Self Serve

In my last column, “Tighten Up”, I discussed the importance of eliminating unforced errors by improving your stroke technique.  As a follow up, I want to emphasize the importance of serving. 

There is an old saying in tennis that a player is only as good as their second serve.  Serving is a vital shot in both tennis and pickleball. Even though serving strategy differs in the two sports, the mental and emotional consequences of not holding serve will generally lead to a temporary loss of confidence and momentum. This is especially true in pickleball because by faulting on your serve, you are no longer in position to put points on the board.  

In tennis, because you get two serves, an acceptable first serve percentage is anything above 70%, however second serves in tennis need to be 90% or higher.  In pickleball, with only one serve, having to use an underhand motion and the fact that we simply cannot hit a serve as hard as we can in tennis, we need to think of it like being a second serve. We are not attempting to take a commanding offensive position with a second serve. We are hitting a high percentage, well placed serve to get the point started and utilize the following shot, also known as the third ball in pickleball, to work our way into the point.

The only way to truly improve your percentages is by improving your skills. That means practice, practice, practice. In order for you to be successful practicing needs to be planned with specific, obtainable goals to accomplish. Here is a simple but challenging practice you can do by yourself to help improve your serving percentage: 

Start out by hitting 10 generic serves and see how many you get in. At this point in time you are not attempting to do anything fancy with your serve, just simply see how many you can get in out of 10. If you can successfully get over 90%, five times in a row, then it’s time to up your goal. Your next challenge is to get 90% of your serves landing in the back 25% of the service box. Once you have accomplished that, now challenge yourself to also be able to place the ball to either the left or the right side of the service box. On a more advanced level, players should also be able to apply a variety of spins to the ball, as well as controlling the height of the flight of the ball over the net. Conquering these challenges will allow you to eventually have the skills to hit specific serves with precise placement in the service box.

So think of a serve in pickleball like a second serve in tennis. Your mindset needs to be that percentages and placement precede power. The simplicity of understanding the results and consequences of unforced errors is that the last person to hit the ball over the net and inside the lines wins the point.