Use variety and disguise to achieve the element of surprise!

You’re serving. It’s the third set of a tight match, which has see-sawed on several service breaks. In this service game, you’ve worked the court well to get to 40-30. A hold here will not only consolidate the service break you earned at 3-all, but will put you firmly in the driver’s seat, up 3-5 with the chance to break for the win or, failing that, serve out the match. An awful lot rides on this one point. What you may or may not realize is that the match may very well ride on what you choose to do with your first serve.

Conventional wisdom would have you play a relatively safe serve hit with three-quarter pace to the weak side or directly at your opponent’s body with plenty of topspin for a wide margin of error, and to look to attack the second ball. What you don’t want to do at this crucial moment is needlessly throw away your first serve by going for too much, thus be obligated to play a safer, more predictable second serve. By going for broke on the first serve (and missing) you unwittingly hand over the advantage to your opponent by failing to utilize the server’s most precious commodities — variety and disguise, which together equal the element of surprise.

Much has been made of the parallels between serving in tennis and pitching in baseball, and for good reason. In baseball, if the pitcher is able to “get ahead of” the batter, meaning to advance the strike count ahead of the ball count, he gains a huge advantage. Why is this? Because if the pitcher is able to get the count to 1 ball and 2 strikes, for example, then he has three pitches with which to get that last strike. He can essentially “waste” two of the three. Of course, no pitcher worth his salt would ever waste a pitch, but he might elect to throw a hard-breaking ball low and off the outside corner in an attempt to fool the batter into swinging at, and missing, a “bad” pitch — one that is unreachable and well beyond the strike zone. By getting “ahead” of the batter, the pitcher opens up his options and can then utilize the element of surprise by using his twin commodities — variety and disguise — to earn that last strike, perhaps even avoiding the strike zone altogether and therefore making it very difficult for the batter to get good wood on the ball should he make contact with it.

On the other hand, a pitcher who gets “behind” the batter, taking the count to 3 balls and 1 strike, for example, is obligated (by custom, external pressures, and ego/pride) to throw a ball well within the strike zone — to play it safe — or suffer the consequence of walking the batter. Now that he is in the unenviable position of needing a strike to keep the batter off the bases, he is paradoxically also more likely to throw a pitch that the batter can hit hard, as the pitcher’s options are greatly reduced and the batter can predict with greater success the type, speed and position of at least one of the next three pitches. The element of surprise has been temporarily suspended. The batter now has the advantage.

The exact same kind of thing occurs on the tennis court, in two distinct ways. The first is by the score: a server who is up 40-15 has more options and can utilize the element of surprise to great advantage. The second, by the count: the options available for the first service delivery are far greater than for the second delivery, for obvious reasons. Like the pitcher, the server is obligated, out of a need to keep the receiver from earning a free or easy point, to place the second delivery well within the “strike zone” — in this case, within the receiver’s range of preconceived, hence predictable, scenarios. The only advantage the server still has on the second serve is that he can place the ball to the receiver’s weaker side, if he can find one. All other advantages have been lost due to the first service fault.

So, it should be clear that if a server cannot get his first serve in, he hands a large share of the advantage over to his opponent, the receiver. Conversely, should he succeed in getting a high percentage of first serves in, doesn’t it stand to reason that the advantage is on his racquet? Well, not entirely. Common sense tells us that even if the server gets 100 percent of his first serves in throughout a match, if he places the serve in the same place with the same pace and spin every time, he will have succeeded merely in achieving a very high degree of predictability, and again the pendulum of advantage will have swung over to the receiver.

How, then, can the server gain true advantage? He must utilize the precious commodities of variety and disguise to achieve the element of surprise and he must get a high percentage of first serves in the court. Why both? Because it has already been established that, by definition, second serves must be hit with more predictability, less variety and less disguise; therefore, less surprise, than first serves. Else the server would risk double-faulting too often.

Here it should be stated that many athletes, tennis players included, are risk-takers and will opt to utilize the element of surprise to the fullest even on second serves, albeit often at the expense of winning. And it should also be stated that there are times when a second serve should be delivered with all the surprise the server can muster, in order to keep from becoming so predictable that he has almost no chance of winning a point on his second serve.

