The high deep jump serve
This jump serve is one idea that might be useful to some of you out there.
Obviously serving an ace against the wind is easier than without a wind. You can hit harder, and your top spin will be much more effective. It also creates other opportunities, one of which is the high deep jump serve.
The idea with this serve is to go over the receivers head, and drop the ball on or close to the baseline. If you hit it right, this jump serve should be almost impossible for the passer to touch without moving right to the back of the court, because the ball will be dropping almost vertically.
This serve gets easier as the wind gets stronger, but in a strong wind, you really need to hit it hard.
Here’s how to do it.
Put the ball toss closer to yourself than with a normal jump serve, so that you can over run the ball a little bit. You want to hit the ball slightly behind your head, and with a bent arm. I.e. you contact the ball earlier in you arm swing, while your hand is still moving up. (Not at the top of your reach as you normally would)
This allows two things to happen. Firstly, the trajectory of the jump serve will be higher. You will need to clear the net by about 2 or 3 metres for this serve to work. (depending on the strength of the wind). Secondly, it will allow you give the ball a lot more spin than usual because you can start the contact from further under the ball, and bring your hand over as you hit it.
And that’s a bout it. Just practice really ripping that jump serve with as much spin as possible.
A word of warning! This jump serve can put a lot of pressure on your back. Because you are hyper extending more than usual to contact the ball behind your head, you really need to be careful that your abdominal muscles are in good shape, and you are nice and balanced. Always start with a good posture, and keep your abs tight throughout the serve. Don’t go and hit 50 of these in the first training. Ease into it and make sure your body is ready for the new movement.
