Your serve is one of the most underrated and overlooked aspects in pickleball. A strong serve can lead to easy thirds and make the rest of your skillset irrelevant.
A new video from Austin at the Pickleball Playbook offers a ton of tips to improve your serve. Let’s look at a few tips varying in level of difficulty.
Level One Pre-Serve
Where are your feet and hips pointing when you serve? For a closed stance serve your lead foot should not be horizontal in line with the baseline. It should be at a 45-degree angle so you can maintain balance while stepping forward.
Your lead hip (left hip for right-handed players) should be pointed at your target. If you’re still having trouble controlling your serve, check your foundation before moving forward.
Level Two Practice Rounds
Many players lose out on power because they’re afraid to hit the ball too deep. Don’t be. While practicing your serve, start by hitting reps deep, past the baseline. You want to build up the strength and muscle memory to hit serves near the baseline without maxing out.
Level Three Fine-Tuning Form
Austin preaches that your swing path should be outward and upward. You want to create space between you and the ball to maximize power.
And finally, you need to create lag with your paddle during your swing. Lead with your butt cap while you swing and accelerate the paddle face through the ball at contact. He offers a drill to help learn the feeling of creating lag in the video.
The serve looks simple from the surface, but there are plenty adjustments that can be made to increase your power. Don’t settle for a slow serve.
Use this code for a 10% discount on a custom paddle
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Why we are different
There are well over 100 paddle manufacturers serving the pickleball industry. We are the ONLY custom paddle manufacturer in the world. In order to understand what it is we do and why it’s unique, it’s necessary to understand how a paddle is made.
Every paddle with few exceptions has a honeycomb core. The different companies in the industry use one of three different materials for the core- aluminum, polymer and Nomex. We use all three. The core provides 75% of the way a paddle performs.
Then the honeycomb core is sandwiched between two thin layers of surface materials. Again, the different companies in the industry use three different materials- graphite, fiberglass composite and carbon fiber. We use all three. The surface material is about 25% of the way a paddle performs. Think of it as fine tuning the paddle’s performance characteristics.
The three different core materials combined with the three different surface materials make 9 different combinations of materials. Each plays differently. We make two (soon to be three) different shapes for our paddles. The Chaos has a large square sweet spot- at 8 1/2”, it is the widest paddle on the market. The Kratos has an equally large rectangular shaped sweet spot. Each combination of cores and surfaces is available in both the Chaos and Kratos shape.
Then we give each player the opportunity to select their paddle’s weight (ranging from 7.4-10.5 ounces).
Now comes the grip. Players can choose one of three different handle shapes, their grip size from 3 7/8” to 6”, one of three different grip materials and more than 10 colors for each grip style.
Now that the player has chosen the best paddle shape, core, surface and grip for their individual game comes the fun part. We can put any custom graphic the player chooses on their paddle face- either one of our many choices or one of their own- a picture, logo or graphic of their choosing.
Now every player can play with a totally bespoke paddle and watch their game immediately improve because they are playing with the right paddle for them in every way.
Every other sport has specialized equipment for every player except pickleball. Not anymore- now pickleball is catching up to other sports. Pickleball players spend a lot of time playing the game they love. Now they can play with the gear that suits them and not be forced to use a one size fits all paddle.
Want to Join Team TSD?
We are actively seeking avid pickleballers with sales experience to educate, demonstrate and promote Third
Shot Drop pickleball paddles.
Please send your prior sales experience, where you play, how often you play, what level player you are, if you
play Tournaments, how many players you can reach and your contact information to:
Ashley@ThirdShotDrop.com
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