What Happens When We Call It a Serve?
There is a moment I keep noticing when players are learning to start a point.
Until then, they may have been moving quite freely. They hit balls in different ways, adjust to where the ball goes, and find solutions without worrying too much about what each movement is called.
Then someone says:
“Now we are going to serve.”
Something changes as the player moves into their serving position and begins their serving routine. They think about the grip, the stance, the ball toss and where the racket is supposed to travel. Even before attempting anything, there is already an expectation attached to the movement.
They are no longer simply trying to start the point. They are trying to perform a serve.
The problem before the name
The rules create some clear boundaries. The player begins behind the baseline, releases the ball and hits it before it touches the ground, sending it into the diagonally opposite service box.
But the rules do not say that the ball must travel over the player’s head. They do not prescribe a trophy position, a racket drop, a particular rhythm or a recognisable serving shape.
Within those boundaries, the problem is surprisingly open:
“How can I start the point in a way that causes trouble for my opponent?”
Perhaps causing trouble is not yet realistic. Then the problem might be more modest:
“How can I start the point without immediately causing trouble for myself?”
That still leaves a lot to explore. The player might send the ball higher or lower, faster or slower. They might aim towards the opponent, stretch them towards the sideline, bring them forward or simply find a ball that gives them enough time to prepare for what comes next.
None of this requires the player to know what a serve is supposed to look like.
I was trying to stretch the opponent
I experienced something similar while exploring my own way of starting points.
I was not trying to learn a slice serve. I was trying to stretch the person returning.
As I explored that problem, my toss began moving much further to the right. My racket started approaching the ball more from the side. I adjusted where I stood and how my body moved until the ball began travelling away from the opponent in the way I wanted.
I noticed that the solution was creating the effect I was looking for, so I tried it again.
On the advantage side, something more like a kick serve began to appear. Again, I had not begun with the intention of reproducing that technique. I was trying to solve a slightly different spatial problem, and my movement organised itself differently.
Later, we could call one solution a slice serve and the other something closer to a kick serve. Those labels are useful for talking about what happened, but they came after the exploration.
I did not begin by trying to serve correctly. I began by trying to do something to the opponent.
The movement gradually became more stable because the ball was producing an effect that mattered to me.
When the name becomes an instruction
We need names in tennis. “Serve” is a convenient way to describe the shot that begins the point.
The difficulty may begin when the name stops describing the situation and starts prescribing the movement.
A player hears “serve” and may already have a picture in mind. The ball should be tossed above the head. The racket should move through several recognisable positions. The whole action should look smooth and complete.
If their movement does not resemble that picture, they may believe they cannot serve yet.
This is how starting the point can begin to feel like an unusually complicated part of tennis. The player is not only trying to put the ball into a box and affect an opponent. They are also trying to satisfy everything they believe a serve is supposed to be.
Some of those technical ideas may eventually help. A different grip might make more spin available. A higher contact could create new angles. A change in coordination might allow the player to produce more speed with less effort.
I am not suggesting that movement does not matter. I am wondering whether the movement should be introduced as the answer before the player has had any relationship with the problem.
The point still starts
I have played against several people who had to serve underarm because of an injury, and I lost.
Their action may not have matched the serve most of us picture, but the ball entered the correct box and the point began. Whatever advantage I expected from their unusual way of starting was not enough to stop them solving the rest of the match better than I did.
That experience made the distinction harder for me to ignore.
There is a situation in tennis where one player has the ball and must begin the point within a particular set of rules. The solutions players find in that situation are what we later call serves.
Perhaps that is slightly different from there being one thing called the serve that every player must reproduce before they are allowed to play.
I am becoming more curious about what might happen if, especially with someone new, we delayed the name for a little while.
Give them the ball. Show them the boundaries. Put somebody on the other side and let the return tell them what their first solution actually does.
Then ask:
“How do you want to start the point?”
You might also enjoy Technique Is Not a Shape to Copy.