Improving your badminton serve involves refining technique, enhancing consistency, and increasing power. Here are some key strategies derived from various discussions:
Technique Refinement
One of the most important aspects of improving your serve is refining your technique. This includes bending your knees, coiling more, and transferring your weight effectively into the serve [1:1]
[2:1]. Practicing a throwing motion, similar to throwing a baseball, can help you develop the correct technique by focusing on elements such as weight transfer and follow-through
[1:3].
Power and Speed
To increase the speed of your serve, focus on flattening your serve and incorporating more leg power [1:2]
[1:5]. Jumping and swinging faster can also contribute to a more powerful serve
[1:6]. Additionally, using your wrist effectively through supination and pronation can open up more shot types and add speed to your serve
[2:2].
Consistency
Improving the consistency of your serve can be achieved by focusing on the toss and ensuring it is consistent [3:3]. Practicing drills that emphasize hitting the ball at a higher point and maintaining control over the racket can also help improve consistency
[3:4]. Relaxing during the serve and maintaining a smooth motion can prevent tightening up and enhance consistency
[2:4].
Body Position and Movement
Your body position and movement during the serve are crucial for both power and accuracy. Ensuring your body is turned sideways and coiled properly can help generate more power [4:1]
[4:3]. Keeping your left arm up longer and using it to initiate the motion of your right hand can also improve your serve's effectiveness
[4:2].
By focusing on these areas, you can work towards developing a more powerful, consistent, and effective badminton serve. Regular practice and attention to detail in each aspect will contribute significantly to your improvement.
Flatten your serve probably, I mean aside from practice if you want more speed on your serve maybe don’t throw a kick
Also bend your knees, coil more, toss more forward, explode more into it, and drop your racket behind your head more by throwing your elbow into your serve before your hand
can I advise you to do this
throw a baseball for a few days - identifying the correct throwing technique
then serve against a wall and monitor your power and consistency
then go to a court and focus on the elements from throwing a baseball
stand tall - elbow up - weight transfer and follow through
then add wrist snap which will help you do every serve you need.
you have the elements there - but they are not currently all working together - to give you maximum power
You weight isn't going into the serve. Look a an ATP in slow motion, they head into the court behind the serve, you land to one side. Which means your weight isn't being transferred into the shot.
toss more in front, coil more, push off legs harder
Bend your knee, jump and swing faster.
My serve is pretty good at the 4.0 level when it’s on but there are days where I just can’t get it over the net.
I’ve been told I need to load my legs more, let the racket drop, and lean into the court. Can anyone give me some cues that can help me get a more consistent (and potentially more powerful) serve?? Thanks!
It looks like you have very little margin on you serve, you hit both serves exactly the same way. You are somewhat slicing the ball and not much wrist movement. So your focus needs to be on supenationa and pronation. Using your wrist the right way will open up a lot more shot types, plus a kick serve too.
Kick second serves will give you more margin and you can achieve 0% faults with a good serve-speed.
A great drill to get a more powerful serve is to serve from your own serviceline and hit it normally: you'll need to hit down a lot, use your wrist a lot more. That a great way to feel what you need to generate power.
More hip rotation and a better drop.
The birthday hat drill would help you too …
Everything is great only you tighten up quite a bit as you hit. Try and hit very relaxed to see how it feels. You may want to slow it down until you get smoother.
That's great serve. Just need to incorporate more legs
Feel the tension in the hips. Feel the energy load in your legs while upper body is still languid
Hello, it’s me again. Serve is the most complicated skill in tennis. God. Somedays i got 9 flat serve one by one in a good speed, and sometimes i get double faults 7 times.
Is something about practice? try and try and try? I can do it, i love this, but i don’t want to spend time doing something bad. How do you see my motion? any tip?
you see a better toss compared to the others in this video?
Pretty good motion and weight transfer. Try to keep the racket on edge toward the ball as if you were gonna hit it with the side of your racket, then pronate at the last second right before contact. Toss is inconsistent. Try to toss it more into the court for a flat serve.
Toss the ball a bit closer, so you can hit it a higher point and land after you hit. It will also help pronation at right time, you are pronating too early.
You need to work on controlling the racket. Isolate the swing. At this point the racket should still be on edge. Practice with out driving up in to the ball, and try and wait, then pronate on the ball. Also you've spent your energy early here.
