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10 Minutes of Tennis: 10 Tips in 10 Minutes (for your serve)
Episode 5617th June 2025 • GoTennis! Podcast • Shaun Boyce and Bobby Schindler
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Episode #56 Season 25: Shaun Boyce & Justin Yeo

On this episode of 10 Minutes of Tennis, world renowned tennis coach, Australian in Puerto Rico, Justin Yeo, shares 10 tips in 10 minutes about your SERVE!

For more 10 Minutes of Tennis episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKLIP3Zrp28TLg1nCs4E-2PzkRcjyePEM

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Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com

https://tennisforchildren.com/

Justin Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/yeocoach/

Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net

https://windermerecommunity.net/

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Transcripts

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis Podcast powered by Signature Tennis.

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While you're here, please hit that follow button.

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add them to our schedule.

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With that said, let's get started with 10 Minutes of Tennis.

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Today, this is 10 Minutes of Tennis with World Renowned Tennis Coach Justin Yeo, Australian

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in Puerto Rico.

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Today, we are doing 10 Tennis Tips in 10 Minutes.

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I don't know if it's going to be a World Record Justin, but we're going to try.

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So I better stop talking because now we're down to about 9 and a half minutes.

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So 10 Tips in 10 Minutes.

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Today's topic is the serve.

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So Justin, jumping right in, tip number one, walk before you run, throw before you serve.

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Yes.

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So, very quickly, that's a real simple one.

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Majority people, the problem is they don't know how to throw a ball, which can really

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effectively stop them from serving correctly as well.

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So I always say when a child has to learn to walk before they run, it's the same thing

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you should learn how to throw a ball first before you learn how to serve.

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Otherwise, you can get into a major technique problem.

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So that's what you mean.

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Walk before you run is the concept, throw before you serve is what you need to learn.

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I love it.

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Number two, non-dominant hand.

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Yes, the non-dominant hand doesn't utilize enough in the serve when I'm talking about

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holding the racket at the start.

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When you're getting ready to serve, to you address the serve, this tends to grip tension

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wise, which I'll come up later.

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It's quite tight because the non-dominant hand is focused enough in holding the ball and

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holding the racket.

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And that's just a tip to help you release and reduce grip tension.

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I thought you were going to go with a toss there, but I'm guessing that's another tip.

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A toss is a whole other subject.

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Another tip.

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I'm going to do it with that.

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Number three, stance.

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Yes, stance.

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A lot of people don't tend to lean forward or they're bent over by the hips or their posture

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is wrong and stance is extremely important to be balanced between both feet and try to

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stand up with good posture versus all folded over or starting off in the wrong way, sitting

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with your hips and your shoulders are all working in sync.

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So stance is extremely important.

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So we'll follow up with that one.

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It could probably be its own full 10 minutes because I'm thinking of standing up straight

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with your shoulders back, which is a rule and how your feet are set and do we use a pin

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point or the other one.

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So we'll follow up with that one for sure.

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And if the shoulder blades aren't being used correctly, it completely reflects on bolts

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us and shoulder rotation.

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So that's part of stance as well.

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Under to, I understood it.

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Back to grip tension.

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You mentioned that earlier.

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Yep.

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I mentioned very obvious.

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I see it multiple times in all different areas and that is if it's too tight here, it's too

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tight all the way up and it will completely not only affect elasticity and relaxed and snap.

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It affects everything.

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It affects all the way up by just focusing on having too much grip tension.

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So the tip there is less grip tension is better.

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Under percent.

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On the hand should hold the weight.

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This should be a nice and relaxed.

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Love it.

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All right.

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Number five.

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Visualization.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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I always say that especially your Americans, you're very fortunate is you have baseball all the

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time.

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The Asians have a lot of baseball as well, but baseball I use it all the time.

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A picture.

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When they're looking at pitch and they're picking their mark on the guys giving the signal

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on the glove.

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You look at the glove, likes to call and never takes his eyes off.

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Same thing with a ball toss and a targeting.

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You should be visualizing where you're going.

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Feeding all the nerve endings in the body to say that's where I'm going.

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Now it's ball toss.

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So your eyes have a real pattern of visualization of ball and where you're going, all where you're

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going.

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Most people there are eyes are while they're thinking their eyes are going a lot of

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points.

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So that affects ball toss and affects everything.

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So my eyes looking at my target, is that not giving away my secret target that my opponents

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can then see my eyes where I'm going?

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Well, I mean, just look at the box and then give yourself a bit of a direction.

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At least in, right?

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You know, I mean, another quick advanced tip is don't look through the net, look past the

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net and sometimes even look to the back fence and pick a target on the back fence if you're

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serving internet because it means you're actually looking down instead of looking up.

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Raise the visual target.

