Why 90% of Players Can’t Score While Serving

To score points in pickleball, you have to be able to win while you're serving. The problem is, when you're serving, you start the point with a major disadvantage because your opponents get to move in before you do. So the reason why 90% of players struggle when they're in this situation is because they don't have a clear system to manage this disadvantage. In this video, I'm going to break down the exact system that you need to follow if you want to be able to score consistently. Let's get right into it. So the biggest thing that players get wrong when they're serving has actually nothing to do with the serve itself. It has to do with what they're doing with their positioning and their feet after they hit the serve. So watch this serve and try to figure out what I'm doing wrong. As you saw, I wasn't preparing for my third shot properly. So a big thing and a huge mistake I see players making is they're not getting in position after they hit their serve. They're sort of just lingering and they're not waiting for the ball in an athletic position. So what you're doing after your serve and what you're doing after your third shot with your feet are extremely important. Let's start with what you're doing after your serve. After I hit my serve, I want to hit the ball and immediately get square to the court, meaning I'm facing where I hit the ball. And I also want to take a quick step backwards so that I'm behind the baseline. So what does that look like? Watch my feet. I hit the ball. I'm in the court. I immediately get back so that I can prepare for my third shot. So if I'm not hitting the ball, it looks like this. I immediately get into this athletic stance. What I don't want to be doing is lingering in this area. I don't want to be standing straight up. I want to hit my serve and then get back about a foot behind the baseline in this stance so that I'm ready for the return to come. Some players hit their returns really hard. So you need to be in a good position when you're waiting for that ball to come. So in terms of what you should do from this position after you serve and you're going to the ball, you want to turn immediately. What does that look like? I hit my serve. I'm in my good position. I see I'm hitting a forehand. The first thing that I do is I turn my shoulders. Even if I'm hitting a drop, I turn my shoulders a little bit because I know I'm hitting a forehand. This is the position that I'm moving for the ball in. So you don't want to be moving for your third shot facing the court. Whether you're hitting a forehand or a backhand, you're going to immediately turn to that side and you're going to strafe around in this position with little adjustment steps. So let's put it all together. I hit my serve behind the baseline. I turn my adjustment steps and I hit my third shot drop. So what you don't want to be doing looks something like this. I hit my serve. I'm in the court, standing straight up. I don't turn quickly and I hit a bad third shot as a result. So the next aspect of your movement you have to pay attention to on your serve is what you do after you hit your third shots, your drops or drives. Usually you're hitting these from about right here. And what I see players doing wrong is they don't move the right way after they hit the ball. So the most obvious example of this is if I was to hit a high ball and run in. Obviously, I'm moving into my own demise. I'm not going to be able to react to that shot. So the first rule of thumb is that if I'm hitting a high ball from back here, usually if I'm popping up a drop or I hit a bad lob or something, I want to stay back. So if I just hit my serve and I hit a high ball, I'm going to stay back, get low and defend usually with a drop like that so I can try to move forward. So obviously our goal when we're serving is to move forward, but we can't do that if we hit a bad third shot like a lob like I just did there. So the next and most common thing that probably happens after a general third shot is you go to the yellow zone. So this is sort of the red zone where you stay on high balls. This is the yellow zone, the transition zone, which is we're trying to transition forward. So if I had a middle height ball to Drew and he's contacting around this height, maybe around the net height, I can't move all the way to the kitchen. I can get to around right here and use a reset to move forward and get into a dinking situation like this. This is the most common area you'll end up after your third shot. And it's not just on drops. Usually when you hit a drive, your opponent has sort of a mid-height ball. You don't have as much time to get in. So generally you're hitting your fifth shot or the shot after the third shot in this area too. It's very important to understand the footwork of how we do this. If I hit a mid-height ball, all I'm going to do is take a quick step in and jump straight into my split step. So what players do wrong is they maybe are moving in right, but they're just sort of moseying in like this. They don't have a wide base. So when their opponent hits the ball and goes to their sides, they lose their balance and they get tangled up and they miss like that. You have to make sure when you're going to the transition zone, yellow zone after a medium drop or a good drive, you have this wide base and you're ready to react. We're going to actually cover what you're doing on these shots later in the video. So stay tuned. In terms of when you go straight to the green zone after your