Finally somone explicitly addresses the difference between ppa and rec (usap) usap rules. Great content! Now youbshiuld link them to zanes riduclous in court step off serve to re confuse them
That was the best explanation of the serve rule i have seen on the internet. But I do have a question for you: The rules states the serve "can't make contact with the ball "above" the "waist"". The best I can find on the internet is that the waist is area between the iliac crest and the lowest rib. The mid point of those two bone is the waist line. The navel is about 1 inch below the waist line. So it would make sense to me that the ball cannot be hit (the exact initial contact point on the ball) above the lowest rib. Further more, if your body is tilted, it would have to be contacted above the highest of the lower ribs to be illegal. If this sound reasonable, then the navel can be completely removed from the equation. Of course we can use the naval as a marker for the lowest rib (the highest-lowest rib). What are your thoughts?
Really? I'm familiar with the rules and don't ever remember reading about the naval. Can you specifically state the rule that says that or the page # or any portion of the rules that refer to the naval......I'm waiting. And thanks very much for the reply.
I don’t know. I know that it specified the waist as the belly button in the USAP rules back in like 2020 I want to say. They took it out, so now everyone just assumes belly button cause it is not clarified.
Wow! Pickleball Playbook.......You the Man! You are the only one to tell me where the "navel" wording came from with respect to the serve rule. The 2020 USA Pickleball rules define the "waste" as "navel level". However the "navel" wording was removed in the 2021 USA/IFP rule book. Not sure why they made it less specific, but thanks for the info. I only started playing Pickleball in 2022, so I missed the 2020 rules and never thought to look back. Now I know why some people reference the navel. Just for that, I'm going to subscribe to your cannel.......I don't do that too often. Thanks for the help.
I don’t know why the serve in pickleball has to be so complicated. Fist of all with all things being equal the serve is not really a weapon that you can win points easily like in tennis. Now bear in mind I am talking about serves used by same type players in skills and abilities. For example a 25 year old playing a 50 year old could probably get more free points with the serve. The swing motion requirements with where the ball has to be hit and the location of the paddle relative to the fingers or whatever just complicates the game
It definitely didn't used to be a weapon, but as time goes on it is slowly turning into one. James Ignatowich just barely played in the finals with Matt Wright and had 4 aces per game (aces being the opponent missed the return). Give it a few more years and people will be hitting very aggressive serves, even in the amateur level IMO.
PB needs to rule out players who have serves that are meant to deceive or look tricky. Like letting the ball bounce twice before hitting. Also I've seen where they drop, then grab, then hit from hand. Clearly those are weird and not natural-looking. Baseball has their own rules to prevent pitchers from trying to trick batters, PB needs to have the same thing
#1 looks okay, but volley serves are really hard to tell, so I could be wrong: I think #2 is illegal because his arm has upward momentum and there’s a slight toss when he serves? The third one looks good except I’m not sure if you’re allowed to get onto your tiptoes before the drop. Pretty sure about 2 being illegal for ppa, but not sure on the others
Thank you for the concise info on serve.... but i just saw a Rec tournament 4.0 using a backhand volley serve..... is that legal???? Again Thanks... I;m still learning and enjoying the sport. 72 yrs young.... Vince
Great video which pretty much clarifies all the confusion. I wish you had mentioned not to intentionally spin the ball while tossing. I will save it for future reference.
To address jumboC1957. The Rules are not clear as to what is meant by the "Arm" moving in an upward arc. But first, just because you have sideways arc, is not illegal, as long as you have some upward arc along with the sideways arc. That said, I think Pickleball Playbook was correct. The issue I have with the rules is: Is the "arm" the part of the body between the shoulder and the elbow (it is). The forearm is the part of your body between your elbow and your wrist.... So do the rules mean 1) the part between the shoulder and the elbow or 2) your entire arm (as most people refer to)? In case 1, as long has you are hitting the ball so your elbow is in front of your shoulder, you have to be arcing your arm upward. But the rule book has an arced arrow by the paddle. To me, that implies the paddle is to be arced upward. So to me, the picture in the rule book does not match the wording. I go with the wording over the pictures, but who am I. The rule needs more clarification.
