Conceptually, don't think of the ball toss as a toss at all. It should be viewed as a lifting of the ball into the hitting zone. Hold the ball lightly in your fingers. Start slowly and smoothly from about waist level. Extend your lifting arm up with your elbow relatively straight and your wrist firm. As your arm reaches your head level, open up your hand, splaying out your fingers, as if your hand is now a platform on which the ball is resting. Continue the upward movement of your arm, guiding the ball to the hitting zone. A useful image is of a young bird in your hand, and you are releasing it by lifting it gently into the air above your head.

Where exactly is the hitting zone? To find the height of your ball lift, extend your hitting arm straight up as far as you can. Ideally, you should lift the ball to a point between 6 and 12 inches above your fully extended outstretched racquet. You also want to toss the ball about a foot in front of you such that when you reach up to strike the ball your body will be leaning into the court. This allows you to get your full body weight into the serve and to maximize your power.

It is easy to practice your ball toss. If a court is not available, just make a chalk mark on your driveway or in your garage. Hold your racquet straight up to see how high you have to toss the ball. Go through your regular service motion, lifting the ball to its proper target area, only don't actually hit the ball. Let it drop and note where it lands. It should be a few inches to the left or right of your front foot and about a foot in front of your line. Keep tossing the ball without hitting it and noting where it lands. You might even place a small pail or a large empty can in your target area to catch the ball. Make sure you are tossing the ball high enough (about 6 inches above your outstretched racquet).

While beginners and intermediates generally toss the ball directly in front of them, tournament players and pros lift the ball on their serve differently. Sampras, for example, stands more-or-less perpendicular to the net and then lifts his left arm upward on a line parallel to the baseline as he further twists his shoulders away from the net, almost turning his back to his opponent. The ball follows a slight parabola, such that it arrives in his hitting zone almost directly over his head but about a foot in front of the baseline.

Tossing in this way facilitates a good shoulder turn and knee bend, giving you more power on your serve.  If you wish to add these elements to your serve and toss in this manner, you may have to toss the ball a little higher in order to give yourself time to accomplish this additional bending and twisting. (See my earlier article on the Power Serve).

Watch the better players and pros when they serve. They generally keep the lifting arm extended straight upward as long as they can. This keeps them aligned perpendicular to the net, keeps their head up and eye focused on the ball, and facilitates the smooth shoulder-over-shoulder motion that characterizes the serve (and overhead).  Watch the slow motion video of Roger Federer's serve.  Try keeping your lifting arm straight up like the pros, and your serve will improve dramatically. 

A final note on the height of the ball toss. In an earlier era, players were advised to toss the ball only as high as the tip of their outstretched racquet. In the 90's, most tennis instructors began advising their students to increase that height to about 6 inches or a foot above the extended racquet.

Today, it is not uncommon for ball tosses to be a foot-and-a-half or more above the outstretched racquet. As usual, the pros themselves are the guide. Nearly every pro on the tour today has a high ball toss, which is consistent with the increased bending of the knees, turning of the shoulders, and dropping of the racquet head behind the back, all of which has contributed to the increase power on the serves. The higher ball toss appears to be necessary in order for the players to accomplish these additional motions in a smooth, unrushed manner.    

You too will have to experiment to find the ball toss height that is most in tune with the rhythm of your service motion.

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