Transcription
That's a really good question. If you're over 50 and want to learn one shot that'll really improve your play, stick around.
This question comes from Ralph. Ralph's a 58-year-old pickle ball player, been playing a little over three years, but he finds that it's still too easy for his opponents to attack him and score points on him early. What I'm going to share with you in this video is a shot that will help Ralph and you reduce the number of points that you're giving away and make it much harder for your opponents to beat you.
What I'm going to do in this coaching lesson is first I'm going to show you the shot and then I'm going to show you three reasons why improving this one shot will really improve your play. Now, this video is specifically designed for 50 plus players. I myself am a 55-year-old pickle ball player. I play senior professional pickle ball and I'm also a master teaching professional. So the shot I'm going to teach you here is a shot that I know works both in my game and in the games of the students who I've worked with. And what we're doing is we're using our noggin. We're using our pickle ball IQ to play better and stay competitive.
As we dive into the video, take a moment here and let me know in the comments what shot you think is the most important shot. What shot would have the biggest impact on your game. Is it a roll volley? Is it a hard serve? Is it knowing exactly what to do when you're pull wide on that dink? Or is it another shot?
The way we like to make every decision at the Better Pickle Ball Academy is based on its consequential impact to your game. Think of the shots we just went over. Roll volley, hard serve, pulled wide dink. How often are those available to you during a game? How how frequent are those happening? And what's the impact of improving those shots? Now, compare that to the shot that I'm going to focus on in this video, which is your return of serve. How often are you hitting your return of serve? And how impactful is that return of serve to your game? The answer to the first question, you should know. You hit it all the time. The answer to the second question, you'll know by the end of this video.
All right. But if you're still with me, then you're ready to go deeper in the sport of pickle ball. The return of serve is not a sexy shot. That is why you don't see a lot of YouTube videos promoting it. You don't hear about it a lot, but it is by far the most important shot that you hit when you play pickle ball. Understanding how it impacts your play allows you to then focus your time and energy on this critical shot. And this is a different way of thinking about the sport. It allows you to make better decisions to then improve your play because you understand what's going on.
So, here's how you're going to hit your returner serve in the future to have a better return of serve. Number one, you're going to hit it deep and number two, you're going to hit it clearly over the net with some nice net clearance. The depth of your return of serve should be towards the back of the court. You want to get away from hitting short returns of serve that are allowing your opponents to attack you early and not giving you the time that you need to get to the non zone line. So, if you can aim about 4 foot from the baseline on your return of serve, it's going to be a great spot for you to hit your return of serve deep.
The second characteristic to your return of serve is height over the net. No more skimming the net with your return of serve. That's not doing you any favors. You're going to aim your return of serve higher over the net. That'll do two things for you. Number one, it'll take the net out of play, less mistakes. And number two, it'll naturally get your return a serve to go deeper using the same amount of force or what we refer to inside our Better Pickball Academy as energy of the shot.
All right. So, what are the benefits of hitting a consistently deep return of serve? Why is this such a big deal? Number one is because your primary objective after return serve is to make it from the baseline all the way up to the nonvi zone line before you have to hit the fourth. Hitting a consistently deeper turn of serve will allow you the time that you need to get from there to here before the fourth. One of the most common errors that we see out on the court is pickle ball players getting stuck in this transition zone on the return side. You should almost never get stuck in the transition zone on the return side. And a deep return of serve allows you the time to get up, particularly as we age. Once we're over 50, we're going to be a little bit slower than we were when we were 25 or 30 or 35. So, the additional time to get from there to here is provided to us by what? A consistently deep return of serve.
As we look at benefits two and three of a deep return of serve, understand that what we're doing here is a much different approach than what you may be used to in other types of coaching. Here, what we're doing is we're actually going deep on the subject so that you understand what's going on and the benefits in a practical way that will actually improve your play. If you like this kind of training, join us inside the Better Pickle Ball Academy. There's never been a better time. We have a 50 plus Better Pickle Ball Academy designed by coaches over 50 who understand what it takes to play your best.
I'm going to bet that benefit number two is going to be your favorite benefit of a consistently deep return of serve. And that benefit is not getting attacked early in rallies. If you're getting attacked early in rallies, your opponents are coming in and just hammering you with balls. More often than not, it's because of a short return of serve. When you hit a consistently deep return of serve, you reduce the pressure that you and your partner will be under at your fourth shot. So, hit a consistently deeper return of serve to avoid getting attacked early in the rally.
The third benefit of a consistently deep return of serve is that you make it much harder for your opponents to handle the serve side. For this illustration, pretend that I am on the serve team. Ask yourself this question. Where do you want me to hit my third shot from? Do you want me to hit it from back here, a different time zone against the wall, or do you want me to hit my third shot from somewhere up in here? Hopefully your answer is you want me all the way back there. You have control over that. The way you control it, a consistently deep return of serve. Improve this one shot that rules them all and you'll really see improvements in your play. I'm going to put a link up here to the Better Pickle Ball Academy and I hope to see you there.