Why Your Second Serve Is the Weakest Shot in Your Game

Ask a club player which shot costs them most and they will usually say the backhand. Look at the scorecard and it is almost always the second serve.

Double faults, weak second serves attacked immediately, and the anxiety that leaks into the first serve because of what happens if it misses. It is the highest-leverage shot in amateur tennis and the least practised.

The pushing problem

The instinctive response to missing a first serve is to slow down and aim safer. This produces a slow, flat serve that lands short.

Flat and slow is the worst combination available. It has no margin over the net, no bounce to trouble the returner, and it sits up perfectly for an attack. You reduced one risk and created a larger one.

What spin actually does

Topspin and side-topspin make the ball dip. That dip is what allows you to hit up and over the net with real racquet speed and still land the ball inside the service box.

A kick serve can clear the net by a metre, land deep in the box, and bounce high and awkwardly. A flat push clears by ten centimetres, lands short, and sits at hip height. The spin serve is both safer and harder to attack, which is why every professional plays one.

Building it

1. Change the grip. A continental grip is required. If you serve with a forehand grip you cannot brush up the back of the ball, and no amount of practice will fix that.
2. Move the toss. Slightly further left for a right-hander, and a little further behind your head. Not so far that you arch dangerously.
3. Brush, do not push. The feeling is of the strings travelling up and across the back of the ball, from roughly seven o'clock to one o'clock.
4. Keep the racquet head speed. This is the part people abandon. A spin serve hit slowly is just a lob. Swing fast and let the spin bring it down.
5. Finish across, not down. The follow-through will naturally travel across the body rather than straight down the target line.

Drills

• Service line spin. Stand on the service line and serve into the box using pure brushing action. No power available, so spin is the only thing that can bring the ball down.
• Fence target. Serve from the baseline aiming to hit high on the back fence on the full. Trains upward swing path.
• Net clearance rope. A rope or line a metre above the net. Every second serve must pass above it and land in. Forces you to use height for margin.
• Ten in a row. Ten consecutive second serves in the box, from the baseline, at full racquet speed. Restart at zero on a miss. Trains the pressure element.

The tactical target

Most club opponents have a distinctly weaker return wing, usually the backhand, and struggle with a ball that rises above shoulder height. A kick serve to the backhand in the ad court is the highest-value serve in amateur tennis.

Practise that one placement until it is automatic before worrying about variety. One reliable second serve you trust is worth more than three you do not.