How to Learn to Serve in Tennis Without Swinging a Racquet

Is it possible to learn to serve without swinging a racquet? Sounds ridiculous. But is it?

Let’s look a study that explored at this very question. Some researchers recruited undergraduate students with no previous tennis experience.[1] First up, the students were given traditional instruction where the coach described and demonstrated how to serve. The students were told about such things as the correct grip, stance, biomechanics of the swing and the transfer of weight.

The students then hit 10 serves. This established a baseline measure of accuracy, speed and technique. The researchers could then measure any improvement due to practice.

The students then imagined themselves doing a serve 36 times. After each block of 6 imaginary serves, the students hit one actual serve. This broke up the repetition and helped keep up the motivation of the students.

And the Result?

Putting aside the 6 actual serves, surely you can’t improve your serve simply by imagining you’re doing it. And only 36 times. And surely it’s not possible to learn in the virtual absence of physical practice?

However, strangely enough, the impossible happened. By the end of practice, the technique, speed and accuracy of the students had improved dramatically by 17%, 42% and 25% respectively. Something rather odd was going on. Overwhelmingly the practice had been mental not physical. In other words, they had hardly swung a racquet at all.

So yes, it’s possible to learn to serve (almost) without swinging a racquet.

So now what? 

First, for improvement to occur, learning must take place. But how? Conventional thinking is learning can only happen if you actually physically practice. But that’s not what happened here.

This leaves us with a number of tantalizing questions – how does ‘imagining’ or mental practice work? What’s the mechanism? And how does mental practice fit in with traditional coaching? Should it be a necessary add-on? And if so, how much would it boost traditional learning?

In future articles I will answer these questions and more.

[1] Fery Y. & Morizot P. Kinesthetic and visual image in modeling closed motor skills: the example of the tennis serve. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 90, 707-722, 2000.