Tennis: Mental Cue for Correcting High Serves

Dick Moss, Editor, PE Update.com

Are your students consistently hitting the ball long when they serve? A simple visual cue may cure this problem.

Visualize Top of Ball
When students serve, they're looking up at the ball, so it's the under-part of the ball they see. If that's the part they're focusing on, it's also the part they tend to hit—which can result in high serves.

One way to solve this problem is by instructing students to visualize making contact with the top-back portion of the ball. They won't actually be able to see this spot, but visualizing it will induce the racquet to make contact higher on the ball, which will lower the path of the serve.

Reference:
1. John Littleford and Andrew Magrath, Tennis Strokes and Tactics: Improve Your Stroke, Firefly Books, 2009.
2. Victor Tantalo, USA Tennis Course: 500 Visual Ways to Better Tennis, USA Publishers, 1986.

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