Also known as the “Power Serve” or “Hard Serve”, the drive serve is a low, hard serve. This is used to put pressure on your opponent to make an accurate return more difficult. It’s a hard-hit ball with a low trajectory usually hit to the backhand corner of the receiver box.
As with all serves, the drive serve should be just one serve in your arsenal. But it’s a great one to have IN your arsenal.
Why Use the Drive Serve?
The drive serve is hit harder/faster than other serves. This provides your opponent less time to react. and is a good serve to use to try to keep your opponent on their toes.
When to use the Drive Serve?
Use the drive serve as often as you’d like! It’s a solid serve that does a good job of keeping your opponent on their toes! There are enough ways to vary the drive serve (spin, speed, placement…etc).
When NOT to use the Drive Serve?
Because of the speed of the serve, your opponent can simply block the ball back to you. They don’t need to put their own force/energy into the return. This means, it won’t wear them down as much over time. Hard, low shots are often good to use. They’re often blocked into the air, missed, or hit inaccurately back. BUT, on a serve, there are a few things that make a drive less effective (notice, I didn’t say “not” effective”).
If you can’t get it in 95% (or more) of the time, don’t bother using it. It’s MUCH more important to serve IN than it is to try to power a serve.
On a serve, your opponent has MUCH more time to react – the ball is traveling the entire length of the court before it reaches them. That’s usually not enough to make someone miss, and may only SLIGHTLY affect their return.
Even if your opponent hits a less-than-accurate return, you still need to let it bounce anyway. During a point, if a ball gets popped up, you can kill it, and likely win the point. But if they pop up the return with any distance, they simply get to the net, and wait calmly for whatever you hit back.
So, while it feels great sometimes to hit the ball hard, and the drive serve is definitely something to use, don’t think of it as a kill shot. It’s not going to finish the point, no matter how hard you hit it.
Get it IN!
I want to reiterate: there is NO reason to do a drive serve if you can’t get it IN at least 95% of the time. Your first and by-far most important goal is just to get the ball in. Too many players think hitting a hard serve is “cool” or expect to ace their opponent, but they don’t pay attention to their success percentage, and often hit 10% or more of their serves wide, long, or even into the net.
Change it up!
It’s never a good idea to hit the same serve every time. If you really like the drive serve, try mixing it up by serving a few to your opponent’s forehand, by putting different spin or angle on it…etc. Just make sure to keep them guessing! You’ll lose much of the benefit of a drive serve if you hit it with the same speed and to the same location every serve.
Spin on a Drive Serve?
Yep. Spin. The drive serve is a powerful serve to have in your arsenal anyway, but if you’re able to put spin on it as well, it can be just wicked. Top spin can be put on the ball by lifting your paddle just as you contact the ball, and is probably the most common spin put on a drive serve. Side spin can be applied by twisting your wrist at the point of contact, and although it can be difficult to return, it also usually loses some power and is much more difficult to maintain your accuracy.
Thoughts?
Do you love the drive serve? Hate the drive serve? Rather the lob serve? Have any other use or don’t-use scenarios? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
