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Tackling the Temperamental Toss

Tossing a tennis ball up a few feet so you can hit your serve seems like it should be the easiest part of the whole game, but many players find it one of the more elusive skills.

The biggest source of difficulty stems from the fact that the most natural tossing motion, swinging the ball upward with a straight arm, usually results in tossing the ball too far behind yourself. If your arm is straight and you rotate your shoulder joint upward to execute the toss, your arm acts like one of the vanes on a windmill, with your shoulder as the hub. Someone standing on your baseline, watching you from the side as you swing the ball forward, then up, would see the ball describing part of a circular path in the air.

Depending on when you release the ball, it could go forward, straight up, or back. It's generally a good idea to release the ball as late as possible, so that your tossing hand is closest to where you want the ball to end up. If you do this with a circular arm swing, though, the ball will always go behind you. To get a circular tossing motion to result in a straight toss, you have to release the ball before your tossing arm is at full upward extension, and you have to time that release pretty precisely. Many players manage to do this well most of the time, but then when they get into a tense situation, their timing goes off, and their toss flies back and forward with disastrous consequences for their serve.

The solution is to use a tossing motion that may seem somewhat awkward at first, where you start the ball just in front of the leading edge of your right leg (for a right-hander). Instead of swinging the ball out, then up, in a circular path, slant the ball upward and forward on a straight line toward your intended point of contact for the serve. It sometimes helps to imagine that you're guiding the ball up through a pipe that goes to your point of contact. Your arm will look and feel mostly straight during your toss, but you'll naturally bend your elbow slightly in the early part of the tossing motion in order to move the ball in a straight line.

With this straight-line tossing motion, you can release the ball with your tossing arm fully extended upward, and the ball will not drift behind you. You don't have to worry about precise timing, because with the ball moving on a straight line, it will always be moving in the same direction no matter when you release it. Releasing it as late as possible is ideal, because it puts your tossing hand closer to your toss target, but if you release early, the ball won't fly forward the way it would with a circular toss path.

Does the slant-it-up-and-forward toss guarantee perfect results?

Yes! You'll be earning millions in short order! (We wish.)

OK, even if you can't have perfection, you can have a pretty reliable toss, especially if you keep in mind these other important tips:

• Hold the ball in your fingertips, and release it by opening your whole hand at once, like a big flower suddenly spreading its petals.
• When you practice your toss, do your normal windup with your serving arm. The windup motion changes your body's balance and momentum. A toss you practice without your windup won't work quite the same with one.
• Remember that, with your tossing arm extended, the distance from your hand to your point of contact is only a racket length or so. Your two arms are probably the same length, so the difference for the racket arm is simply the length of the racket.
• Contrary to a popular myth, you will need to vary your toss slightly for different types of serve. For most serves, you should toss the ball roughly to the height that the tip of your extended racket reaches when you execute a real swing, including any extra height you get by leaving the ground. You'll meet the ball after it drops several inches from the tip's height to that of the sweet spot. The "perfect" toss would go just to the height of your sweet spot, but tossing it several inches higher, then letting it drop leaves you a safe margin to avoid tossing too low, for which there's no way to compensate. For twist and topspin serves, a longer ball drop can enhance your spin.

Serving long or into the net

Assume a right-handed player.

Problem: Often hitting hard serves long.

Repairs:

1. For players of average height, hard, flat serves have to just barely clear the net, or they will go long. Only very tall players can get hard, flat serves in consistently enough to make them pay off. Adding some topspin will increase your margin of clearance over the net to several times larger. The most preferred power serve among advanced players has a mix of topspin and slice.
2. Meeting the ball too low is like making yourself shorter, thus reducing the vertical angle from your racket over the net to your target area. A low contact point also disrupts the upward whipping action you create at full extension. You should meet power serves at full upward extension.
3. You might be meeting the ball too far back. Generally speaking, meeting the ball more in front of you will make you hit lower. Either you're tossing too far back, or you're leaning too far forward before you've swung, thus getting ahead of the ball.

Problem: Often hitting serves into the net.

Repairs:

1. As noted above, hard, flat serves have a tiny margin of clearance over the net. Hitting some topspin on the serve will allow you to hit over the net by feet instead of by inches.
2. Just as meeting the ball too low can make you hit long, it can also make you hit the net, because it reduces your margin of clearance over the net and disrupts the mechanics of a proper serve.
3. You might be meeting the ball too far in front of yourself. Try tossing less forward or leaning in more just before you swing.
4. You might be fooled by the illusion that you can hit down on a serve and get it over the net. You would have to be well over seven feet tall for this to be physically possible. Most of us have to hit up to get a serve in.
5. If your toss peaks much higher than your point of contact, the ball will develop a significant downward vector as it descends toward your racket. Try tossing no more than a few inches higher than your point of contact.
6. Make sure to keep your head pointed upward until at least a split second after you've hit the ball. If you pull your head down too early, you'll pull your racket down with it.

Second Serve, Toss and Power

Problem: Unreliable second serve.

Repairs:

1. Remember: "Spin goes in." This popular saying really should be "Topspin goes in." Roughly 90% of second serves hit by the pros are topspin or twist, because these serves have a huge margin of clearance over the net. You can hit a good topspin or twist serve four feet over the net, and the spin will make it dive down into the service box. It will then jump up out of the opponent's comfortable hitting zone.
2. Here's another useful saying: "For spin serves, more is more." Contrary to what most players do, you should hit your second serves with at least as much swing speed as your first serves. A faster swing just produces heavier spin, which increases both the likelihood that the serve will go in and the height it bounces above your opponent's comfort zone.
3. If you're trying to hit topspin serves, but they're unreliable, try rotating your grip somewhat counterclockwise. Your grip should be at least Continental for hitting spin, and for heavy topspin you might go as far as an Eastern backhand.

Problem: Wild tosses.

Repairs:

1. Hold the ball in your fingertips. If you hold it too deep in your hand, it will usually be deflected by your fingers as you release it.
2. Release the ball with your tossing arm fully extended upward. The smaller the distance between the release point and the racket's contact point, the less room for the ball to go astray.
3. Start the toss in front of your legs, then push the ball up and forward toward where you want to hit it. If you swing the ball out too early in the tossing motion, your arm will act like a big compass, forcing the ball to describe a circular path that ends with it arcing behind you.
4. Make sure your wrist isn't flicking the ball as you let go. Try having your hand hang down below your wrist as you toss.
5. Toss just to the height at which you'll hit the ball or a few inches higher. Very high tosses are much more likely to go off course, and even when they're on course, they're harder to hit.

Problem: Not enough power.

Repairs:

1. Use a loose, quick motion and full extension. Don't try to muscle the ball. You create power by throwing the energy of your legs, torso, and arm upward, then letting that energy translate into whipping the racket upward. Keep a loose wrist to allow this whipping to occur, but don't try deliberately to snap your wrist. It will snap naturally if it's loose and you're throwing your energy upward properly to a contact point at full extension.
2. For power, make sure you're meeting the ball somewhat to your right. If you have to lean left to meet the ball, you'll lose much of your momentum.
3. Lean forward into your serve. Your legs should push up and forward as you go to hit the ball.
4. Make sure to turn your back slightly toward the net as you coil your upper body to get ready to hit. The uncoiling as you swing makes an important contribution to your power.
5. Try to use a continuous motion from the start of your backswing to the end of your follow-through. Your backswing adds nothing if you stop at the "backscratch" position before swinging up at the ball.
6. Don't try to actually touch your back in the "backscratch" position. You want your racket low and the elbow of your hitting arm high, but with a proper motion, you won't be able to actually touch your back.