Is Murray's Service Action Causing His Weak Second Serve?

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No polls on this one, but its something I've mused about, and I would like to hear the rest of the 606 philosophy brain trust's view on it.

Murrays second serve is almost certainly the weakest part of his game, and its particularly weaker than most of his peers. Part of that must be confidence... but I wonder if some of it is his service action?

People mention on other forums that his first serve has a lot of forward "slinging" motion on it, something you don't do as much on second serves. The result being that Murrays first and second serve motions could be quite different.

Ive always thought that Murrays serve relied a lot on "snapping" the ball with his wrist, which gives him a lot of power. The problem is his serve motion doesnt look very flexible, it looks quite rigid and upright. His ball toss sometimes looks a little variable too. Its as though his action makes it very hard for him to put in a three quarter pace ball, hence all he feels comfortable to do if he cant power it is to kick in a weak one.


I dont expect my views to be the be all on this so what does the collective legion think? Please don't all eat eachother in the process though.

MMT1 wrote:I should point out that I have EXACTLY the same problem on my serve - I'm not that tall so to generate pace I have to lean in hard, but because of this I lack a good kick serve. It's a bit of a trade-off.

If you haven't got a got a good kick serve or your opponent is making mincemeat out of it, try using the slice into the body as a 2nd serve instead.

erictheblueuk wrote:

MMT1 wrote:I should point out that I have EXACTLY the same problem on my serve - I'm not that tall so to generate pace I have to lean in hard, but because of this I lack a good kick serve. It's a bit of a trade-off.

If you haven't got a got a good kick serve or your opponent is making mincemeat out of it, try using the slice into the body as a 2nd serve instead.

That is precisely what I do, and it's been manageable - I'm in the middle of my group of about 10 players, but it's always hard for me to hold against the better players in my group, even with this. One other thing I have tried recently that has really helped, is the distribution of serve direction. Since Becker came into Djokovic's entourage, the Djoker has started serving higher percentages wide (versus up the T) in both the deuce and ad courts - something like 60/35 in the deuce court and 50/45 in the ad court - the remainder are body serves, probably by accident. By contrast, Federer's percentage of wide/body/T are 50/25/25 in both courts, and I would argue that Federer's serve is better than Djokovic's and has been for years. Actually, if it weren't for his serve, I don't think he'd have been even competitive with Djokovic since his 2011 resurgence.

Interestingly, Djokovic's aces up the T have gone up as he has served there less frequently, and that's down to forcing a change in his opponents return positioning and the element of surprise.

Anyway, happy serving.

MMT1, it took me a long time to develop a kick serve for exactly the reason you indicated. Your toss will go where you body weight goes. So instead of moving in on your second try to move up the toss will come back closer to your body and less to the right. A little knee bound and then pushing up as opposed to out with your body lean and toss. It feels like you are just pushing off the ground more than leaning in. Also you need to pronate your elbow more on a kick serve really get your arm and wrist back and into the tennis trophy pose. And then hit up on the ball. A slice serve you want to hit out to the right around the outside edge of the ball. On a kick you brush up the inside more. Remember the toss will go with your body weight so a little more knee bend and push up on your toss as opposed to out.

It took me years to get all these working parts right I just never had a kick serve. But now I am not a tall player but I can 7 feet of kick or more on my best kick serves.

MMT1 Obviously we can't see your serve to tell you how to improve it. However a lot of coaches and players I know have started using a free app for phones and mobile devices called "ubersense" to improve.

http://www.ubersense.com/sports/tennis