5 (Legal) Serves That Will Tear Your Opponent Apart
The serve is a crucial part of everyone’s pickleball game. As this video from Briones Pickleball says, the more aggressive and consistent serves you can have, the weaker returns you will get.
Today’s article discusses five different (and legal) serves you can learn to use in your pickleball matches that will drive your opponents absolutely crazy.
#1 - Topspin Serve
Hitting a ball with topspin makes it challenging to return. Typically, these shots have a lot of spin and pace to them. And, once it bounces, it flies into your opponent instead of just bouncing more upright. You can aim for your opponent’s forehand or backhand (we suggest mixing it up), but ultimately, you want this serve to go deep, as close to their baseline as you can get it.
The reason for this is that it challenges your opponent. Most people stand just behind the baseline on the return of serve. But if you can consistently hit it a few inches from the baseline, it forces them to move farther back. Once they’re back there, it becomes difficult for them to move up on their successive shots. Which can give you an advantage.
Because of the pace, these are difficult to master at first. But focus on the depth of the shot early on, then build up the pace as you improve your topspin serve technique.
#2 - High Topspin Serve
Hitting a high topspin serve can force a very high contact point, which can be very difficult to deal with. Similar to the previous serve, you want to put as much topspin on this ball as possible, but instead of focusing on pace as much, you want to hit it in a high arc, well above the net.
To accomplish the high topspin serve, you want to try and get under the ball more when you make contact. You’ll have the face of your pickleball paddle more open to the sky and come up and through the ball with it. You still want to hit it deep and put some pace on it, so it’s not quite a lob. If you’ve hit a few fast-paced serves in a row, this is a great serve to mix in once in a while.
#3 - The Slow High Lob Serve
This serve is especially useful against players who like to drive the ball back on the return of serve. Hitting the slow and high lob serves will force your opponent to have to generate way more pace on their return than what they might be used to. So instead of letting the ball generate the speed, they have to adjust on the fly to generate it themselves.
This is a fantastic change of pace serve and can catch opponents off guard.
To accomplish this serve, you’ll really want to get your paddle face under the ball, which means you’ll need to bend your knees more. And your focus is getting the ball high and deep. Pace should be relaxed and slow. You almost want them to be annoyed that the ball is taking so long to get to them.
#4 - Short Angle Topspin Serve
Earlier, we discussed the advantage of serving the ball deep to your opponent. This serve is perfect when you begin to notice they are way behind the baseline because it forces them to run up and off the court to try and return it.
Your goal with the short angle topspin serve is to place it, with pace, right in the corner of your opponent’s box, just past the kitchen line. This serve takes a lot of practice and skill, but once you have it down, it can really crush your opponents and get you some easy points off the serve. If you are down several points in the game, you may not want to try this serve because it is a higher-risk serve than the others. However, if you’re up or going for the win, go for it!
#5 - Sidespin/Slice Serve
When you’re on the odd side of the court (the left side if you’re a right-handed server), this can be a great serve to mix things up with. What you want to do is bring the paddle across your body to generate side spin on the ball. This side spin should cause the ball to bounce away from your opponent, driving them off the court and catching them in a terrible return position.
Your aim is the corner or sideline, and you want to put some pace on the ball, making it difficult to return.
Even if they can return it, this serve puts them in a tough position on the next shot. When you practice this shot, try hitting it short or soft to mix it up even more.
There you have it; five serves to drive your opponents bananas.
You can see each of these serves in action by watching this video from Briones Pickleball. And stay tuned to more blogs on everything pickleball from Pickleball University.
