Talk:Twist serve

I disagree a bit on the use of twist serve by pros. Other than on the second serve, some players use it regularly for set up (the loopy serves of Pat Rafter and Stefan Edberg comes to mind) and clay courters.
 * Well, I agree that *some* players use it, but most of them are indeed clay-courters. Back in the days when I followed pro tennis very closely, *none* of the great ones, Gonzales, Hoad, etc. ever used it.  Well, Laver did sometimes.... It's just too easy for the really good players to handle.  Although it's useful for doubles, when you've got your partner up at the net to cut down on the possible area for returns. By the time I was 20 I gave up using it against good players -- not only could they chip it back, they could also move in on it, take it on the rise, and be halfway to the net by the time they had finished hitting it.... Hayford Peirce 00:56, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * True.. however! A good kick serve to the backhand (especially the one-handed backhand) is hard to handle, and serve and volleyers use it religiously (Edberg). Pete Sampras also uses kick serve routinely on the first serve for a changeup. On Michael Chang's Roland Garros final run (not 1989), he was routinely kicking it up to the backhand from the ad court. The thing is, if it doesnt have enough kick, the ball just sits right on the returner's lap and they will most likely cream it. A good kick should handcuff your opponent as long as it is not so predictable.
 * I'm sure you're correct in what you're saying. But in my limited tennis-watching these days I seldom see the motion of what *I* would call an American twist service, in which the ball is thrown distinctly behind the server's head and then the racket comes across it in a motion from left to right that is practically parallel with the baseline.  A while ago, when the "serve" article was first written, whoever wrote it said there were *four* kinds of serves: flat, slice, kick, and topspin. I rewrote it a little but left the "topspin" in.  A good player I know told me, Yeah, yeah, I can hit a topspin serve.  But I myself don't know exactly what it is.  I wonder if a topspin serve of some kind is what you're (sometimes) calling an American twist?  The first tournament match I ever played was, groan, against Bobby Bonds, who was, at the time, the #1 15-yr. player in the country (Dennis Ralston was #2).  (I went 2-6, 3-6 against him.) He had a serve that I'd never seen before: it wasn't a slice, a flat, or a twist (which I myself was then using); his motion *looked* almost like a slice but the result was a high-kicking bounce that was *almost* like that of a twist.  The next time I'm at the tennis club I'll ask one of the pros about a topspin serve.... Hayford Peirce 16:09, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I may be blurring the distinctions a bit. IMHO, the Kick Serve is that Topspin Serve while the American Twist Serve has more sidespin and less topspin (opposite spin to the slice serve). However the articles I read on TENNIS did not make them into two different types of serve, but slight variations. Personally I've seen pros hit kick (or maybe topspin is more correct?) serves all the time.
 * The more I think about it, the more I think that the "topspin" serve has to be an intermediate serve between an American twist and a slice. The ball would be thrown directly above the server's head, or possibly just slightly behind it.  He would then hit it with a less severe American twist motion that would then be snapped around the side of the ball as if he were hitting a slice serve.  In a pure American twist serve the ball would be thrown further behind him and the follow-through after hitting the ball would be more parallel with the baseline.  I think that a lot of my own serves to the ad-court are probably "topspin" rather than "slice" or "American twist," although I do consciously hit some of these.... Hayford Peirce 17:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Given what I've written just above, then I think I would have to agree with you that a lot of top players use a "topspin" or "kick" serve on a regular basis. And whereas there are probably some who do, or did, use an "American twist", this type of serve is less common.  If you agree with this assessment, then probably a number of articles and links have to be slightly modified.... Hayford Peirce 17:36, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose merging this article with Serve (tennis). That article has a section for this type of serve and would benefit from the extra information here, which, IMO, does not warrant a separate article. Prome theus  -X303-  17:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think all the serve articles should be merged into one, no matter how long it becomes. I've always thought was dumb to have long, separate articles.  What next: an article about "Between Your Legs Serve"? Hayford Peirce 18:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Are there other serves with separate articles? Prome  theus  -X303-  04:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is that here you need brief descriptions of what each type of serve is, how the ball behaves, and how it's used. How to hit each type of serve is a different subject, one that should be covered in detail on other pages. That's my feeling, but I see your point. Unless you want to plan for detailed articles of how to hit each type of serve, maybe the articles should be merged. Ken2849 06:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

My vote: one article for all the serves. --BigaZon 04:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been teaching tennis for many years and I can tell you that among teaching pros and advanced players there is no agreed upon definition of a twist serve. In fact not everyone agrees on what a kick serve is. A top spin serve is clear cut but many teaching pros make no distinction between a top spin serve and a kick serve. For me any ball that kicks when it lands is a kick serve so a slice that kicks out to the left meets my personal definition of a kick serve. You can have a topspin kick, a slice kick or a topspin slice kick etc. The term kick for me is a general term. Other than a flat serve all serves should have some kick.

You can hit pure top spin without side spin and you can hit side spin without top but generally speaking you will have a little of both. All spin serves are differentiates by the angle of the racket at contact and the racket path. As I said some people use the terms top spin and kick interchangeably. Others will call a top spin a kick if the racket path changes by a quarter of an inch. I don't take that approach. Brush up at about an 80 degree angle for top spin. Brush at a lesser degree for more side spin. Brush the right front portion of the ball (right handed) for slice. Some people refer to the right front portion as the outside of the ball. Technically it's neither the front or the outside. I don't use the term outside because some people try to carve around the ball which may produce slice but it's not the optimal way to do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.60.161.56 (talk) 15:45, 25 March 2017 (UTC)