Learning to serve properly in pickleball can be a challenge for both newbies as well as experienced racket or paddle sports players. The serving motion in pickleball is a unique motion that certainly requires some getting used to. I am an experienced tennis player used to serving overhand of course, but I am also proficient at other paddle sports like ping pong, and the pickleball serve is unique and different from both of those sports. So lets look at the rules for serving in pickleball and how I think the pickleball drop serve is a great way for a beginner to learn the pickleball serve.
How do you Serve in Pickleball?
The serving rules in pickleball are pretty straight-forward and are very clear for the pickleball player. According to the USA Pickleball website the main pickleball serving rule to learn is “the serve must be hit with an underhand stroke so that contact with the ball is made below the waist, defined as the navel. The arm must be moving in an upward arc and the highest point of the paddle head shall be below the wrist when it strikes the ball. The highest point of the paddle head can not be above any part of the line formed where the wrist joint bends.”
There are some other rules to learn in regards to the serve such as where the ball needs to land on a serve but we will cover that topic in a future article. For our purposes today, the takeaway from the long description from USA Pickleball’s serving rules, is the serve must be underhand and contact with the ball must be made below the waist.
Can You Bounce the Ball Before Serving in Pickleball?
Prior to 2021, bouncing the ball on a serve and hitting it off of the bounce was not allowed in the pickleball “official rules”. But in early 2021, USA Pickleball updated the rules to allow the server to have the option to drop the ball and hit it after the bounce. The website goes on to confirm, “the ball can be dropped from any height but cannot be thrown, tossed, or otherwise released with any added force to bounce it”.
The bounce serve is now a thing and is a serve that allows more control when serving because a bounce of the pickleball for some is more accurate than hitting a serve from a toss. There is less room for error between a toss and a bounce so some pickleball players may prefer to use this technique when serving in their pickleball games.
The Bounce Serve is a Great Way for New Pickleball Players to Learn how to Serve
I am an experienced tennis player and when I first starting playing pickleball I found the underhand serve to be quite awkward to learn. This is not a natural motion to hit a ball underhand, with power and accuracy that you ultimately want the ball to travel up and over the pickleball net and land in a particular area in the opponents court.
This serve took some practice to learn and what worked for me for the first couple of months that I played pickleball was to use a bounce serve to force me to learn the underhand serving motion. When you bounce the ball and you are hitting it on the upward trajectory of the bounce this is a perfect way to learn to hit the serve in an underhand motion, and using this technique taught me how to eventually hit underhand pickleball serves using a toss.
I encourage new pickleball players to try this technique when beginning to play to establish your form and technique as you improve your pickleball play.
What is a Drop Serve in pickleball?
A drop serve is essentially a bounce serve just called by another name. The same rules as described earlier apply and this rule was changed and added by USA Pickleball in January of 2021.
For some more experienced players they may never incorporate this serve option in to their game but for recreational players this may be a good option to add to your game for several reasons.
The pickleball drop serve, aka, the bounce serve gives more control when hitting a serve and allows for the player to try options like a spin serve, a tailing serve either left or right when landing in to the opponents court, and the player can also try to improve on the placement of their serve since the bounce on a drop serve is a more accurate and predictable starting point than the serve toss.
While the mechanics are different between pickleball and tennis, those that play both sports know that tennis players are taught that the toss is the starting point for all good tennis serves. And accuracy of the toss along with consistency from toss to toss are both important when learning to serve in tennis.
This can also be said in pickleball even though the underhand serve is much different than the tennis overhand serve. But I would argue as a player of both sports, the accuracy of the toss also applies in pickleball, which is why I recommend the bounce serve for new pickleball players to learn the serve motion before progressing to a serve using the toss.
Can you Serve Overhand in Pickleball?
Overhand serves are not allowed in pickleball, these serves are reserved for the sport of tennis. As stated in the pickleball rules on the USA Pickleball website and quoted earlier in this article, all pickleball serves must be underhand and originate from below the waist.
Any serve that originates with a starting point above the waist is considered an illegal serve and would not be allowed in competitive play.
So tennis players taking up the game of pickleball should read the tips given in this article and use them to your advantage to incorporate the underhand pickleball serve in to your game. The learning curve will be much shorter if you use my suggestions and your serve improvements will come quicker if you follow this guide.
Good luck to those just starting to play pickleball and let me know what worked for you when learning to serve in pickleball.