Frankie Dell: Hi! I am Frankie Dell; I am a professional Tennis Instructor. You are watching ‘How to Serve’. Next, I am going to demonstrate the backscratch. Okay, next is the backscratch and swing. Alright, we’ve already gotten into our trophy pose. You’ve already released the ball so this arm begins to come down and this arm drops into the backscratch position. We call it a backscratch position because it looks like you are scratching your back although you don't really want to scratch your back and you don't even want to touch your back with the racquet, it’s just behind you with your elbow up. Now, from here you are ready to go into the Swing.

So you want to turn your body and rotate and you’re going to bring your racquet up. Now, while your racquet is back here you want to keep it turned on its edge as if you would come through and hit it on the edge of the racquet. I don't want to see you with the racquet back like this as if you are a waiter about to serve the ball, okay. It should be turned on its edge here. Now you rotate it, you’re coming around. At this point you turn your wrists so that the strings are facing the net, and that's your backscratch and swing. So we’ve learned the basic flat serve. Now, let me show you a couple of more.

Now on the flat serve, we came through with the racquet strings behind the ball and you just slapped forward through it. Now, we can also hit what's called a slice serve, and instead of coming behind the ball flat this way you’re going to come to the side of the ball as if you are a face of a clock and you want to hit it around 3 o’clock.

So you’ll come around this side like this. You can even hear the difference almost like a flick sound. Then there is also a topspin serve. The topspin serve is a little different because you’re going to be tossing the ball in a different area. This time you’re going to toss it a little bit behind you which will require you to arch your back and then you’re going to come from under the ball and behind it, over, this will make the ball spin forward or top, topspin and those are the three different types of serves.

I am Frankie Dell, I hope you have enjoyed this lesson on the serve.