JEFF COHEN: Hello, I'm Jeff Cohen. In this segment, we're going to talk about how to hit a kick serve or how to add more spin to your serve. Okay, so you want to add topspin to your serve or you want to develop that kick serve. Number one, if you got a bad back, you don't really want to try this because you really have to arch your back in order to pull this serve off. Number two, you want to make sure you start with a continental grip. That's very, very important. You're going to make contact with the ball at about 12 o'clock or actually 1 o'clock. I'm actually going to throw the ball a little bit behind me, behind my right ear. So remember, in a flat serve, I'm hitting the ball at 11 o'clock. Now, I'm hitting a kick serve where I'm going to add topspin to this, so I'm actually going to hit the ball at 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock. I am left-handed. So remember, when I go up across the ball, I'm swinging at the bottom of the ball. I'm making contact with the ball at 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock, and I'm swinging up and across and I'm finishing at 10 or 11 o'clock. Remember you righties, it's the other way. You're going to stand this way. You're going to toss the ball a little bit behind your left ear. You're going to arch your back, accelerate up. You're going to hit the ball at about 7 or 8 o'clock and you're going to finish up and across at 1 or 2 o'clock. There are two points of contact on the serve. One is where you're making contact with your racket on the ball and then the actual ball itself where the strings come across the ball. So on the ball, 12 o'clock will be on top, 6 o'clock on the bottom, 9 o'clock over here, 3 o'clock over here. So when you hit a kick serve, you're actually going to hit the ball 4 o'clock to 10 o'clock. So you're brushing--now, this is for a lefty. All right, all you lefties out there. So you're actually swinging from 4 o'clock up and across to 10 o'clock. If you're right-handed, you're going to come from the opposite direction and you're actually going to swing from, like, 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock. So for you righties, you're first striking the ball on the left side, from 8 o'clock finishing at 2. For the lefties, you're going to hit the ball more like 4 or 5 o'clock, and you're going to swing up more like 10 or 11 o'clock. It's a pretty advanced serve to try. So if you're young, you got a good strong back, give it a shot. It will add a lot of margin for error on your serve, and you should be able to get a higher percentage of first or second serves in. Good luck.
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