Guides · Strategy
The serve and the return are the two shots every player hits in every point, and they are the two shots most players think about least. The serve feels like a formality because it is underhand; the return feels like just getting the ball back. Both are wrong. The serve decides how much time the receiver has; the return decides whether the serving team can get to the net at all. Neither is likely to win the point on its own, but either one can lose it, and together they set up everything that happens next.
Start with the two-bounce rule, because it defines the job of both shots. The serve has to bounce, and so does the return. That means the receiving team can walk up to the kitchen line after the return, while the serving team has to wait at the baseline for the third ball. So the point begins with a built-in advantage for the receivers.
Everything below follows from those two sentences.
A deep serve lands in the back third of the service box and makes the receiver hit from on or behind the baseline. From there the return has 44 feet to travel before it reaches your side, and the receiver has 37 feet to run to reach the kitchen line. That is a long way. A short serve, landing near the kitchen line, lets the receiver step in, hit from inside the court, and reach the line before you have even hit your third shot.
Depth also beats pace. A slow serve that lands a foot from the baseline is harder to attack than a fast one that lands in the middle of the box, because pace can be redirected and depth cannot. If you only improve one thing about your serve, make it land deeper.
You get one attempt. A missed serve ends the point with no rally, and in doubles it also burns one of your team’s two servers. That is a heavy price for trying to hit an ace in a sport where aces are rare. A reasonable target at recreational level is 95 percent of serves in. If you are missing more than one in twenty, slow down and aim for the middle of the box’s back third until the misses stop.
Topspin makes a serve dip and kick up off the bounce, which pushes the receiver back; slice makes it skid low. Both are useful once you can put 95 percent in play. Pace is useful in the same way, but a hard serve that lands in the middle of the box comes back just as hard. Treat spin and pace as refinements on a deep serve, never as replacements for one. The serving rules limit how you can generate spin, notably the ban on spinning the ball with your fingers as you release it.
Stand a step behind the baseline after serving, not on it. The return is coming deep, and you are not allowed to volley it. Players who creep forward after serving end up hitting the third ball off their shoelaces. Wait for the return to bounce, then hit your third, then move.
The return has the same priority as the serve: depth. A return that lands within a few feet of the serving team’s baseline keeps them back, gives them a hard ball to drop, and gives you time to reach the line. A short return lets the serving team step in and either drive a low ball at you while you are still moving or drop from much closer, which is much easier.
This surprises tennis players. A higher, slower return is often better than a hard, flat one, because the slower the ball travels, the more time you have to walk to the kitchen line. A deep, loopy return that takes two seconds to arrive is a better return than a flat drive that takes one second and lands in the middle of the court. Hit through the ball with some lift and let it carry.
The return is only half of the receiver’s job. The other half is the walk. As soon as the ball leaves your paddle, move forward to the kitchen line, and try to be set, feet still and paddle up, before the third shot is struck. If you are still moving when the third ball arrives, you will be hitting it off your feet from the transition zone, and the advantage you started with is gone. Players who hit good returns and stay at the baseline to admire them are giving away the most valuable thing the rules give them.
Serving team: both players start at the baseline. The server’s partner stands beside them, not at the line, because the return will be deep and must bounce before either of you can hit it. Stay back until the third shot is hit.
Receiving team: the receiver stands at or just behind the baseline, ready for a deep serve. The receiver’s partner stands at the kitchen line from the start. The rules only require the ball to bounce, so there is nothing stopping the non-receiving partner from already being in the best position on the court. After the return, the receiver joins them.
The singles vs doubles guide covers the serving order and the three-number score call.
In singles, there is no partner at the line, so the return needs to buy even more time. Return deep and to the corner that makes the server move furthest. On the serve, stand closer to the centreline so you can cover both sides of the return, and serve deep more than wide, because an angled return against a single player opens the whole court.
The free online pickleball game here lets you practise both shots. On the serve, A and D aim across the box and the Serve stat decides depth and how low the bounce stays. Try a match serving only to the deep middle, and another serving wide, and see which one the AI returns short. On the return, let the serve bounce, tap a soft return deep, then walk to the line with W. The game counts a volleyed serve or return as a fault, just as a referee would. The how-to-play page has the controls.
Keep going: the shot after the return is the third-shot drop, and the rule that shapes both of these shots is the two-bounce rule.