Speeding up your serve

Take the racket up on edge toward the ball Hosted on Zooomr

This picture of Maria Sharapova's serve demonstrates how to get more power out of your service motion. Maria accelerates her racket toward the ball by pointing the edge, rather than the face, of the racket at the ball. It's much easier to accelerate the racket head on edge than it is to accelerate by pointing the face at the ball through the whole swing, so you can easily get a few more mph (or kph) out of your serve by simply using this technique. You'll find the hardest servers tend to take their racket up toward the ball on edge.

Of course, you don't want to hit the ball with the edge of your racket, so that's where pronation comes in. As the racket gets closer to the ball, you pronate your arm so that the face of the racket is in the proper position by the time the racket makes contact with the ball. If you aren't used to it, it may take a while to get the timing right, but this is really the most natural way to accelerate up to the ball, and you'll realize it once you start getting the hang of it. It's really not that hard, and it actually allows you to swing more freely.

Give it a try and you could soon be breaking your own speed limits on your serves!