It’s funny cause the only serve that’s actually fair is the drop serve cause as outlined in the video, it can’t bounce higher than your belly button, or even close
@@pickleballplaybook agreed. Plus, if people are serving improperly and you try to correct them, you just get dirty looks and eye rolls. I once tried to tell someone that they were serving too wide and my partner even got annoyed. First and last time I bother correcting someone’s serve. Basically, drop serve is super easy to enforce and you don’t need instant replay to keep people honest
@@pickleballplaybook In all fairness; he’s left eye-dominant, and solved his cross-dominance issue with this unorthodox fashion but yeah 👍 it flirts constantly with illegality 😂 Like a friend that lives close to drug dealers so he thinks he’s gangster too!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
ALL the rules even PPA rules the motion low to up ONLY applies to POINT OF CONTACT. You could make a high to low motion and still be legal. As long as you went below the ball with you high to low backswing but taps long as shit then come UP a low to high at point of contact it is legal. You can also then go straight arose your body AFTER contact and it’s is still a Leah Al serve. All the rules in the rule book relating to volley serves all include the words IT POINT OF CONTACT. So many people call serves illegal because they can’t actually see whe. You serve hard (and your moving fast) where the point of contact position was. So if you start with your paddle high the swing ina c shape what they see is you swinging high to low but your actually swinging down below the ball THEN coming UP low to high. Or and then the see you finish your swing over your shoulder and claim you hit the ball above your waist. What is really wrong is they have no clue about what is actually happening. Because what I just described is a perfectly LEGAL top spin serve. And they could see that by the flight of the ball. As I need to come UP on the ball to make it go UP over the net so point of contact must be made low to high or the ball would go into the net. So if your opponent is hitting the ball with an upward arc they hit it low to high so stop complaining it’s illegal. Second to get tip spin the tip of my paddle also must be below my wrist so as I make contact it is moving low to high to impart the top spin To make the ball drop back down after going up and over the net. So again the flight of the ball should be telling you it’s a legal serve as the technic required to hit an effective top spin serve will lead to a legal serve. As long of course as they are not hitting it above their waist (but actually too high would make it very awkward to hit and still get that upward and down across to the ball. So instead watch the flight of the ball it’s a dead give away if the arc is low to high the down it’s probably a legal serve. If the flight lock line drive from high to low (and some how they got it over the net.) probably a illegal serve because they would have to make contact above their waist to get it over the net to have a straight high to low path. If the flight of the ball is low up and over arc it’s legal. EXCEPT one rule the imparting spin before contact with any part of the body. THAT a would like spinning the ball with your hand or against your body and drop hand. That is illegal. BUT… any spin you’re imparting WITH THE PADDLE is legal and this again is confusing to morons who can’t actually read the rules and understand them. They see a spin on the ball when they try and return the serve and say it illegal as the spin serve is illegal. BUT that is just their WRONG interpretation of the term spin serve. It spinning the ball with your HAND on your toss that is illegal. Also people call the screw ball serve illegal becuase to them your swinging a cross your body from high to low. BUT…, it is NOT illegal as the rules say AT POINT OF CONTACT. And to actual hit a screw ball serve and get it up and over the net you are also coming up on the ball at the point of contact as the paddle moves across the ball, they is actually two movements happening the key is at point of contact you are going low to high. The proof (as with out a slow motion video most people can not see point of contact) is in the flight of the ball yes the flight has a curve left to right but it is also going up low to high over the net so yes it was hit low to high as the ONLY away to get a ball up and over and have a low to high arc is if you hit it legally with a low to high motion at point of contact. It’s physics people and the flight of the ball is proof it’s a legal serve. You don’t need a slow motion camera just watch the flight of the ball. The other rules are simple feet behind the line AT POINT OF CONTACT this is NOT like the kitchen line rule you CAN step in on your follow threw on a serve you can not step into the kitchen on your follow threw on a volley. So many people confess this rule also saying if you step over the base line as you serve it’s illegal. Again IT IS NOT it’s legal ona serve . The fact it’s most people at rec level ONLY a complain about Serves being illegal is when they can’t return them. They see spin on the ball as it bounces and say you’re cheating. They see you biting hard serves that are not going out and assume your hits g above your waist. As to them they can’t see point of contact your your finishing your follow threw high and start your back swing high and they say it’s an illegal serve. (Mostly because they can’t return it). So just avoid all that and just use a drop serve and not a volley serve ALL THE RULES about tip below your wrist and contact below your waist do not apply to drop serves. The only rule is you must drop not throw the ball down to bounce. As a pickle ball dropped will not CAN NOT bounce above your waist so it will be legal. And they can’t complain when you smash them with a top spin serve right at the base line T they can’t get to because they are so afraid of hitting a back hand return they stand way on the other side so every shot will be on their forehand. (That is ever shot but your screw ball that bounces on the side line and they goes off the side of the courts to their back hand they also can’t return so they call it illegal
@@pickleballplaybook i played tennis competitively for 11 years and have been following it for 20+ years. No changes to actual gameplay. Only changes to hawkeye and challenges. A sport that needs to keep changing its rules has badly designed mechanics which then needs constant changing to alleviate said bad design
I have played tennis my entire life. 26 years. Tennis has had lots of changes. Such as time to serve between points has been changed to 25 seconds. There’s lots of changes in every sport, just not physical changes like pickleball is seeing regularly.
@@pickleballplaybook brother, if time between serving is the only thing you can come up with, then you and I both know the rules have barely changed. You really have to dig deep to find changes, and they can hardly be classified as changes. Let's be honest here. The constant physical changes reveal a weakness in pickleball design. It's ridiculous regardless of how whether you've played tennis for 25 years, or 200 years
All these different serve rules are a detriment to the game, and to new players. I am not here to promote any other sport, but to have some serves legal for non pros, but illegal for pros is a great part of what creates the confusion. Tennis doesn't have this, why pickleball? Most everything else about the game is straightforward, but there should be a way to simplify things without having to worry about my navel, how high my paddle is in relation to my wrist etc.
4.A.7.a The server’s arm must be moving in an upward arc at the time the ball is struck with the paddle. It sounded like you were saying that as long as you finished with the paddle higher then when you started it was o.k. to hit the ball while moving the paddle sideways. If that was what you meant then it is not right. I will say that if you are keeping the paddle below your wrist like you are supposed to it is pretty hard to due, but I guess with practice…
So what I’m saying is if you start below your belly button and finish above your shoulder, you had to have been going low to high prior to contact with the volley serve. Hopefully that makes sense!
Just starting to love this game and they’re tryn ruin it already. It’s pickleball it’s supposed to be fun, very few serves are unreturnable. If it ain’t broke…
Finally somone explicitly addresses the difference between ppa and rec (usap) usap rules. Great content! Now youbshiuld link them to zanes riduclous in court step off serve to re confuse them
Haha glad you enjoyed! Hopefully everyone watches this cause there is way to much false information
That was the best explanation of the serve rule i have seen on the internet. But I do have a question for you: The rules states the serve "can't make contact with the ball "above" the "waist"". The best I can find on the internet is that the waist is area between the iliac crest and the lowest rib. The mid point of those two bone is the waist line. The navel is about 1 inch below the waist line. So it would make sense to me that the ball cannot be hit (the exact initial contact point on the ball) above the lowest rib. Further more, if your body is tilted, it would have to be contacted above the highest of the lower ribs to be illegal. If this sound reasonable, then the navel can be completely removed from the equation. Of course we can use the naval as a marker for the lowest rib (the highest-lowest rib). What are your thoughts?
Hi! Great question. The rules specifically state waist as being the navel 👍
Really? I'm familiar with the rules and don't ever remember reading about the naval. Can you specifically state the rule that says that or the page # or any portion of the rules that refer to the naval......I'm waiting. And thanks very much for the reply.
I don’t know. I know that it specified the waist as the belly button in the USAP rules back in like 2020 I want to say. They took it out, so now everyone just assumes belly button cause it is not clarified.
Wow! Pickleball Playbook.......You the Man! You are the only one to tell me where the "navel" wording came from with respect to the serve rule. The 2020 USA Pickleball rules define the "waste" as "navel level". However the "navel" wording was removed in the 2021 USA/IFP rule book. Not sure why they made it less specific, but thanks for the info. I only started playing Pickleball in 2022, so I missed the 2020 rules and never thought to look back. Now I know why some people reference the navel. Just for that, I'm going to subscribe to your cannel.......I don't do that too often. Thanks for the help.
Glad it was helpful!
I facilitate several drop-ins. So many people starting rumours that only the ppa style serve is legal now.
Yeah it’s crazy! It all stems from content creators trying to get clicks and saying it’s illegal
EXCELLENT VIDEO!
Thank you! 🙏
I don’t know why the serve in pickleball has to be so complicated. Fist of all with all things being equal the serve is not really a weapon that you can win points easily like in tennis. Now bear in mind I am talking about serves used by same type players in skills and abilities. For example a 25 year old playing a 50 year old could probably get more free points with the serve. The swing motion requirements with where the ball has to be hit and the location of the paddle relative to the fingers or whatever just complicates the game
It definitely didn't used to be a weapon, but as time goes on it is slowly turning into one. James Ignatowich just barely played in the finals with Matt Wright and had 4 aces per game (aces being the opponent missed the return). Give it a few more years and people will be hitting very aggressive serves, even in the amateur level IMO.
Agreed.
1) Legal
2) Illegal (can't move your drop hand up as you drop)
3) Legal (drop serves can be dropped from any height)
All legal 👍
I see you watched the video ❤️
what happens if you miss the ball on your serve and don't make any contact with your paddle? is it a redo?
Yes 🙌
PB needs to rule out players who have serves that are meant to deceive or look tricky. Like letting the ball bounce twice before hitting. Also I've seen where they drop, then grab, then hit from hand. Clearly those are weird and not natural-looking. Baseball has their own rules to prevent pitchers from trying to trick batters, PB needs to have the same thing
You can’t do a drop serve in the PPA. Only volley serve. They haven’t allowed drop serves in the PPA ever
#1 looks okay, but volley serves are really hard to tell, so I could be wrong: I think #2 is illegal because his arm has upward momentum and there’s a slight toss when he serves? The third one looks good except I’m not sure if you’re allowed to get onto your tiptoes before the drop.
Pretty sure about 2 being illegal for ppa, but not sure on the others
Hopefully your answers changed after watching the video 😊
How about stepping in when serving, is it legal?
Yes. One foot has to be down behind the baseline but the other can be doing anything
@@pickleballplaybook the other foot cannot be in contact within the court at the time of impact with the ball.
Correct 👍
Thank you for the concise info on serve.... but i just saw a Rec tournament 4.0 using a backhand volley serve..... is that legal???? Again Thanks... I;m still learning and enjoying the sport. 72 yrs young.... Vince
Yes it is 🙌
Great video which pretty much clarifies all the confusion. I wish you had mentioned not to intentionally spin the ball while tossing. I will save it for future reference.
🙌 that goes without saying. If people are going to cheat, they’re going to cheat unfortunately 👊
Glad this helped!
@@pickleballplaybook Wait, is that illegal? You didn't mention that... I'm watching this video because I don't wanna cheat!
To address jumboC1957. The Rules are not clear as to what is meant by the "Arm" moving in an upward arc. But first, just because you have sideways arc, is not illegal, as long as you have some upward arc along with the sideways arc. That said, I think Pickleball Playbook was correct. The issue I have with the rules is: Is the "arm" the part of the body between the shoulder and the elbow (it is). The forearm is the part of your body between your elbow and your wrist.... So do the rules mean 1) the part between the shoulder and the elbow or 2) your entire arm (as most people refer to)? In case 1, as long has you are hitting the ball so your elbow is in front of your shoulder, you have to be arcing your arm upward. But the rule book has an arced arrow by the paddle. To me, that implies the paddle is to be arced upward. So to me, the picture in the rule book does not match the wording. I go with the wording over the pictures, but who am I. The rule needs more clarification.