third shot, well, the best example is if you have just a short drop or something, you're hitting it from shorter in the court, you can move straight in. You don't want to get caught in the transition zone. It's more just you're going there because you don't have enough time to get to the kitchen. The other instance is just where you hit a really good drop. So if I had a really good drop, I want to be moving forward immediately after I hit it so that I can get somewhere right around here before his next shot. That puts a lot of pressure on my opponent. So you have to make sure if you're hitting a drop, you can't wait and see if it's good. If you see it's good, you better be moving it right after you hit it. Because watch, if I say I'm going to wait, well, I'm only going to end up in the transition zone. So if you feel like you're going to hit a really good drop, you need to just kind of already be moving in as you're hitting the ball. And if you don't do a good job, by all means, you can totally stop in this transition zone. You just have to have the mindset that it's going to be good so you can make it here in time for their next shot. The next thing that really messes up players when they're serving is they go for the wrong third shot at the wrong time. So to go over what our third shots are, first, we have the drop where I'm hitting the ball softly into the kitchen so I can move forward and my opponent has to hit up on the ball. And our other main option on a third shot is the drive where I'm using power to try and win the point like I did there. So those are our main two options. There's also hybrids, which I might cover a little bit at the end of the video. But in terms of when to decide to use a drop or a drive, it seems like a simple decision because there's only two main options. There's actually a lot you need to be thinking about when you choose to do one of these third shots. Now, guys, I'm going to give you an exact formula you can follow that tells you which third shot to choose and when. This is an exact formula, so make sure you remember it. The first part of the formula is that if you get a short high return, you should generally go for a drive. So if I get a short, easy return here, I'd want to use power because I'm closer to my opponent and I have a better angle over the net. So if they ever pop the ball up on the return, usually here, and I say usually because it's not 100% of the time, but usually you're going to want to go for an aggressive drive and then crash into the kitchen after you hit that ball. Next part of the formula is on more awkward returns or more neutral balls. Usually you're better off here going for a drop. That was sort of just a normal return. I didn't have the best angle over the net for a drive there. I'm usually going to be better off going for a drop. So drops are better for more normal returns. You want to be using drops most of the time. So that's kind of like 50% of the returns are going to be in that sort of realm of being a neutral ball, not too crazy, not too hard. There you want to be going for mostly drops. The next part of this formula is a little bit personal and it's that if you ever get a return that's too hard to go for a drop on, meaning you just don't have enough control, you can do what we call a defensive drive, which is sort of what I did there. So Drew hit that return really hard and I didn't have enough control to hit my drops because I was going to pop it up too high. In that situation, you can go for your defensive drive and then try to hit a better drop on the next ball. Usually after the defensive drive, you're probably not going to be moving in that much. You're more so just using it to get an easier shot on the next one that you can move forward on. Here's another example of a defensive drive. Drew hits a really hard return. I'm sort of on my back foot. I hit it nice and low. See, I missed that shot, but there I could have hit a drop and move forward. So I use that drive to get an easier shot. Can't really do too much on a good drive. And then I try to drop and move forward. So it's a great combination if they're hitting hard returns and you don't have enough control on your drops. And it's personal because not every player is going to lose control on their drop from the ball slightly harder. But if you're the type of player that does, you can use this more often. So the last part of the formula is that on emergency shots. So if I'm really stretched out, usually here you want to go for higher, more defensive drops or even occasionally lobs. So if I hit a serve and I just get super stretched on the next shot, maybe I'm not ready for it. I can go for a higher, slightly more defensive drop because I don't want to miss this shot. So if I go maybe for my normal drop, I might miss it in the net. If I give it a little bit of extra height, sure my opponent has an easier shot, but I'm staying in the point. All I want to do is stay in the point. So if you're ever really stretched, maybe be out wide, maybe you're on your back foot, go for a higher drop or a lob. Just keep yourself in the point. Higher drops definitely better than a lob, but a lob can be your last resort sort of strategy so that you stay in the point because you never know, they might just miss it. They might give you an opportunity on the next ball to hit a good drop that you can move forward on. If you guys are looking for an easy way to improve your game for the New York, I highly recommend upgrading to a better paddle like our new one, the Duo. This