Whether you are brand to pickleball or on your way to becoming a pickleball pro, you will want to find a pickleball serve that is right for you. Pickleball coaches Barrett and Danea Bass will take you through five different pickleball serves, which grip to use for each, and how to find the right pickleball serve for your style of play. Plus, learn how to hit the ball for each serve so that it lands exactly where you want it to.
Serve #1: Traditional pickleball serve & the grips to use when serving
The first serve is the traditional pickleball serve. For this, you will want to understand the proper grips. Click here to learn more about all the pickleball grips.
For the traditional serve you will want to use either a continental grip or an eastern grip.
Once you have found the grip you feel most comfortable with, you should lay your wrist back to create some lag (you do not want to have a flat wrist).
To hit the traditional serve:
- Point your shoulders toward your target.
- Create a whipping motion with your arm.
- In order to create that whipping motion you need to stay loose with your arm, you don't want to stay stiff.
- Explode with your backside hip toward your target.
This serve (or variations of it) is probably the most common serve you're going to see on the pickleball court. Because your feet are planted, it's going to be easy to create consistency with the serve. But the downside is that there is not much variability to keep your opponents guessing.
To view this serve in action, please watch the video above.
Serve #2: Pickleball drop serve
The second type of serve is the drop serve, which is a common serve amongst beginners but professional pickleball players are also starting to experiment with it as well.
With the drop serve, remember that you can't throw the ball down and you cannot throw the ball up — you must let gravity take the ball down. When you're hitting the drop serve, you want to make sure you hit underneath the ball. Oftentimes, your contact point is lower than if you took the ball off of a volley.
With the drop serve, you can actually reach into the pickleball court and drop the ball into the court. The only rule is that your feet must stay behind the line at the point of contact, but you also want to make sure your momentum takes you into the court.
Your contact point is a little bit lower with the drop serve, and it can also be an easier serve for beginners to pick up.
To view this serve in action, please watch the video above.
Serve #3: Pickleball "Happy Gilmore” serve
The third type of pickleball serve is the Happy Gilmore Serve. A lot more professional pickleball players are starting to implement this serve. With this serve, you will be walking into your serve.
To hit the Happy Gilmore pickleball serve:
- Step back off of the baseline.
- Take the ball and put it on the paddle so your hands are together.
- You will first step with your same side paddle foot, followed by your opposite side paddle foot.
- Hit through the ball.
- After you step with your paddle foot — once your left foot or your opposite leg starts to come forward — you should start a C motion with your paddle at the same time.
When there are players that are missing left or right, this serve is good to create forward momentum with your legs.
To view this serve in action, please watch the video above.
Serve #4: Pickleball screwball serve
The fourth type of pickleball serve is the screwball serve, which is really fun because it puts sidespin on the ball causing it to jump away from your opponents in a legal manner.
To hit the pickleball screwball serve:
- Find your continental grip, which is the hammer grip where the joint of your first finger lines up with bevel two.
- Take your thumb and put it in the middle of the grip.
- Be aware of where you contact the ball: On this serve you want to contact the ball closer to your body.
- Cut the ball underneath.
- For the serve to be legal, it needs to be a low-to-high motion.
- You probably want to aim to the middle with this shot to give yourself some margin for it to move to the right.
To view this serve in action, please watch the video above.
Serve #5: Advanced heavy topspin pickleball serve
The last serve is called the advanced heavy top spin serve, which has become popular in the pros recently. Everything has to do with the grip.
To hit the advanced heavy topspin pickleball serve:
- Choke down on your pickleball paddle, not up on it.
- Find a semi-western grip, which is the frying pan grip or fly swatter grip (as if you were going to swat a fly).
- Put your palm right on the bottom of the paddle.
- Hit under the ball.
- There will be a lot of spin created, so if you swing flat the ball will dump into the net.
- When you're doing this serve you should pull back, lead with the butt cap, and create a whipping windshield wiper motion.
- Be sure to aim the ball well above the net and hit under the ball because the ball will get down really fast because of the grip and the swing motion.
To view this serve in action, please watch the video above.