This is looking pretty good; don't get down on yourself.
Try tossing closer to the baseline. You load your legs, and then you kind of fall forward into the court. Whatever energy you are storing in your legs is going forward and not up, and that may be because the toss is a little too forward into the court. My guess is that when you miss, you are missing into the net. Think of the serve as a throwing motion "up" to the contact point.
Also, to get a little more power, tuck your tossing arm into your belly as you swing upwards rather than letting it flail to the side.
Also work on leading with the edge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv1Dt4wFAsM
You gotta launch up into it, you seem to be sliding forward. Go after it
Hello, amateur coaches of r/10s! Over the past couple of years, I've put a ton of work into my serve. I can place it, spin it, and its relatively consistent and powerful for my level (4.0). However, I never actually filmed myself, I went purely by feel. Now that I have some footage, I'm a bit alarmed, its definitely not what I pictured I looked like, and it turns out I foot fault like crazy. I figure that if I can be effective with suboptimal technique, if I cleaned up my technique, my serve might become a real weapon, and might open the door to being competitive at 4.5. Any suggestions on where I might get the biggest bang for my buck in terms of improvement?
I would say you are serving at 80mph ish, but you can reach 100-110 if you work on these points since you look strong and fit :
3)keep the left hand up longer and use it to initiate the motion of the right hand. Your left arm is used to keep your spine up until you snap forward but also to give you angular momentum and bring your right hand faster forward
You're very front on for your serve. You need to turn your body and coil more. It'll probably throw out the rhythm of your serve whilst you do it. Still, you seem to get some reasonable power with it, so it could become a weapon if you clean everything up.
Thanks for the input! I'm actually taking a closer look at the coil. My shoulders are coiled relative to my hips, but my hips are almost pointed 45degrees towards the net post during my trophy position, when they should probably be facing the side fence. It looks like when I strike the ball I am fully square to the net, because my hips turn towards the target, and everything else follows.
Fixing this will definitely be a journey! I guess I have a new "technique" goal for the summer!
Coil isn't helped by the fact your right foot comes up beside your left, instead of behind it, which causes your hips to open too early. Coil much more and place foot behind, then bend and jump and open up and into the court.
You foot fault like crazy
Yup. I literally said this in my original post :)
I think you can bend your knees a fair bit more here.
This looks really solid - only comment is that maybe your right foot comes around a little too much. If it were tucked a bit more you might get a bit more hip rotation …
Thanks mate
Your recovery look like it take you out of a stable stance, what are you going to do if your opponent return it?
You're right, it really does look like that here, but this is just video for the service during matches I have no problem recovering quickly
For me, from what I see, it's a 10. We would have to see the direction of the ball.
Stop left hand near your chest after dropping it
Sorry man i don't really get it?
You kinda already do it. Once you get into trophy and your left hand is coming down after the toss, bring it to your left chest (your arm will bend)
Overall it looks really good. As long as your serves are in, consistent, and with pace you dont need to change much of anything. That only things I can nit pick would be your left arm could be tucked a little more after so it isn't flailing around, you over rotate just a tad but not much at all when loading. The last thing would be that your right arm is a bit stiff. Maybe try loosing up your wrist a bit.
Its a jump serve btw :) i just didnt get enough jump because the line was so close to the wall
I’m assuming you have limited space behind the serving line and that’s why you’re taking a two step approach. That’s completely fine but make sure to really bring back your arms and make the most out of those steps.
As for the actual swing, your hips are in a good spot and rotating forward, so make sure you really rotate your upper body back and get a nice shoulder hip separation. This allows your body to be loaded and ready to generate torque as you rotate your core into your arm swing. Right now you’re swinging mostly with your shoulder which minimizes your arm swing speed and also hurts your shoulder.
Here’s a video that shows a good example of shoulder hip separation. See how his upper body is drawn back while his hips are rotated forward. You’re going to feel your core stretching as you do this, and once you release this stretch by rotating your core, it leads to a faster and safer arm swing.
Thank u so much and yea when i jump serve i really bring my arms back but i was not able to do that in this video due to the lack of space but i will be sure to keep u updated on my progress and thank u so much. By the way, my problem as of the moment is the timing of my jump and my toss
I think your timing is fine, but if you’re trying to do a jump top then you need to put topspin on your serve. Here’s another video on how to toss correctly and consistently as well as some drills to practice your toss.
