You can play great, pick a ball without a
drive, without a dropshot or without a lob.
But you can't fly without a consistent service.
Stay tuned.
Everybody at C.J. Johnson, welcome to Better Pickleball, where we're focused on
helping players over 50 live their best lives on and off a pickleball course.
In order to play pickleball, you have to have a serve.
That's what starts the point, and it needs to be a consistent, deep serve, meaning
that it's somewhere around three feet from the baseline.
And recently, Tony Roy and I did a webinar for our VM pickleball members talking
about consistent serves, the YIPES and the new drop serve.
And this video, we're going to talk about
the basics, the things you need to do to get a consistent serve.
But if you'd like to see the other two videos, the YIPES or the drop serve, make
sure you stick around to the end and we'll give you a link to those videos.
All right.
So let's talk about the first thing we're going to talk about.
We're going to talk about serving where you are in the game.
So as T.J. mentioned, right, you don't need to drive.
There's a lot of things that you don't need in order to play pickleball.
Right. But you need to have a sir.
No, sir. It's really hard to play.
All right. Never going to score a point because.
Ah, so, you know, the important thing about the serve,
right, is that the way that we like to frame out the
server or explain the server is that you need to have a serve.
The service should ideally be deep, but other than that.
You don't really need to go crazy with this.
In other words, you don't need to have
people ask us all the time, seeking says all the time, should I spend my serve?
I have to hit it hard.
Do I have to hit you kick out or have to hit it all over the place?
The answer to those questions is actually no.
And really, what you need to do is basically have a nice, simple, deep serve.
And here's where the video is is key. Right?
I'm gonna share my video.
Now, here's where the where the video
becomes key, because it's not just me and CJ talking.
Right.
We're going to show you video now of pros and how they serve.
And and so you make the call. You see the video.
OK, I can see the video just fine, Tony. Awesome.
All right.
Let's show the let's start it up and see what's going on here.
So the first match we're going to see here
and I'm going to pause real quick the first and see here, this is a
this is senior pro play.
OK, so these are four of the best senior players in the country, in the world.
This is at the World Pickleball Championship last year.
They're actually playing it this weekend again.
But this is one from last year.
These folks are playing for money and not
insignificant money, and they're in the finals playing for a gold medal.
So on this side, the server is in black.
That's Brian Staub, right, who's playing with Scott Moore.
So they're playing for money.
This is they're playing hard.
And here's the thing.
The team on this side serving Brian and Scott lost the first game, OK?
So they're doing the best they can to win. So let's see.
Let's watch Brian serve. With that in mind.
This is not directly.
Right. So when we see that serve.
It's not hard, it's not spinning, it's not it's a nice, controlled, deep serve to
keep Paul the returner behind the line to hit the return.
That's what he's trying to accomplish with that serve.
Let's watch a few more. So you don't think it's an outlier.
So here we're going to see
four of the best pro players.
I mean, not seen or heard pro players, right.
So we have Kyle Yates and Ben Johns on our
on our left bendle serve in a second against
losing his mind, losing and Riley, Newman, Newman and Zane.
Sohere we go, Sainath.
So I want you to watch Ben Johnson. Right.
And Ben Johns has one of the best serves and pickleball right now.
He does spin it a little bit, but again,
very controlled, a very controlled serve, nothing crazy.
Middle of the box, which we're going to talk about more in a little bit.
OK, now let's watch it in the Simoni Jardín best female player in the world.
OK, let's watch how she starts again.
A tournament match.
Right. Nice and deep, right?
She's going to Jez's the returners backhander, but nice and deep.
That's the key.
The key is these nerves are nice and control in the deep.
Now, let's talk a second as to why deep is important here.
We're watching another senior pro match.
This is Steve Dawson starting to Scott more.
So let's watch his serve.
So this serve is short.
The wobble is in the camera not doing so.
That's a short serve, allowing Scott to come forward.
OK, so there's
Steve Dawson serves him short, allowing Scott to come forward and Scott to
basically come all the way up to the embassy by the time the shots hit.
A pause real quick to show you. So now it's Brian.
Stop serving the exact same court, exact same match.
Right. But what's the difference?
Sherman has got more deeper serve.
Right, than the one before.
And I'll give you a side by side in a second.
Scott is farther back when he hits it,
meaning that he's not as close to the NBC line.
When this return gets in, the third shot gets it right.
So now we're going to do a side by side so you can see it so here.
And that would be pick under a highlight for you.
This is the kind of analysis that we do inside a vehicle.
This is the kind of really concrete
information that we want to bring to you to help you.
So on the left, you see the deeper turn.
On the right, you see the short return.
This is where Scott's standing at the time that the third child gets it right.
So you can see the difference of about it five or six feet.
That difference adds up.
That difference will impact your results as you play.
OK.
All right, let's see what else we got on this thing.
I think we got another.
So here what we've done again, this is
part of the kind of resources that we bring is basically here.
What we're showing you is the optimal sort
of target that you that that you should serve for.
And if you watch the the the ones we showed you there were all deep like this.
Right.
And that's really what you need to do with the surface.
Get a deep like this.
And what that does is it allows you a good margin.
Right.
So anywhere in that green area is going to work.
Right.
But it avoids out of bounds, which is very important.
Right. You're not going to make silly mistakes.
And it keeps a deep that's why the other
red area got marked, why you don't want to serve in that red area.
It's not out. Right.
But it's not ideal because that allows the
return to come forward and be at the end before the next shot gets it.
Aiming for that
green circle, which will result in the green rectangle is really important.
So basically, when you look at at your serve.
Right, what you want to look at is you want to look at dependability.
Right.
That's a number one priority is dependability.
Right.
You want to make sure that service lands in.
You want to make sure you're serving deep. Right.
And stick to the plan means don't go crazy.
Don't like you're serving well and you're doing well and you're doing well.
And then all of a sudden you let me try a different serve.
Right.
You break your momentum, maybe miss it and things like that.
No, no, no, no. Stick to the plan on this are very
consistent on the serve leave the exciting stuff for later on in the rally.
Just a real quick recap.
What Tony is saying to you is, is what we're saying to you is this is
use the search for where you are at right now.
Start with a sound technique, OK? Make first.
You've got to make sure that you have a good serving technique.
Once you have a good serving technique and you've built a good serve,
you want to to to stay with that serve.
Put it in one place in the box. Right.
Just start by getting that good serve in one place in the box.
Once you can do that like 95 plus percent
of the time, then you want to start adding different serves to your routine.
Don't rush it.
That's usually where most people get, I think, really sidetracked.