Get A Real Second Serve

How many times has this happened to you? Your opponent has an incredible, hard, flat first serve that you can barely return. But, when you get her second serve, it’s a puff ball that you can nail? This happens to me so often that I’m wondering - why don’t these ladies get a real second serve?

A real second serve is something that you can not only rely on to go in, but it also has a little extra something to it. That little extra something is usually spin. By adding spin, your serve bounces a little higher than expected and/or curves off to one side after bouncing in the service box.

The nice thing about this type of serve is that, when your first serve isn’t working for you, a real second serve gives you something to fall back on without just sacrificing your service game.  Sure, its easy to hit a puff ball second serve that goes in and gets the point started. But having a spin serve that goes in is a lot more valuable to you and way more disconcerting to your opponent.

A spin serve is probably going to require some work on your part.  You may have to change your grip.  You may have to think about hitting the ball differently.  But its worth it when you finally get it and have something more to show your opponent than an easy puff ball.  And, face it - if you want to move up to a higher level of play, you can't be serving puff balls.

Now, there are several different kinds of spin serves (as we’ve discussed in Ten Types of Service Spin????) but you don’t have to learn all of them. Start with learning one spin serve and start learning it now. It may not be fun.  It may be very frustrating for a while.  But in several weeks, I’ll bet you’ll have a real second serve.




© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved