Every pickable rally starts with the serve. Pickable uses an underhand serve, which you can do by either hitting the serve off to the volley or by dropping the pickable and hitting the serve off to the bounce. If you hit the serve off to the volley the rules of pickable require the serve to be hit below your belly button with your paddle head below your wrist at the point of contact. And whatever serves that you hit, a volley serve or a drop serve you must be behind the baseline and between the centerline and sideline at the point of contact. After contact, you’re free to do whatever you want with your pickable paddle and you’re free to step into the court.
Although the pickable serve can be a very basic shot, it’s an important shot and can give you the advantage to start the point. So how can you get that edge?
Here’s 7 helpful strategies to improve your service game.
- Use a pre-serve routine. To help with your timing, it’s important to find a routine that you’re comfortable with before you serve. This pre-serve routine could be bouncing pickable with your hand or hitting the pickable a few times with your paddle. Whatever works for you whatever you’re comfortable with.
- Stay loose, move from your shoulder and finish your swing. During a serve, some pickable players have a tendency to want to flick their wrist and bend at their elbow. This may cause inconsistencies and your goal should be to have a consistent reliable serve. So your pickable motion should be more like a pendulum swing from the shoulder instead of from the wrist or elbow and should continue all the way through contact.
- Set yourself up for success by giving yourself a consistent toss or drop. When using the volley serve be sure to lift the pickleball before releasing it. If you simply drop the pickleball it will be too low at contact. When using a drop serve, drop a pickleball from a comfortable height above your head with your arms straight out in front of your body and slightly toward your paddle side. This will give you the highest bounce possible.
- Generally speaking, serve deep to your opponent’s backhands. This will push your opponents back into their court making their return serve more difficult. And in most cases, your opponent’s back hands will be weaker than their forehands. But be sure to give yourself some margin of error rather than aiming for the baseline, aim about two to three feet inside of the lines on your opponent’s backhand side.
- And don’t forget to factor in the wind if you’re playing outside.
- Also be sure to watch a pickleball all the way to the point of contact.
- And lastly, although we just said to target your opponent’s backhand with the serve, make sure you mix up your serves. At a minimum, we all need one consistent serve. Once you have that, you can elevate your game by incorporating different serves. For instance, a driving serve, a lob serve, and inside outside serve or an out wide serve. This will help you keep your opponents off balance.
Now get out on the pickleball courts and master your serve with these tips.