I’d recommend keeping your toss at the same height and distance because you’re taking a two step approach, just add that spin and you’re golden. Remember to always keep the ball in front of you and not behind you.
If you're trying to topspin this is the correct approach however topspin serves are really easy to pass and you need to actually put spin on the ball when you toss it. If you're float serving it should be a much smaller toss and a much quicker approach (one step both feet land and jump). You don't need to jump that high to serve unless you need to be on top of the ball
Thank u man u will surely improve this and i will keep u updated and thank u for taking ur time to write ur comment :)
I would say everything 😅 toss and approach
Thank u 🙌
I know this is not the answer your looking for but like you should master servings while standing
Or just master your form if you could master it then servings will be alot easier
Hi all,
Recently became a father so have less time to get down to the club but would like to still be able to do something at home in my spare time to improve my serve.
My serve is arguably the weakest part of my game and I've been trying to fix/improve/rebuild it for years now.
Do you guys have any drills/exercises I can do at home to help improve my serve?
PS no I don't have access to a court at home.
Thank you!
A consistent toss is the most important part of your serve. So do practice your service toss at home, consistent height and position while moving your feet to the pinpoint position if that is your preference.
As a beginner take your racket back to the trophy position to hide your intent. Do not change your grip, stay hammer grip.
Video is a must. Look at what you're doing in slow mo. Compare yourself with YT videos of pro serve's. We think we are doing the motion correctly, until we put a camera on ourself.
Practice your ball toss by putting your racket on the ground and tossing the ball and aim for the strings.
Work on visualization. Also pick a pro who you want to emulate and watch their practice sessions or matches whenever you can.
Grab a towel and roll it to about the length of your racket. Put a few rubber bands around the towel. Now practice your service motion and try to keep the momentum going so the towel doesn't drop.
Throw a ball with your service hand to help you with strength and flexibility.
Practice your service motion focusing on just your legs. Really work on exploding and rotating up to the ball.
Look up stretches for drummers and practice your wrist flexibility and strength to help with your wrist snap.
Won’t be anywhere as good as actual serve practice unfortunately but
Pro tip: find a tall wall (perhaps the side of a large building) and pound overheads into the ground, which will accentuate the wrist snap motion for both serve and overhead. This will build muscle memory and deliver heavier and more consistent serves.
I often use the ball machine to feed overheads as a warmup for serve. Its excellent practice and useful in its own right.
Agreed! For most players, their feet/legs/hips are often in the incorrect position during the service motion...BUT overheads will not allow for incorrect form. The overhead motion helps create not only more power, but also correct mechanics.
I remember doing this drill during my college playing days, and honestly, I don't think I could've ever won a futures/ITF level match without the service refinement. This drill seemed to have added an extra 5-7mph...To me, it was essential.
I’m confused about the wall part. You mean use the wall to bounce the ball up high enough to create an overhead? Sorry for the dumb question.
Yes sir, bounce the ball into the ground, and then ricochet the ball off of the wall. It should look/feel like an an overhead, but the continuous drill will do more for serve than any other practice....also, you should accentuate the wrist snap as much as possible for added power and movement.
Here's a link of a mid-level pro practicing this drill (though he really needs a wall).
https://youtube.com/shorts/RGo0TxuVO0I?si=5c7rcEOsfMipkWMO
This is how I conquered overheads. You can get so many repetitions in that way vs having someone feed.
Precisely. I tell all of my students the same thing. If you can't find a tall enough wall, go rent a racketball court.
If you have a spare racket you don't use you could cut the strings and practice the motion and try and get the ball through the hoop without framing it.
Here’s a slo-mo video of my serve. My serves lack of power and consistency. They tend to land close to the service line or outside. Any advice is welcomed 🙏
The main thing I see is you’re waiting too long to hit the ball.
The ball is at max height at 0:12 and starts dropping around the 0:13 mark.
You should try to jump into and accelerate through the ball as soon as it starts coming back down. If you make a point to hit it at max height or close to max height every time, it’ll help with your consistency.
Keep your arm extended after the release as well. It will help with positioning so you’re staying forward and your hip is over the baseline instead of falling backwards away from the ball after the toss.
Hope that helps!
Ur body open too early due to ur tossing direction. Try tossing at 12 o'clock
Your technique looks great for a recreational player. The first and most important thing that I would change is trying to jump forward and land inside the baseline. This way you will get more power.
