Win FREE Points With Your Serve

Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Coaching Newsletter!

The serve is becoming a weapon like never before, and rightfully so - it’s the only shot that you have 100% control over.

So why not get the most out of it?

Today we’re going to go over a simple strategy that will help you get TONS of free points on your serve. The best part is, it’s super simple to implement!

Let’s get started. 👇

The main goal of the serve is to keep your opponents from successfully approaching the kitchen. Most players will try to get as close as possible to the kitchen line off the return, so if your opponent ends up even a few feet behind the kitchen line by the time they’re hitting your third shot, it will give you a huge advantage. Here’s why:

1. The further back your opponents are from the kitchen line, the worse a drop you can get away with. If your opponents aren’t up yet, hitting the drop beyond the kitchen is no problem!

2. If your opponents aren’t at the line yet, it will be easier to get the ball bounce by their feet. When the ball bounces by your feet, it is harder to keep it low, increasing the chances of getting a popup.

How quickly you can get to the kitchen line usually depends on one thing: momentum. If you have forward momentum as you hit, you will probably make it up to the kitchen line. If you do not have forward momentum when you hit, you run the risk of not getting to the line.

💡 This is why it’s best to start far back behind the baseline before returning, so that you have room to move up to the ball, creating forward momentum.

So if you want to keep your opponents from approaching the line quickly, you need to kill their forward momentum. How can you do this? By making it so that when they hit the ball they are not moving towards the kitchen line - meaning they are moving in some other direction that is not forward.

Power and spin can help with this by pushing your opponents back, but if they start far behind the baseline they can negate it. When it comes to keeping your opponents back there’s an even more important factor that sometimes goes unmentioned: placement.

If your opponents are moving sideways to get to the ball, they probably will not be moving forward as towards the kitchen as they hit. Therefore, if you can stretch your opponent to one side or the other with your serve, it will make it much harder for them to come up.

What you should be looking for is to make them take at least one big step sideways from their setup position.

Now, compound that with a deep serve so that they can’t run in diagonally to get to the ball, and you’re pretty much guaranteeing that your opponent will have trouble getting all the way to the line, if they even make it up at all!

If you’re ready to try it, take a little bit of pace off of your serve to focus on your targets. Depth and placement is key. Once you can consistently move the ball side to side, start cranking up the pace. You’ll be shocked at how much easier your third shots are!

See you on the courts!

- Matt Slowinski (Co-Founder, Pro Player & Coach)

This wide and deep serve was super effective, and it wasn’t even hit that hard! Notice how the receiving player had to move to the left and set her feet before she could start moving forward. As a result, the serving team hit the third shot while the returning player was only about halfway to the kitchen.

The serving team, unfortunately, didn’t capitalize on this advantage as much as they could have, but it at least allowed them to make a comfortable transition, and get away with a relatively weak third shot drive.

Insights from World No. 3 Ranked Pro James Ignatowich

Getting you opponent to move laterally on the return is an essential part of preventing them from coming forward as fast as possible off of the return.

The most straightforward way to force your opponent to move laterally on the return is to serve the ball to the corner of the box that represents the opponent’s “strong side.” So, if your opponent favors their forehand, actually serving it to their forehand corner.

This is because most players will lean to protect their weak side, since they’re assuming that you will serve it to their weaker side.

See you all for my next bulletin!

-James

^{For more from James, check out his Instagram and YouTube!}

The great thing about the serve is that you don’t need a partner to practice it! Here’s a drill you can do by yourself to improve your serve accuracy. You’ll be keeping your opponents back off the line in no time!

What You Need

1. At least four cones - any type will do

2. A basket full of pickleballs

3. A court all to yourself

The Setup

1. Setup cones in the corners of each box on one end of the court. One cone should go in each wide corner, and in each center corner, for four cones total.

2. Position yourself on the other end of the court with the basket of balls.

The Drill

1. Pick a cone and serve at it until you knock it over.

2. Once you knock the cone down, move on to the next one, and serve at it until you knock it down.

3. Keep going until you’re out of balls, or you knock all the cones down!

Well, that’s a wrap… so let’s recap what we learned this week:

• Forward momentum dictates whether or not you will make it up to the kitchen line on returns. If you want to keep your opponents back off the line, you need to stop their forward momentum.

• If your opponent is moving sideways to return your serve, they won’t be moving forward.

• Hit the serve away from your opponent, making him or her take at least one big sideways step to the ball. This will keep them from moving forward efficiently.

Thanks for reading! We hope you can put these tips to good use the next time you’re out on the courts.

Reply to this email with anything you want to see in our future newsletters 😄

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic