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The serve is coming into your hip. How do you return it?
Body serve: step back and across to create room, then lob deep. The cramped drive is what they want.
A sliced serve is curving into your body, at the hip on the racket side. What is the best return?
Body serve: step back and across to create room, then lob deep. The cramped drive is what they want.
Why
The body serve works by taking away your swing. The instinct to hit it hard produces a cramped, jammed shot that goes into the net or straight to the server's partner. The correct response is footwork: a quick step back and across, away from the ball, to create enough room to get the racket under it, and then a controlled deep lob. It will not be the best lob you hit all day, but it will be in and deep, and that is the point. The serve was designed to make you do something ambitious from a bad position.
What this means at your level
Beginner
When the serve comes at your body, step back and to the side to make room, then lob it high and deep.
Intermediate
Pre-empt it: against a server who likes the body serve, start a half-step further back so the step across is easier.
Advanced
A body serve that lands short can be taken with a compact backhand drive at the incoming server's feet, but only when it is short. Deep body serves are lobbed.
Common questions
A sliced serve is curving into your body, at the hip on the racket side. What is the best return?
Step back and across, then lob deep. Body serve: step back and across to create room, then lob deep. The cramped drive is what they want. The body serve works by taking away your swing. The instinct to hit it hard produces a cramped, jammed shot that goes into the net or straight to the server's partner. The correct response is footwork: a quick step back and across, away from the ball, to create enough room to get the racket under it, and then a controlled deep lob. It will not be the best lob you hit all day, but it will be in and deep, and that is the point. The serve was designed to make you do something ambitious from a bad position.
Why not block it hard with a backhand, straight back?
A hard block on a serve at the hip goes into the net or straight to the net player. Make room and lift.
What should a beginner do here?
When the serve comes at your body, step back and to the side to make room, then lob it high and deep.
How does this change for an advanced player?
A body serve that lands short can be taken with a compact backhand drive at the incoming server's feet, but only when it is short. Deep body serves are lobbed.
Puzzles like this one
The ball is coming off the back glass. When do you hit it?
Move back with the ball, let it pass you, hit it in front of your body.
intermediateWhat do you do with the return of serve?
The return lob is how the receiving pair steals the net. Aim over the player who is still moving.
beginnerCan you volley the return of serve?
The return of serve must bounce. It is the one ball in padel you are not allowed to volley.