Are you failing to win as many points on your serve as you think you should?
Perhaps this one little week is costing you points.
Let's fix it.
Hey, everybody, I'm C.J. Johnson here at
better pickleball, w e are dedicated to helping people over 50
who live their best lives on and off the pickleball.
A few weeks ago, I did a video on the
optimal position to stand to receive the surf.
The video that I used to demonstrate the
incorrect position was from a 4.5 level match at the U.S. Open.
Now, it's not that I thought that that player didn't know where to stand.
What was happening in her game and that
happens for for all of us, is we get these little leaks in our game.
Why do I call them leaks?
I'm from the Midwest.
There's nothing worse than a basement leak.
Typically, a basement leak starts very, very small.
The homeowner doesn't even know it.
And over a period of time, it just
continues to compound itself until it becomes something major.
The same thing can happen inside of our pickleball game.
And I see it happen most often in our
basic positions on the court and say we're going to talk about what happens, that
little leak that can happen in our service position.
Last week I was on the court with KT, one
of our VIPickleball members, and I want to give a special shout out to her to say
thank you for allowing us to use this film.
This is not a criticism of Katie.
She is a solid and very knowledgeable player.
This is an example that we can all learn
from how these little leaks, in fact, our game.
Can you spot the Little Leak?
As the serving team, you need to remember the returners objective is to hit the
return deep to the service team that does two things.
It makes your shot more difficult because
you're at the back of the court and it allows them more time to to get to the
non-volley zone and take advantage of their position.
You should also know from the optimal
return video any time your weight is moving from the back.
To the front, that's an easier shot than having your way to go from the
front to the back, that's a much more difficult shot.
If I make a serve and step into the court and don't adjust my position.
I run the risk of having to hit a third
shot with my weight moving from the front to the back.
That is a positional weak and it can make it difficult to hit a good third shot.
You'll see a lot of servers who use their core and the momentum of their body
to generate power on their server, and that's all well and good.
But typically what happens with that
motion is it carries them forward into the court again.
Still all well and good.
Until you stay here,
you have to if you use that type of service, you have to make sure that you
position yourself back to an optimal position to hit that third shot.
Otherwise, you run the risk of hitting an off balance third shot.
You can go into the net or it can go way too high. So the minute I hit the serve, I
want to come back to a good ready position.
So even though my momentum carries me into
the court, I want to come back to this ready position.
Next time you're out on the courts, make sure that you check yourself.
Where are you in relationship to the line?
Are you in the optimum position for the third shot?
If you need some more coaching cues, click on this playlist over here, because
together we can train smart, live bold and age well.