THREE SERVES
THE POWER SERVE
Alex Hamner: I’m going to describe the Power Serve. This is
the type of serve that is low, deep and, of course, hard. That’s
the power part. You can mix it up with where you want it to
land. You can put it in the forehand corner, the backhand
corner or even right at the opponent. And that way, even
though it’s the same serve, your opponent will react differently
to each place it’s hit. If you have used the high soft serve or a
short angle serve, opponents might start moving forward in
anticipation that you’ll do something like that again. And that’s
a good time to use that hard power serve right toward them.
SOFT ANGLE SERVE
opponents are side stacking. You want to serve the ball softly at
a harsh angle just past the non-volley zone near the stacker. The
service returner now has to run all the way up to the kitchen
to get to the ball, right next to his/her partner, causing the
partner to be stuffed. And then it can open the outside lane on
the other side of the court. If your opponent’s return isn’t great,
you can knock it down the open lane for the point.
Rusty: So that’s our “Pickleball 411” for today. We hope this
has been helpful. Now there’s only one thing left to do, and
that’s Go Play! •
To watch the complete video version of this article and to
see these serves demonstrated live, visit Pickleball Channel
online.
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Special Thanks to: Jennifer Lucore, Alex Hamner, Bob & Bev
Youngren, The Brambila Family.
Bob Youngren: I’m going to describe the Soft Angle Serve. It’s
a great serve and it’s one of the three serves that can mix up the
rhythm of the game. This is an especially useful serve if your
Rusty Howes is the Executive Producer and
creator of Pickleball Channel. Rusty worked for the
likes of Warner Bros and Disney before creating
Pickleball Channel to develop and provide fantastic,
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sport of pickleball at home and across the country.
MARCH 2016 |
MAGAZINE
21