practise service. The beginner should practise to get the right swing and just try to hit the ball into the correct court.
As he improves he should start to work on direction. He should mark out a series of squares, eight by eight feet, along the service lines of the service courts, and try to hit them. Then he should start hitting for the centre line and the sideline, first one court and then the other, always with slow or medium pace. Only after he can put the ball within a few feet of his target better than 60 per cent of the time should he try to get great power. I advocate to my pupils who have advanced to the last stage that, even during tournament play, they take fifteen minutes a day, twice a week, to practise service.
Remember that in service you and you alone are entirely responsible for the stroke and its result. It is the only shot in tennis in which you are not affected by your opponent’s shot. Therefore, the perfect grooving of your muscular movements is the determining factor in your ability. Practice and practice alone will groove your muscles to respond as you wish to the call of your mind. When you turn to the other strokes in tennis you have not only to handle your own muscular movements and use your own brain to direct your shots, but you are brought into direct conflict with your opponent’s mind and muscle through the medium of his shots. Therefore, your problems are more complex than in service.