Maral Cavner played varsity tennis and soccer during her time at Springfield, Missouri’s Greenwood Laboratory School. After graduating as the school’s salutatorian, Maral Cavner completed an undergraduate sociology program at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Individuals watching a tennis match on television may hear commentators describe serves in a number of ways. In tennis, players have two attempts to serve a ball over the net and into the appropriate service box. First serves are generally hit aggressively, while second serves tend to be more conservative in order to avoid double faults, which result in a point for the opponent.

There are essentially four types of serves a tennis player can employ. The flat serve is most often utilized as a first serve, as it leaves little room for error. Flat serves make use of speed and pace to overwhelm opponents and cut back on reaction time. As the name suggests, however, flat serves do not use spin. This flat trajectory lowers a player’s margin for net clearance and cuts down on the time the server has to approach to the net.

A slice serve, meanwhile, is more commonly seen as a second serve. These serves result in a low bounce and cut away from the opponent, making accurate slice serves difficult to attack despite the lack of pace. A slice can sometimes be effective as a surprise first serve, but there is little difficulty in returning a slice ball, making it ideal for a second delivery.

Kick serves and topspin serves occupy a middle ground between the flat and slice serves. Kick serves bounce away from the opponent’s body, while top spin serves bounce directly into the body. These high bouncing serves can be hit with moderate pace while also using considerable amounts of spin. Both serves give serve and volley players time to approach the net and, when hit effectively, can be essentially impossible to attack. Unfortunately, an imperfect spin serve is highly attackable, as it sets up directly in an opponent’s strike zone.