Sandy FarquharsonFounder at The Padel School | Elevating Padel Players' Performance

🎾 Want to make your serve harder to return? Stop focusing on power!

17 Oct 2026 · 2 min

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1:33

In this instructional segment, Sandy Farquharson advises club-level tennis players to focus on serve placement rather than sheer power. He explains that many professional players, despite having powerful shots, often prioritize locating their serve within a specific area of the service box. For club players, targeting a deep spot near the side glass forces the opponent to contend with the glass, creating a difficult decision point. Farquharson recommends serving with depth of 3–4 feet from the service line combined with an angle that pushes the ball toward the glass, compelling the opponent to either play close to the glass or risk a weak return. Adding slice to the serve keeps the ball low after the bounce, further challenging the returner. He emphasizes that these tactics can be executed at a medium speed, which maintains accuracy and allows the server to recover into a good court position after the serve.

Chapters

Tip number 2 is prioritizing placement over power. Now we've discussed that earlier, but if you look at the pros, they don't smack their serve. They could do, they have absolute power when it comes to some of their shots, but their serve they are generally placing into a location on the service box. Now for you at a club level, most players find it very difficult to deal with the side glass, so if you were to play a serve that That bounces in this square here that's deep for the service line, but it's going towards the glass, it will force your opponent to play with the glass. Now, if that same angle bounces here, it often means the opponent actually can come in and avoid the glass. So you want a little bit of depth in this back 3 or 4 feet of the service box. You want it with a little bit of angle so it's going in towards the glass, or at least Challenging your opponent to make the decision. If they hesitate and they're not sure whether to use the glass, players often get stuck too close to the glass and they end up pushing the ball. So this placement in here is ideal. Now, if you can also hit slice on that ball so that when it does bounce, it hits the glass and it stays low, that can also be difficult for your opponents. But all of this can be done at a medium speed. Because at a medium speed, you can still get this accuracy, still hit with slice, still give your opponent a difficult return, and at a medium speed, you can get yourself into a good position.