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You missed the first serve. What is the second?
The second serve is not a softer serve. It is the same serve at the safest useful target: their body.
Your first serve did not land in the box. What should the second serve be?
The second serve is not a softer serve. It is the same serve at the safest useful target: their body.
Why
Because the padel serve is underarm and slow, there is very little difference in pace between a first and second serve, which means there is no reason to change anything except the target. Aim at the returner’s body: it has the largest margin for error, because you are not hitting near a line, and it is genuinely awkward to return, because the player has to make space to swing. You keep your motion, you keep your rhythm, and you still get to walk to the net.
What this means at your level
Beginner
Do not slow the swing down. A decelerating serve is the least reliable one you own: same speed, safer target.
Intermediate
Aim at the returner’s hip on their backhand side. It is the hardest place to create space from and it produces short returns.
Advanced
Use the second serve as information. If they handle the body serve well you have learned something worth more than the point, and your first serves can go wide with confidence for the rest of the match.
Common questions
Your first serve did not land in the box. What should the second serve be?
The same motion, aimed at the returner’s body. The second serve is not a softer serve. It is the same serve at the safest useful target: their body. Because the padel serve is underarm and slow, there is very little difference in pace between a first and second serve, which means there is no reason to change anything except the target. Aim at the returner’s body: it has the largest margin for error, because you are not hitting near a line, and it is genuinely awkward to return, because the player has to make space to swing. You keep your motion, you keep your rhythm, and you still get to walk to the net.
Why not the softest, safest serve you have?
A serve with no purpose is a free return. They step in, lob you comfortably, and you have lost the net before the point started.
What should a beginner do here?
Do not slow the swing down. A decelerating serve is the least reliable one you own: same speed, safer target.
How does this change for an advanced player?
Use the second serve as information. If they handle the body serve well you have learned something worth more than the point, and your first serves can go wide with confidence for the rest of the match.
Puzzles like this one
Both of them are at the net. What is the highest-percentage ball?
Only the lob moves a net pair backwards. Everything else invites them forward.
beginnerYou have served. Where do you go?
In padel you serve in order to get to the net. Serve, then go.
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.