How to serve BIG

Paul from Pickleball Daily
September 19, 2025

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Tip of the day

Improving Your Serve with Zane Navratil by The Pickleball Clinic

This video features top professional pickleball player Zane Navratil, who provides instructions on how to improve your serve and turn it into a weapon.

Zane emphasizes the importance of taking on more risk with your serve and aims for an ideal miss rate of up to 5% in most doubles games.

The primary goal of the serve should be to get good depth, aiming for the back six feet of the court, which helps keep your opponent back.

He recommends using a semi-western grip for a heavy topspin serve, as it allows you to brush off the back of the ball more effectively to generate height and depth.

For your stance, Zane suggests a closed stance where your shoulders are pointed toward your target to help with upper body rotation and consistency.

He also explains that pro players use two different types of serves to keep opponents off rhythm: a hard, flat serve and a high, heavy topspin serve.

Finally, Zane's philosophy when playing under pressure is to stick with the serve that got him to that point, rather than trying to play it safe out of fear.