The way to do that is to coil a little bit more when you’re bending your knees. Think of your right hip turning a little bit more towards the back.
I suggest watch Federer videos and focus on the hips area while he’s going in the trophy pose and realising forwards.
I think a side view would help a lot. I think this view from the back is masking some issues that we can’t see.
You’re only pushing off with only your right leg, see how your right foot has already left the ground but your left foot is still on it. This results in a myriad of issues, but the biggest ones are bad weight transfer, which is also related how you’re not uncoiling your body, just rotating and opening up shoulder. You’re also holding onto the racket head a little bit too much, just let it go. There are other issues as well, but I imagine they’ll probably be fixed if you fix the two main issues listed
Good comments above. It is POSSIBLE that you are rotating your hips too early, which causes the right leg concern, and also leads to you falling to the left on some of these serves. If you are falling left, you are losing power, probably. Same outcome from rotating hips around too early. But...no guarantee this is it.
Pretty good serve! I see two big things that could improve accuracy and reliability that have to do with your toss.
Balance. You fade off to the left in your follow through which robs you of power and accuracy. Make sure your toss is going into the court so you can “go get it” and finish stepping forward.
Toss height (or contact height). You have a short toss (which can be ok e.g. Kyrgios) but you let it drop too far most times. Hit at the apex or increase your toss height so you can comfortably extend fully up and through the contact point.
I struggle with bad tosses too sometimes so I recognized this right away. Your serve is respectable though. The serves I see all the way to 4.0 usually don’t look nearly so good.
Thank you, I’ll work in my toss and balance💪🏻
I mean every ball was in but i'd say def work on your footwork. I'm not sure if it's an acceptable way but why you'd want to bring your right leg back from the behind RIGHT next to your left leg in the trophy position so your stance is super narrow when you start the swing and generate all of the power. Naturally an even shoulder to shoulder - wide balanced stance would be the preferred form for the serve.. There's just something off about the lean back and the movement of your right leg before contact.
That's not a bad thing (bringing your feet together). You can start with a wide base on rock and then bring feet together before deload. It's all preference, but the big difference is not one serve I saw is he falling into the court (towards the path of the ball). He needs to move towards the serve on the jump instead of away or to the left. Landing in the court and landing in the court TOWARDS where your ball lands are different things. Also, kick, flat, and slice serves will change how your body position is.
I have/had almost this same motion at the height of my career and serve was the biggest weapon. Former 5.0-5.5 competitor.
Currently a 4.0 cause I'm over 30 haven't played in 10years and have two kids and have gained 50 lbs lol ...but my serve is noticably still above and beyond all my competitors. Point is you can make this motion a weapon with some tweaking. You already seem to do it naturally so instead of fighting your body learn to tweak it and work with it.
Thank you, I’ll try my best in my toss and move towards. 🙏🏻👍
Ahh yes thank you indeed he is not falling towards the path of the ball, his toss is not forward enough so he's falling to the left of it. This is huge for power ofc.
Work on your rocking motion, and put more weight on your back foot when rocking back, you also have something called a racket leak on your serve, go ahead and look that up on you tube it should show you how to fix it and also fix your toss. Toss in front of your left eye or a little to the right of it in front of the baseline so that when you jump towards the ball your body lands fully in front of you and not diagonally to the left or in the same spot which I saw a lot of in the video
Also on your rocking motion none of your knees should be bent, they should be straight out and your rocking from the toes of your front foot to the balls of your back foot, you only bend your knees once you put your feet together and coil as you get ready to jump into the ball
You can improve your racket drop. Have a look at this video.
Great video! Thank you 🙏🏻
Yep also looking back at the video i missed something, when you drop your racket you only drop it using your wrist. For example pretend you are trying to scratch your back, your elbow points up and your forearm and your wrist are both behind your back becuase thats the only way your hand reaches. That is the exact position you should be trying to achieve on the racket drop, you are putting a lot of stress on your shoulder and it might lead to injury
how to improve badminton serve
Key Considerations for Improving Your Badminton Serve
Grip Technique:
Stance and Positioning:
Ball Toss:
Swing Motion:
Follow Through:
Practice Different Serves:
Recommendations:
By focusing on these aspects and practicing regularly, you'll see improvement in your badminton serve!
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