How to Hit a Kick Serve: Grip, Toss, and Brush-Up Technique

To hit a kick serve, hold a continental grip, toss the ball over your head and slightly to your left, and brush the strings up the back of the ball from 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock while driving upward off bent legs and arching your back. That low-to-high brush loads the ball with topspin, so it dips down into the service box and then jumps up high off the bounce. Done right, the kick serve is the safest aggressive second serve in tennis — it clears the net with margin yet still forces your opponent to hit from shoulder height.

What a Kick Serve Actually Does

A kick serve is a heavy topspin serve. Instead of driving through the back of the ball like a flat serve, you brush up and slightly across it, so the ball rotates end-over-end (topspin) with a touch of sidespin. That forward rotation does two things: air pressure pulls the ball down sharply after it crosses the net, letting you swing hard while still landing in, and the topspin makes the ball bounce high and kick away from the returner. If you already understand how to hit topspin in tennis off the ground, the serve uses the same physics — you are just applying it with the ball above your head.

The trade-off is speed. A kick serve is slower than a flat serve, which is exactly why it works as a second serve: you get net clearance and a high bounce instead of raw pace. Understanding how tennis scoring works makes the value obvious — a reliable kick second serve is what keeps you off the double-fault cliff on the most pressure-filled points.

Step 1 — Set the Continental Grip

The kick serve is built on the continental grip, the same edge-on grip you use for a flat or slice serve. Hold the racket as if you were about to hammer a nail with the frame’s edge, with the base knuckle of your index finger on bevel #2. This grip lets the strings pass up the back of the ball and lets your forearm pronate late in the swing, which is what turns a push into spin.

If you are still sorting out how the serving grip differs from your groundstroke grips, our overview of tennis grips explained maps every bevel to every shot. Note that the serve grip is not the eastern grip or the semi-western grip you may use for your forehand — some coaches do nudge advanced players a hair toward an eastern-backhand grip to exaggerate the brush, but start with a clean continental. Getting a comfortable, relaxed hold on the handle first is worth reviewing in how to hold a tennis racket, because a death-grip kills the wrist snap that spin depends on.

Step 2 — Change the Toss Placement

The toss is what separates a kick serve from a flat one. For a right-handed player:

• Toss over your head and slightly to your left — further back and left than your flat-serve toss.
• Keep it a touch lower than a flat toss so you can catch the ball on the way up, not at full stretch.
• Release from stiff fingertips so the ball has no spin of its own.

That behind-and-left placement forces your body to arch and your racket to travel up the back of the ball from low to high. If you toss out in front like a flat serve, you will hit through the ball and the kick disappears. Practice the toss on its own: set up, toss, and let the ball land — it should drop just behind your front foot and slightly to your left, roughly over your head.

Step 3 — Load the Legs and Arch the Back

As the ball rises, coil into your trophy position: knees bent, racket dropping behind your back, tossing arm up, and shoulders tilted so your hitting shoulder drops below the front one. Then arch your back into a slight “banana” shape. This is the position that lets the racket swing upward through the ball rather than forward.

Leg drive is not optional here. The upward push from bent knees is what gives the racket head vertical speed, and vertical speed is topspin. A serve powered only by the arm produces a weak, spinless ball. Strong, balanced legs come from the court movement you build with tennis footwork drills, and the same coiled-and-uncoil loading you feel on a serve is the engine behind how to hit a tennis forehand and a heavy tennis backhand.

Step 4 — Brush Up the Back of the Ball (7 to 1)

This is the heart of the kick serve. As you drive up, swing the racket edge up the back of the ball on a low-to-high path — think of brushing from 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock on the back of the ball. Your strings graze up and slightly across the ball rather than smashing through it.

Cue the finish: your racket should travel up and out toward the right net post, and your forearm pronates late so the ball rotates forward. A useful feel is “throw the racket edge up at the sky, then let it fall.” Beginners almost always brush too flat and across, producing sidespin (a slice) instead of topspin (a kick). If the ball is skidding low instead of jumping, you are hitting across it, not up it. Slow everything down and exaggerate the vertical brush until you see the ball tumbling forward in the air.

Step 5 — Progressions to Groove the Kick

Build the serve in stages instead of trying to do everything at full speed:

1. Spin-only drop feed. Stand at the baseline, toss, and brush up the back of the ball with a slow, relaxed swing. Ignore where it lands — you only want to see topspin rotation and hear the “zip” of the strings.
2. Serve from the service line. Halve the distance and serve into the box, focusing on the up-and-over-left toss and the 7-to-1 brush. Land 7 of 10 before backing up.
3. Knees-only, then full drive. Serve kneeling or from a static base to isolate the brush, then add the leg drive back in and feel the extra racket-head speed.
4. Target the high bounce. From the baseline, aim to make the ball bounce above your practice partner’s shoulder in the ad court. Height of bounce, not speed, is the goal.

If you are brand new to the motion, fold these into a broader session of tennis drills for beginners so the serve develops alongside your footwork and groundstrokes rather than in isolation. For the full six-step serve motion that the kick builds on, see our guide on how to serve in tennis.

Common Mistakes and Quick Fixes

Mistake	What it does	Fix
Toss too far in front	You hit through the ball; serve flattens out	Move the toss over your head and slightly left
Brushing across, not up	Sidespin (slice), ball skids low	Exaggerate the 7-to-1 low-to-high brush
No leg drive	No vertical racket speed, no topspin	Bend the knees and push up into contact
Gripping too tight	Kills wrist snap and pronation	Loosen the hand; let the racket accelerate freely
Rushing full speed	Motion never grooves	Build from spin-only feeds up to full serves

Choosing Gear and Building It Into Your Game

Any racket can hit a kick serve, but a slightly more open string pattern and a comfortable string tension help you feel the brush — worth a look if you are shopping and reading up on how to choose a tennis racket. More important than gear is repetition: the arched-back, brush-up motion feels alien for the first few weeks, so keep the reps slow and frequent rather than long and forced.

Once the kick is landing, make it your default second serve. The margin over the net means fewer double faults, and the high, awkward bounce pushes returners deep behind the baseline or forces a defensive block you can attack. That combination of safety and pressure is why the kick serve is the single most valuable serve for club and college players to own.