How do you read serves?

The guy above me has a good concept, but it isn't always going to work. Especially when you start playing better and better people. You're going to come across people who have learned to hit any serve from the same toss as your competition improves. Rather than watching the toss, you'd need to actually watch how they're hitting the ball to know what spin you're getting.

Returning serve is all about reacting to the oncoming ball, but not letting yourself panic. Again, either watch their motion to know how it's going to be spinning, or actually watch the ball itself. Usually you'll be able to see how the ball is spinning in the air, or at least the path it's taking through the air, and then react to that.

Also remember that you don't always want to go for a return winner. You'll make more errors than you should off your returns if you do. You should be going for something that'll set up the point in your favor. This can be a winner if the serve wasn't hit aggressively enough. But could also just mean a deep cross-court return, in hopes of getting an easier shot back from that. You have to have patience in tennis. Waiting for the right time to attack is very important.

What I would do is expect the unexpected because the server would want to catch you of guard. you know you can also read their serves by looking at his/her toss and also how he/she is about to hit it. because every serve has a different preparation.

A good server would follow the rules, if you know the rules, you would know what he/she is trying to follow. this is my opinion.

slice tosses are usually tossed behind so you adjust to that, flat ones are usually tossed in front. by looking at this you should either move forward, backward or sideways. dont only look at the toss, but also the way he is "facing" his rauquet.

it they toss it away from themselves a lot, then its going to be a slice. if its over their head, kick. and flat you can see them load up to try to hit it as hard as they can sometimes. the flat toss just comes in the warmups. try to read it in warmups. if they have good disguise dont worry about it. back up a little and most importantly MOVE YOUR FEET. dont try blasting a winner off of a first serve, just block it back. but if they only hit kick second serves, then know that thats all they do, then try to take it early on the rise and go for it.