Tennis Tip: Improve Your Tennis Serve under PRESSURE

Tips — By stevie

I don’t play tennis quite as often as I really should given the level I’d like to reach in a few years.  One of the things that really suffers from my lack of practice and playing is the consistency of my tennis serve, particularly in any situation involving game play.  The usual pattern is that in any service game, I will hit 2 service winners or aces and 2 double faults, our side loses a point, and then I’m facing break point.  Break point is not so fun for anyone, but is particularly troublesome if you aren’t serving consistently. 

To address this problem, I came up with a drill to help with the consistency of my serves.  With an opponent on the other side returning serve (this is important because it’s psychologically different to have someone returning than to hit into an open court), I start serving.  But, rather than start love-love, I start love-30.  I don’t count what happens with the service return.  The only thing that counts is whether I hit the serve in.  If I do, I win the point.  If I double-fault, I lose the point. 

Even with this simple exercise where I’m in total control of every point, it was amazing the number of times I got into trouble.  Remember, one double fault and I’m facing break point. 

I was working on this drill a few weekends ago and was disappointed in the number of times I got to break point.  However, I was also happy that I came back in most of those cases.  As a result, I started to do the drill down love-40. 

Now that’s really hard!

Tags: serve, tennis tips