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I like that a lot.

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All right.

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Number six, elasticity.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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If you've got the non-dominant hand right, you've got less good tension.

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You've got more chances of elasticity, which is that whip feeling that the players feel when

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they generate so much power.

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And that way too, the shoulder can work externally and internally when you actually generate

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more power.

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If you haven't got elasticity, the jowty time your shoulder is just working this way and

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you've got a lot of tension.

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So elasticity again, the tip there is be more elastic, right?

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You want to be looser, looser is better.

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Strength is good.

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That's what I see a lot of the big strong players are less loose and maybe actually don't

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hit the ball as hard.

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Yes, that's correct.

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Lesticity is, but it's generating most of that power.

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Love it.

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All right.

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Number seven, palm down.

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Yep.

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We're going with it.

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The one thing holds it all together is palm down versus palm up.

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All right.

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So the shoulder joint won't work, elastic.

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If we have too much grip tension, non-dominant hand, it's not holding the racket and then there's

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too much tension so you won't have any elasticity either.

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So palm down allows that whole function to work correctly.

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Now again, in 50 seconds, pretty hard to explain that whole function, but it's extremely important

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to focus on palm down versus palm up.

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You can see what my elbow does since I do that.

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So palm down always 100%, which is your throw action as well.

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And I think a lot of social players who've ever taken a tennis lesson on a serve, no better

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than that.

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With the waiter we talk about where you're holding the tray.

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You're going to be able to not open the hand.

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We've all heard that, right?

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Yep.

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Yep.

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All right.

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So palm down fixes that one.

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I love it.

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So number eight, what throw style do you have?

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Is this different from learning to throw?

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This is more specific, right?

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Yeah.

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So I'm like, this is the fastest one I can give you on this story.

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I made a Facebook recruiter on the plane and he was explaining me that there are three

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types of throws.

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There's a side arm.

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There's a short arm and there's a long arm.

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And he uses, depending on the throw, what position out of the field.

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So if you look at a picture, they have big long throw action, right?

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If they're a center field, very long throw action, okay?

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If they're in the base, well, they're usually short.

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I'm very direct, but can still throw base to base, really active.

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Then your side arms are usually your shortstop.

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They can pick up on the run and throw short.

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These guys here, about 5% in the world.

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There's no men, right?

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So when you find a good one, they try to recruit.

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But if you're this kind of thrower, good luck learning how to serve and so on like I

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told you.

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All right?

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But if you are, you've got to try to figure out how to learn how to serve correctly with that

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throwing style.

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So it's really difficult.

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If you're a short arm, base, base, base there, then you're definitely short arms and you

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should be trying to figure out a modified serving style versus a full-arm serving style.

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Because that's what's in your head ready to go.

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So to help you learn a better serve, find out what's throw style you are.

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Which relates back to throw before you serve, which was tip number one, if anybody's paying

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attention.

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Number nine, male, female, serve.

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Do we really get this done in 59 seconds?

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Yes, it's a really big one though.

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It's simple.

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Well, don't teach a female.

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I haven't hit a male serve.

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Males have a big torso.

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So we have to do really is rotate that and use a lot of power.

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They tend to have a narrow upper body so they have to generate from the legs.

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So you have to learn a more modified serve so that they can actually get into a nice, bow

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and stance so they can use their legs to generate most of the power versus the other way

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around.

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I see it so many times.

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A female comes to me with a male serving.

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It's like, okay, we need to correct this first.

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So you understand where your power is.

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The power isn't in the upper body.

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They just don't have it.

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They're shoulders are narrower than their hips.

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So knowing a female anatomy is really important.

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Now, Serena, totally different ballgame.

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She had shoulders like a man.

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Like, her upper body was that wide.

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But there's no lot that doesn't happen a lot.

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So I understand the two variations are very important when you're teaching.

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Okay.

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And number 10, fingers spread.

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Are we back to the grip?

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Yeah, grip.

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Yeah.

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It's good, but again, I've brought my racket.

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We should see gaps between the knuckles.

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Some people a little further down, which is fine, but really you want the gaps between the

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knuckles, which will help you utilize these two knuckles when you're hitting that.

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Whether it's a flat slice, whatever, but this helps with the snap and coming over.

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So with the spread, this really helps these two knuckles generate for you and direct the

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ball for you as well.

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So that's basically what I mean by fingers spread.

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It shouldn't be like a fist.

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Got it.

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And that is 10 tips.

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Wait, 10 tips.

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In 10 minutes.

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Justin, we got it done.

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I appreciate it.

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Thank you, Seeya.

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This has been 10 minutes of tennis with Justin Yeo.

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We'll see you next week with 10 more tips.

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Thank you.

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You're welcome.

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Well, there you have it.

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