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US TENNIS September 1997 You can learn the Secrets of my Serve By Pete Sampras, Playing Editor with Alexander McNab |
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Like most of my strokes at this stage of my career, my serve is an instinctive motion. I can't explain precisely how I hit it. But I can show you in the photos you see here, as well as tell you about the few keys I focus on as I serve and how I take care of my arm. When I'm serving big, my goal is to make it so the other guy can't do anything except hope I miss; I'm trying to hit an ace. Every now and again, it just clicks perfectly. Once was in the third set of the 1995 U.S. Open final against Andre Agassi. I served four straight aces against the best returner in the game. Maybe you can compare such a perfect game to a pitcher striking out the side in an inning. It doesn't happen often -- only three or four times in my career. When I'm serving well, though, hitting the ball a couple of inches from the line, I usually hold serve without much difficulty. Here are some of my key thoughts that you can apply to your serve: Mix it up. Against anyone, especially a great returner like Agassi, I try not to serve to the same place every time -- because if I do, eventually he's going to pick it off. I try to work the ball around. Don't try for too much. I get in trouble when I try to overserve. When I try to hit the ball a little bit too close to the line, I overhit and my serve goes into the net or it goes long. Stay relaxed. When I get in a good rhythm, I don't go for too much. I'm not forcing it. I'm just letting it go. That's the ideal way to serve: Relax, move the ball around and give it a rip. Lean in and lift off Before a match and on big points, I'm constantly reminding myself to get the toss out in front and to explode up to the ball. I should be extending at an angle into the court as I uncoil and hit. The lift comes from my legs. Finding the ideal toss location comes from repetition and practice, and sometimes it's a fine line between a good toss and a poor one, especially when there's a lot of pressure in the match. When my toss is too far back, I may serve long. When it's too far forward, I may serve into the net. When it's too low, I may miss, too, or I may not get enough on the ball even if it goes in. You want the toss in a spot that allows you to go up at it so you're out in the court, at full extension, when you hit the ball. The lean and the lift you see in the photos on these two pages are good models, although the lift is even more explosive than this in a real match situation. My three different serves The talk is that my serve is pretty tough to read. Why? It goes back to the drill my childhood coach, Pete Fischer, thought up. In the middle of my motion, where my toss is right at the top, he'd tell me what type of serve to hit: flat, slice or kick. I'd need to have the same ball toss for every serve to try to pull it off. While I've never heard of another teacher using Pete's drill, it is a good one, but it's difficult, especially when you start. We did it many, many times for many, many years. Today, I'm not conscious of the stroking technique I use to hit the different serves. I don't know exactly what I do, so I'm not the strongest at describing what you see here; I just do it, I guess. My flat and slice serves are always first serves. The kicker is a second serve. My toss on the kick is a little bit more left. (I don't alter the toss for the flat and slice.) The kicker's higher arc over the net gives you more safety. While you usually think of hitting the kicker to the backhand, you can hit it to the forehand, depending on the situation. For example, the second-serve ace I hit against Alex Corretja in the fifth-set tie-break of our U.S. Open quarterfinal last year was a kicker wide to his forehand, not a slice. The tosses for my three types of serves may not be 100 percent the same, but they are close enough to make it hard for the returner to read what's coming. Just ask Corretja. The slice serve (above) and the flat serve (below) look basically the same until contact. I'm hitting the outside of the ball on the slice. I'm hitting flat behind it on the flat serve. Keep your arms loose A loose arm, I think, is a key to a big serve, and, thankfully, I have a very loose arm. With help, I can bring my elbows together so they touch behind my back, as a friend is assisting me to do in this photo. The elbow touch is one of the full range of shoulder, arm and wrist stretches I will go through with my trainer before and after every practice. I'll loosen my arm up by moving it in circles. I'll stretch it across my chest. I'll flex my wrist and hand up, sideways and down. I do all of these stretches slowly and gradually until my serving muscles are fully warmed up. While it is unlikely that you can touch your elbows behind you -- and you could even injure yourself if you try -- I recommend that you do a set of exercises that put your arm joints and muscles through their full range of motion before and after you play, perhaps with a partner. The increase in flexibility will be a big help to your serve. |