Pickleball Tip of Week #35

Ok, the plan is to go over the first three shots, in depth, that you should be making in your game. This will be comprehensive, so we will take three tips to cover everything.

First Shot.......Serve

If any of the first three shots are not hit correctly, you will be at a huge disadvantage. Each shot leads to the next, so you want to give yourself the highest chance of staying in and winning the point.

Lets say i am serving from the even ( right ) side of the court. I am right handed. Before i serve i look at two things, which way is the wind blowing and are all the players on the court right handed. I will mention to my partner, " wind behind us, Jim is left handed", just to make sure he/she knows before we start the game.

I will usually stand on the left hand side of the service area if the opponent i am serving to is right handed. This gives me the highest chance of hitting his backhand, my goal 80% of the time. If my opponent is LEFT handed, it is easier for me to hit his backhand if i serve from the right side of the even court. If i do stand on the right side  trying to serve to a left handers backhand, i will immediately move back to my left, after i serve,  so if my opponent returns the serve back to me, i dont have to hit it with MY backhand.

After i serve, i want to move myself just behind the baseline (NOT INSIDE THE COURT) and to the left side of my responsible area so that i have the highest chance of hitting the third shot with my forehand.

If my partner is serving, I want to stand in the area that gives me the highest chance of doing the third shot with my forehand, and also BEHIND THE BASELINE.  Not being behind the baseline for hitting the third shot is one area that i see SO many players messing up on. It is VERY hard to hit a competent third shot if you are standing inside the baseline and your opponents hit the third shot as they should.......DEEP. Now you are trying to hit the third shot with the ball bouncing at your feet, which  is VERY hard to control.

Finally, when i serve i want to put the ball DEEP. The deeper the better. The deeper i put the serve, the harder i make it for my opponent to do a great serve return. I will occasionally however, try and hit a short serve on opponents that like to crank hard on the serve return. They now come running up toward the net to hit the return, still intent on hitting the ball hard and will many times hit the ball out long. 

That is it for now. Next week we will go over the serve return.

jeff shank