Serving behind the arm

bhaavan goel Asked 14 years ago

Hi,

i just wanted to ask whether serving under your arm is allowed these days? I've seen Waldner serving under his arm but that that was a long time ago (around 1996). So is it legal now? Also kindly make me aware about other serving rules that have changed with the passage of time.

Thank you

bhaavan 

Jeff Plumb Answered 14 years ago

Hi Bhaavan,

It is not legal anymore to serve behind the arm. In fact the receiver needs to be able to see the ball throughout the service motion. This used to be legal which is why you see older videos of players doing this. A lot of the other service rules have remained consistent. You need to throw the ball up 6 inches which is around the height of the net. Another controversial rule is that you need to throw the ball up near vertically. I don't believe that this rule is policed very consistently. We've added a video response to help answer your question.