Why should you hit a 2nd, serve slower than a first serve? Or put another way to me (Philipp) a second serve is just a first serve with more spin or slice, but not with less pace.

There is a concept or idea behind it that I think is very important which is:

If you want to control a ball in tennis, you need to have a certain speed with your racquet. So, you have to hit the ball with a certain speed. It doesn’t mean that you hit it flat. The speed can also help to have more spin or more slice on the ball.

But what I see a lot in all different levels is that if you want to hit a safe ball, which could be a second serve or if you’re under pressure, what happens a lot of times is that the players start slowing down their movement.

If you slow down your movement, the coordination gets out of way. The slower you hit a ball, the more control you lose over the ball.

If you understand that, that’s what I meant by saying first and second serve should have the same speed. The 1st serve you hit it with e.g. 200 kilometers per hour but flat. Then you hit the 2nd serve with the same racquet speed, but you don’t hit it flat. You hit it with a lot of slice, but you have the same racquet head speed just going into a very nice and good rotation to the ball, which gives you more control and your opponent will have a lot harder time returning your serve.

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