Make your opponent play lots of balls

Date:

JACKIE BOHANNON
Guest Columunist
tennis@lbknews.com

I hurt my shoulder when playing in a match, so I resulted to dropping the ball and hitting it underhand for serving. My opponent said I couldn’t do that, so I retired. Are there any alternatives if you can’t serve overhand?

You and your opponent were both correct essentially, but there was a critical piece of information you were missing. Many people serve underhand for a variety of reasons: sun in the eyes, shoulder injuries, bad serving day, or new to the sport. However, while you can serve underhand you cannot let the ball bounce. All of the same rules apply to the underhand serve as the “normal” overhand serve. You have to hit it out of the air, you can’t foot fault, and you still have to hit it into the correct service box. I have seen many players develop a good underhand serve for a variety of reasons and still play at a high level of recreational tennis. You’ll even see the pros throw in a trick underhand serve here and there.