Of the two best known, free video players in which you can watch the videos that illustrate this tennis lesson on the slice serve, the Windows Media Player (for WMV) has an advantage over the RealPlayer (for RM) in that you are free to replay a video without reloading the clip. These tennis videos take only seconds to download.
watch WMV video (92 KB)
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A pure slice serve has nothing but sidespin, but most slice serves also have some topspin or, more rarely, backspin. Topspin-slice serves are often called slice serves, and while there's no sharp line between the two, a serve that is at least 75% sidespin behaves differently enough to deserve the distinctive name . Between 100% topspin and 100% sidespin, any mixture of the two spins can be created. The higher the percentage of sidespin, the lower the bounce and the sharper the curve to the left (from a right-handed server). The extreme slice serve often has some backspin, which further accentuates the low bounce and the leftward curve.
The serve shown here is a pretty heavy slice, having at least 90% sidespin. It would be used primarily as a first serve, because the lack of significant topspin gives it a low margin of error over the net. This serve will pull the receiver wide, opening up the court, and often stretch her too far to hit a solid return. On the ad side in doubles, it can pull the receiver far enough onto the deuce side so that her opponent blocks some of her placement options. If you place a slice slightly to the right-handed receiver's backhand, it will curve into his body to "jam" him.
