The big drive serve is impressive. The more power someone has the bigger the fear on the drive serve. But if you don’t have the big boomer, what then? What about cleverating your serve? Why not develop the knuckleball of drive serves? When you create a slow drive serve and learn to hit it at three speeds, slow, slower and slowest, you will frustrate opponents. Slow serves expose poor footwork. Since most players have poor footwork, the slow serve is very effective. You do not have to be a pro to hit a good slow drive serve. If you do not know what that looks like, check out any senior draw at the US Open. We have some great servers in the USA but check out some pros also.
I am coaching this athlete who is recovering from major surgery. They are trying to hit a traditional two step drive serve. Since they are in age division play, and they have physical limitations in their training, I opted to introduce the “geezer serve”! The recipe is below.
Take one drive serve and experiment with moving the ball back more on the drop. Keep the drop in one spot. Then, violate every rule in racquetball by hitting the ball there and forcing it out along your forehand side and into the wall. This will cause the ball to “squeegie” along the wall in weird ways.
Next, take the same motion used to hit that serve and drop the ball in the same spot but hit it to your backhand side. The softer you hit it the better.
Simmer over hours of practice until it passes the “smell” test. When it smells right your cleverated serve is all cooked up.
Let cool and serve over a tournament platter to an unsuspecting opponent.