Pickleball 101 and beyond: The Serve

Every single rally begins with a serve. If you don't get your serves in, or if your serves are ceding an advantage to your opponents, you won't win many points.  This is the only shot in pickleball that you have complete control over. Make it count. Instead of a liability, your serve can become an offensive tool that gives you an early advantage in the rally and it can help you win points. So, how do we do that?

The Serve

There are various facets of a serve that you can develop in order to make it more effective. Below is a laundry list of the kinds of things you can work on to improve your serve and a rough order for prioritizing them. 

Make it legal

Nothing else matters if the serve you hit is illegal from the moment you hit it. 

The actual written rules that govern a legal serve can be found in the USA Pickleball Rulebook in Section 4. Here is a link to the 2021 Rulebook.

Personally, I absorb this kind of information better in a visual format. For those of you who are like me, here is a video that explains the traditional service rules.

And here is a video that explains the changes made in the 2021 rule book including the drop serve.

There is no point in practicing serves that don't count because you have faulted due to incorrect positioning, stroke mechanics, improper drop, etc. Learn the rules and make sure your serve is legal. There is nothing worse than getting called on a fault for a service motion you have been using when you compete in your first tournament. It can completely throw you off your game.

Make it Consistent

Beginners should focus on getting their serve in consistently. How consistent? Let's say 7 out of 10 serves is a good place to start. The closer you can get to > 95%, the better. Don't give up your chance to score by missing your serve.

Caveat: I miss more serves in rec games and practice because I am experimenting with new types of serves. Ideally, I want to have a variety of serves in my tool kit that I can use to cause the receiver trouble. I am probably overcautious to a fault with my serves in tournament play, but I don't miss many.

The next phase in your serve development should be depth and directional control. You can work on both of these skill at the same time.

"David, I have no idea what my serve percentages are."

Film yourself playing some games and count the serves. It doesn't take that long to get a tally of successful serves vs faults. Get a baseline and go from there.

Develop Depth Control

When you are serving, one of your opponents is already at the net. Don't invite the other one to the net by hitting a shallow return if you can. Two opponents at the kitchen line who are all set and ready for your third shot is not the situation you want to simply gift to them. If the return is deep and slow, and the receiver knows enough to run to the kitchen line, they can get there, but you don't want to make it easy for them to get to the kitchen line if you can help it.

Try to send your serve to the back 1/3 of the court consistently. Is it okay to vary things up and hit a shallow serve on occasion? Sure, but 1. don't make it a shallow ball that bounces high, and 2. don't make a pattern out of it.

Also, many players stand too close to the baseline when they set up to receive the serve. This is a mistake on their part. Hitting a deep ball to a player who is on, or directly behind the baseline forces them to move backward to receive the ball, or they may be forced to hit the ball from under their feet. In either case, they would be hitting from a weak position. If they are able to send the ball back to you, odds are, their shot will not be strong or controlled, which puts you in a better position as the point progresses.

Develop Directional Control

With regard to direction, you want to be able to hit the ball to one side or the other of the service box. This is useful because it allows you to

• target an opponent's weakness (often backhands)
• take advantage of a player's position by making them move
• change patterns

Every time you hit your opponent the same serve, you are giving them practice hitting that serve. The ability to hit to one side and then change as your opponents adjust is useful. This facet of serving holds true for every other serving element we will discuss below.

Lean How and When to Vary Pace

Develop the ability to hit serves that are hard and fast as well as slower bouncier serves. As a general rule, it is true that a fast serve takes time away from your opponent to adjust and set up to hit their return, but the distance between the server's corner at the baseline and the receiver's corner on their baseline is the longest distance on the court. They have a decent amount of time to adjust. You aren't hitting a serve with the power of an overhead like in tennis, so you aren't likely to get service aces. However, pace, and pace combined with other elements, can help you begin to turn your serve into an offensive weapon.

Even if your opponent returns your serve, if their return is shallower than it would be with an easier serve, or if it bounces high enough for you to hit down on the third shot, congratulations, you have gained an early advantage in the rally.

Wind

You may not be able to control the wind (if you are, please message me), but you can learn to read it, adjust for it, and even use it to your advantage. The first step is knowing how to account for the wind. Wind definitely affects the ball in pickleball. Some people shy away from playing on windy days. Although it can definitely be somewhat frustrating at times, if you intend to compete in tournaments, and at least some tournaments you might compete in will be outdoor tournaments, odds are, you will eventually play in a tournament on a windy day. The more experience you have playing in windy conditions, the easier it will become for you to adjust to play in the wind.

Deep serves with the wind behind you can push your opponents back into the fences or whatever barriers are behind the baseline. Shallow low serves into the wind can send your opponents scrambling, and unless they have just the right touch to pop it over the net, but not send it too far, with the wind behind them, it can be difficult for them to keep their returns inside the baseline.

Develop Height Control

Low serves and high bouncing lob serves and everything in between can be a great way to vary things up and fluster your opponents. Low fast serves are so common, that many people don't know how to handle lob serves with high bounces. Mixing things up makes it difficult for your opponents to learn what to do.

Spin

Putting different spins on your serve can make it more difficult for the receiver to make a quality return. Balls that are hit with spin bounce differently than a ball that is hit flat. Experienced players can learn how to read the server's swing, which can help the receiver to anticipate the bounce, But this is one more element in a serve that can make it more difficult to return.

Once again, there are good videos on YouTube where you can find demonstrations of spin serves and explanations of the mechanics of the swing that is needed to generate that rotation on the ball.

I can't talk about spin on serves without mentioning the new "chainsaw" and flip spin serves. If you haven't heard of or see these serves executed, look up Zane Navirtil for the originator of the chainsaw serve or Morgan Evans. Here is a link to a match where Morgan Evans uses his flip spin serve to great advantage in a match. What helps to make these serves deceptively effective is the fact that it is harder for the receiver to anticipate the kind of hop the ball will take when it bounces. The balls often kick to one side or the other. In the video linked below, Evans actually gets an ace (relatively rare in pickleball) because his spin is so effective. He also gets many shallow returns that help him take command of the rally.

Morgan Evans Spin Serve

Controlling the toss on those serves is difficult and that added motion puts variables into the equation of your serve that make it more complicated and more difficult to execute with precision and consistency. This is an advanced serve. But if you have the other aspects of your serve under control and you want something to work on to give your game an offensive edge, then serves like the chainsaw and/or the spin flick toss might be a good one to add to your arsenal.

I hope this is helpful.

See you on the courts,

No Fun David