YOUR GAME IS ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR 2ND SERVE!

My tennis instructor has made the above comment to me many times and he's not the first person I've heard make that statement. I'm sure if you've been taking lessons or playing tennis for very long your coach or instructor has made that same comment to you as well.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I just got through watching the Family Circle Cup Final and Samantha Stosur played like a female version of Rafael Nadal. Stosur's match with Vera Zvonareva was amazing [I felt sorry for Vera Zvonareva because Stosur was on her game and simply unbeatable].

During this match Cliff Drysdale wanted to point out Sam Stosur excellent 2nd serve and ask the production crew to show her second serve in slow-motion and he explained in his day this serve was called the American Twist. Pam Shriver was completely shocked by this second serve because the serve finishes on the server's right [of course if you're a right hander] verses on the server's left as the first serve ends - Pam acted like she had never seen such a thing. However, that's exactly what my tennis instructor has been trying to teach me for the past 20 years [I'm a slow learner, but that's another story]; I was surprised that she had never seen such a serve, so I've placed a couple of examples below of this serve.

The first video I placed is an instruction video and the second video is a player actually using this second serve in a match. I hope you enjoy.

If you have any question or opinions you would like to share please let me know I would be very glad to hear from you. My email address is: stjotennis@stjosephtennisclub.com.. Hope to hear from you soon!!!!

Here's a good explanation and example of the 2nd serve

Good 2nd Serve Example

This video just shows a young man's second serve - it doesn't give any explanation. But I thought it was a good example of ending your serve on the right hand side.