Sandy Farquharson breaks down why padel serves fail at club level. Two main mistakes: rushing to the service line without a plan, and hitting hard forehands that bounce predictably off the glass. Effective serves rely on placement and spin, not power, to give you time to reach the net.
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Is your serve getting attacked and you're finding you are losing service games? Most players think that the serve is just to start the point, but the pros know it is the start to setting up the point for success. In this video, we're going to go through 4 areas that you can improve your serve to make it more like the pros. There are a couple of main problems with club players and their serve. Problem number 1 is they step up to the line and they don't even think about what they're going to do with their serve. They just get the point started, they rush, they half volley and push it in to the other side of the court. and their opponent gets comfortable. They attack that ball and immediately the server is defending from the net position. Problem number 2, and this is for a slightly higher level of player, they are now more thoughtful about their serve. They know that they need to hit a good serve, but they are trying to hit the ball so hard. They step up and they give it a drive forehand smack in order to hit a winner past their opponents, and their opponent just gets used to the rebound. It might work at the beginning once or twice, but as soon as your opponent understands the rebound, will be comfortable with that serve and put you right back under pressure. Due to the rules in padel, you are much more likely to be effective with your serve when there is placement, there's accuracy, consistency, there's a bit of spin on the ball, you've got some good depth, rather than thinking about power. Power will likely mean you have less time to get to net, and it also will mean there's likely be an easier rebound off the glass for your opponents.