Paradoxically again, as tennis is full of paradoxes, the server who gets a high percentage of first serves in with successful results (i.e., he wins most of those points) can “experiment” more freely with his second delivery. Thus he is at liberty to use variety and disguise on his second serve more confidently and to greater advantage than he would (or could) were he not so successful with his first serve. Let that sink in for a moment, because it is a crucial point.

Viewed from the receiver’s side, surprise means guessing where the server is going (which direction and placement); what type of and how much spin will be imparted, if any; and how much pace the serve will have. That’s over and above guessing whether the server will attack the net or stay back and look for a second ball to attack. There’s so much guesswork involved in receiving the first serve — when the server adroitly employs variety and disguise — that the receiver cannot approach the return with confidence or aggression. He must focus on reading the serve, getting good string on the ball, and putting the ball back in play with a modicum of spin or placement so as not to give the server an easy put away opportunity. Quite a different story than when the receiver is facing a much more predictable second serve, which conventionally is played with less variety and disguise!

Now let’s see what happens when we take the conventional wisdom I spoke about at the beginning of this analysis, where you have a 40-30 opportunity to hold serve, consolidate the break and sit in the driver’s seat at 3-5 in the third set — what I’ll call the wisdom of restraint — and turn it on its head.

What happens when we adopt this wisdom of restraint as our general serving tactic, and not reserve it merely for those times when getting our first serve in is imperative? To put it another way, what happens when we play as though getting our first serve in is always imperative? Consider again the mental approach of the baseball pitcher. “Get ahead and stay ahead of the batter,” must be his overriding thought. Throw strikes early, but use a variety of pitches and placements in order to keep the batter guessing and to minimize the risk that the batter will get solid wood on any pitch. Then, once ahead in the count, tempt the batter to swing at a “bad” pitch, either striking him out; forcing him to ground out or fly out; or throwing him off-balance and ensuring he won’t be able to hit for extra bases, minimizing any damage he can possibly inflict. It’s the philosophy of containment.*

*I think it is worth noting that only a small handful of baseball players, the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates catcher, Manny Sanguillan, being one who comes most readily to mind, consistently swing at the first pitch. Most batters “look” at the first pitch to get a feel for the pitcher’s stuff. What better time than that to slip in a pitch inside the strike zone? That said, too fat a pitch, one that is right over the plate with little stuff on it, will occasionally get rocked into the upper decks.

Applying the wisdom of restraint and philosophy of containment to your service game — by fully utilizing variety and disguise to achieve the much prized element of surprise — can help you hold serve more easily than you ever dreamed imaginable. Yes, on occasion your opponent will guess correctly and hit a winner off of your more conservatively struck first serve, but over the course of a game or match he should not be able to guess correctly often enough to inflict serious damage (i.e., break your serve). I say “should not be able to guess correctly often enough” because this depends entirely on how well you employ variety and disguise.

By variety I mean any and all of the following:
> varying the placement of your serve
> varying the speed or pace of your serve
> varying the type of spin you use
> varying the amount of spin you use
> varying the position on the baseline from which you serve, and
> varying what you do after the serve (e.g., staying back or rushing the net)
I believe the only variable I haven’t included is choosing which hand to serve with. So, if you happen to be ambidextrous like Luke Jensen, then add that to the list.

Disguise can be achieved in a number of ways, but most commonly through one or more of the following:
> disguising the service type through a single, unchanging tossing motion
> disguising the service placement, pace and spin by establishing and then breaking a few simple patterns, or
> disguising your intention by maintaining a high degree of variety, of course!
Variety allows you to achieve a certain degree of disguise and disguise gives your variety a supercharge. Use both successfully and keep the receiver guessing on his heels.

Turn your service tactics on their head and begin viewing your first serve as an imperative. Get ahead of the receiver and stay ahead of him by getting a high percentage of first serves in using the twin commodities of variety and disguise to achieve that precious element of surprise. Adopt the wisdom of restraint and the philosophy of containment: take some pace off your first serve, aim 1-2 feet inside the lines, add more topspin for a greater margin of error and diminish your opponent’s ability to inflict serious or lasting damage by reducing the number of second deliveries you place into the service box.

And then start putting more stuff on your second serve, adding more spin and pace as your first serve percentage goes way up and your points-won percentage takes off. Before long, your second serve will begin to resemble your first serve, about the time your opponent begins screaming “No mas!”

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