If you want to improve your pickleball serve, the most important steps you can take are to improve your serve depth and power. Barrett and Danea Bass will teach you five ways to weaponize your pickleball serve and two pickleball drills you can practice to improve your serve before your next pickleball game.
Depth of your pickleball serve (power + height)
The most important thing with your serve is depth, which is created by a combination of power + height. If you can create a lot of depth, it's going to put pressure on your opponent.
After depth, power and spin are most important. But if you want an effective serve, you should focus on getting your serve nice and deep.
Tip #1: Positioning of your serve
A mistake that players often make with serves is that they become very “arm-y” with serves that don't have a lot of pace on them. Whether you are serving in an open stance or closed stance, a way to engage more of your core and get more power is to turn your shoulder to face the direction of where your target is going. This will automatically put your core in a position to get involved in the shot.
Tip #2: Where to hold the pickleball ball before your serve
To help add more power to your serve, you should hold the ball a comfortable distance away from your body and make contact in front of your body. If you hold the ball too far or too close to your body, you're going to lose power.
A good rule of thumb is that you want the ball a paddle length away from your body, because this is where you will have the most power. This will help you contact the ball out front and create more power on your serve.
Tip #3: Manage your upper extremities during the serve
Next, you will want to keep your upper extremities loose. It's easy to allow your upper extremities (and especially your wrist) to be tight, but this will leave you unable to create power.
A loose wrist can also help you create power and a solid whipping motion.
Tip #4: Wrist lag during the pickleball serve
If you want to create power and depth on your serve, you should let your wrist lag behind. One way to learn this is to take the paddle butt cap and lead with that butt cap, which will create lag and a whipping motion on the serve.
Tip #5: Pickleball serving follow-through
The last thing you want to keep in mind is about your pickleball serve follow-through. It's important, in order to really get a full swing, that your follow-through will end up near your opposite shoulder. Your back hip will also drive forward as a result of this. This will keep your swing going and get your power moving forward.
Pickleball serving drills to generate more power
Serving drill #1:
Drop your paddle and pick up a ball.
Get in the ready position, like you're about to serve.
Toss the ball, focusing on laying your wrist back and whipping the ball through.
If you whip too much, the ball is going to go high.
If you don't have lag on your wrist and stay stiff, the ball is not going to go anywhere.
Point your front shoulder and explode forward.
If you get the feel of throwing the ball, you're going to learn how to create more feel and power on your serve.
Serving drill #2:
This next drill will help you create more power and help you focus on learning how to drive with your back hip.
Put your backside knee down on a towel or something for some padding.
Hold the ball out in front.
Get back in that position and load back on your hip.
Drive forward with that hip and hit the ball.
In order to create power doing this, you will have to use your hip. If you’re only using your arm, you’re not going to be able to create enough power.
This drill will help you learn how to use your lower extremities and core to create depth on your serve.
To see these tips & drills in action, watch the video above.