is voted one of the best foam paddles on the market. One of the reviewers actually said it's their favorite paddle on the market in 2025. So if you want a paddle that's going to take your game to the next level, give you more power and more spin, highly recommend checking out ours, the Duo. It's actually really affordable too for how good it is. It's over $100 cheaper than some of the top tier paddles on the market. So you're getting a crazy bargain with an awesome paddle that's made of foam, which is more durable and it's going to last you longer. So a lot of these Gen 3 paddles or paddles that have honeycomb fall apart really fast. This paddle is made with foam and it'll last you a super long time. So you're getting a high performing paddle that's not going to fall apart. If you want one of these, head to our site now and use code HOLIDAYS. It gives you a crazy discount. The next thing that you have to understand to score more on your serve is how to play in the transition zone. This is the area where most of the serving points will end for you because generally you move up, you give your opponents a high ball, they crush right at your feet and the point is over. Maybe you popped it up because they went at your feet. What you need to do here is you need to be a master of the reset. So generally in this area, you're not attacking. There are some attacking players that I'll show you in a little. Usually you want to be using the reset, meaning you're kind of hitting like a dink or a drop into the kitchen, but from this area. But a lot of the time, your opponent is going right at your feet, trying to make you miss like I just did there. So the best players that score the most points on their serve are master resetters. What they do is they hit a good reset and then they immediately move in and get into a dinking situation. So the steps to hitting a good reset start with our feet. So remember what I said earlier, when you get to the transition zone, you jump straight into this stance. So it starts like this. If you're standing up, you can stay to the point lost. You're going to lose your balance and you're going to pop the ball up. So if you're right here, you want to be starting just like this and you need to be in this position before your opponent hits the ball. So you need to jump into this stance right before your opponent hits the ball like this, right? Because if I'm jumping into it after, I'm going to be in the air as the ball is coming towards me. And from here, I don't really want to be doing too much stepping, right? So I'm sort of just shuffling like this to get my paddle in position to hit the ball. I'm worried about covering my half of the court. Your partner should be doing the same thing on their half of the court. And the next thing is that you want your paddle to be low because you know he's trying to go at your feet. If there's a good player, he's trying to go right at your feet and try to get you to give him a pop up. So I'm in my athletic stance. My paddle's low. And if he's moving me side to side, I'm sort of just shuffling and lunging. So I can actually get to most of my shots with these sort of lunging steps. And all I'm trying to do is get that ball in the kitchen. So my paddle's high. I need to bring it down, then hit the ball. And if he ends up hitting it high, it's pretty easy to bring the paddle up and hit a reset from a higher position. So you need to have this stance when you're up here, the low paddle, the wide base, that's going to make you infinitely better at hitting the reset. Next thing that will make you better at the reset is of course, practice. Obviously, a lot of the time on this channel, I'm talking about all the technique and stuff. You need to make sure you practice the shot because it does take a lot of feel to be able to slow down fast balls. If I don't do enough practice, I'm just going to be popping it up like that, right? So you need to make sure you go out and you do a drill like this where you have your partner hitting it right at your feet. And all you're trying to do is get it to land in the kitchen like this. So this is a good drill to master the reset. You're not going to get this shot overnight if you don't have it. So you need to practice it while using these proper techniques that I'm showing you. So most of the time in the transition zone, 80% of the time you want to be using your resets. But by all means, if your opponent gives you a floater, you should attack because paddles these days are super powerful. You can occasionally go for an attack like I just did there and surprise your opponent. So a lot of the time, we're not following any of the rules that I just went over because we want to surprise our opponent. Occasionally, it's okay to deviate from hitting a reset and go for attack if you feel like you have the right ball. Same goes for our drops in the back of the court. Don't be afraid to surprise your opponent with an attack every once in a while. Keep them honest. Thank you so much for watching, guys. It'd be really helpful to us if you could subscribe to our channel because right now we're trying to become the first Pickleball channel in history to reach 300,000 subscribers. So make sure to subscribe if you enjoyed the video. I guarantee if you follow the system that we just went over, you're going to win drastically more points on your serve. But there was one missing piece, the serve itself. So if you want to watch a video that gives you more power on your serve and a harder serve to return, watch this.