Fix Your Waiter’s Tray Serve (3 Easy Tennis Drills)

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Fix Your Waiter’s Tray Serve (3 Easy Tennis Drills)
1. Toss and lift your racket with your strings pointing down
2. Salute the racket in over your head with a ball laying in the throat
3. Serve with a birthday hat on and hit the hat with your racket
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You got this!

[NN-rnoz]

Why is Ryan everybody's favorite coach? Because every lesson feels like your birthday!

[richierfan]

I love the salute motion drill. That’s the key for many new tennis learners to easily follow .

[Ten-Chi]

Just ordered some party hats will be trying it on my pupils this weekend. 🎉 👍

[FlorianUlrich]

The birthday hat has definitely helped me to get rid of my waiter's tray, although my arm still "cheats" by not doing the greeting motion. My wrist extends in the trophy pose, opening the racket 90°, and I am pushing the hat aside with the racket being vertical instead of horizontal. I probably pause too long in the trophy position due to tossing the ball too high. Exercise #1 will definitely help prevent the racket tilt. Thanks again!

[PraveenJames]

Thank you! You make it look so easy. Is there a different video of yours where I can see the ball contact from the sides?

[hrjohannesburg]

This is great video but for some reason after the bday hat motion my wrist has a mind of its owns and waiters tray last minute. Did we miss a step during the back drop?

[vladimirvidov]

Thank you very much long time don't see you I'm very happy you come back and I want to tell you you are the best coach whatever I know keep going be watching you is very helpful very professional thanks a lot

[Justin-fromtennis]

Do you have a video on what to do with the body/arm after you hit the birthday hat?

[rubenbello]

Great 3 drills for serve to eliminate like a tray serve, I will apply this to my students..Thanks Coach Ryan, more power to you..

[cdfchung]

I've been practicing my serves for a while, yet I am still no sure if I am hitting it right at times. This drill will be an easy fix! Once again I got this and Ryan you the man! (as always lol)

[johnsondara]

Super Technique of teaching right serve

[TheWanko]

My serves have improved a lot ...u r da best!!👍👍👍

[haricsl]

Great video - love the salute analogy. I also like the fact that you have explicitly pointed out that some pro’s have a slightly different racket drop motion ala federer and Sampras also I believe. As it’s something I’ve observed but very few YouTube coaches have highlighted. Only yourself and intuitive tennis (my two favourite tennis instructional channels)

[ajdarsarkhani]

thank you
we have learn more from your coaching

[harjitnatt]

Great video with effective teaching pts. I've got this 👍

[משפחתאביגדור]

Wonderful explanation. Crystal clear and intuitive. Thanks, Ryan!

[andrewlilico]

Some people do a waiter's tray serve even though they use (and keep throughout their swing) a Continental grip. Is what you describe here the right way to address that kind of waiter's tray issue too or are you mainly addressing people who use a forehand grip on their serve?

[neil]

The salute is a more effective metaphor than the birthday hat. I got it. Thanks

[Lucas-xxsu]

I think these drills do not solve the underlying problem. The underlying problem of a waiters tray serve is that the server wants to hit with an open racquet face instead of a closed one. These drills help the server to not have an „early waiters tray position“ (e.g. during the backswing, trophy pose or when going left to right). This is good. But for me the waiters tray is just delayed… I just do the waiters tray around the racquet drop.

[stevetibbott]

Great tips, but what if you're having trouble after that, when you want the racquet to approach on edge?