True. I think it comes down to the drop serve only. What do you think?
According to the new PPA rule serve #2 is illegal but not for amateurs.
The ppa also doesn’t allow pros to drop serve. So serve 3 is also illegal for pros, but not for everyone else👍
@@pickleballplaybookreally?! What’s up with that?
It’s funny cause the only serve that’s actually fair is the drop serve cause as outlined in the video, it can’t bounce higher than your belly button, or even close
@@pickleballplaybook agreed. Plus, if people are serving improperly and you try to correct them, you just get dirty looks and eye rolls. I once tried to tell someone that they were serving too wide and my partner even got annoyed. First and last time I bother correcting someone’s serve.
Basically, drop serve is super easy to enforce and you don’t need instant replay to keep people honest
Exactly! Fingers crossed 🤞
So, I’m watching Dekel Bar tossing up the BALL!! 🤷♂️
His serves illegal
@@pickleballplaybook In all fairness; he’s left eye-dominant, and solved his cross-dominance issue with this unorthodox fashion but yeah 👍 it flirts constantly with illegality 😂 Like a friend that lives close to drug dealers so he thinks he’s gangster too!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Is this all still true? I’ve heard you can’t toss at all
You can toss unless you’re a pro! Hope that helps
ALL the rules even PPA rules the motion low to up ONLY applies to POINT OF CONTACT. You could make a high to low motion and still be legal. As long as you went below the ball with you high to low backswing but taps long as shit then come UP a low to high at point of contact it is legal. You can also then go straight arose your body AFTER contact and it’s is still a Leah Al serve. All the rules in the rule book relating to volley serves all include the words IT POINT OF CONTACT. So many people call serves illegal because they can’t actually see whe. You serve hard (and your moving fast) where the point of contact position was. So if you start with your paddle high the swing ina c shape what they see is you swinging high to low but your actually swinging down below the ball THEN coming UP low to high. Or and then the see you finish your swing over your shoulder and claim you hit the ball above your waist. What is really wrong is they have no clue about what is actually happening. Because what I just described is a perfectly LEGAL top spin serve. And they could see that by the flight of the ball. As I need to come UP on the ball to make it go UP over the net so point of contact must be made low to high or the ball would go into the net. So if your opponent is hitting the ball with an upward arc they hit it low to high so stop complaining it’s illegal. Second to get tip spin the tip of my paddle also must be below my wrist so as I make contact it is moving low to high to impart the top spin To make the ball drop back down after going up and over the net. So again the flight of the ball should be telling you it’s a legal serve as the technic required to hit an effective top spin serve will lead to a legal serve. As long of course as they are not hitting it above their waist (but actually too high would make it very awkward to hit and still get that upward and down across to the ball. So instead watch the flight of the ball it’s a dead give away if the arc is low to high the down it’s probably a legal serve. If the flight lock line drive from high to low (and some how they got it over the net.) probably a illegal serve because they would have to make contact above their waist to get it over the net to have a straight high to low path. If the flight of the ball is low up and over arc it’s legal. EXCEPT one rule the imparting spin before contact with any part of the body. THAT a would like spinning the ball with your hand or against your body and drop hand. That is illegal. BUT… any spin you’re imparting WITH THE PADDLE is legal and this again is confusing to morons who can’t actually read the rules and understand them. They see a spin on the ball when they try and return the serve and say it illegal as the spin serve is illegal. BUT that is just their WRONG interpretation of the term spin serve. It spinning the ball with your HAND on your toss that is illegal. Also people call the screw ball serve illegal becuase to them your swinging a cross your body from high to low. BUT…, it is NOT illegal as the rules say AT POINT OF CONTACT. And to actual hit a screw ball serve and get it up and over the net you are also coming up on the ball at the point of contact as the paddle moves across the ball, they is actually two movements happening the key is at point of contact you are going low to high. The proof (as with out a slow motion video most people can not see point of contact) is in the flight of the ball yes the flight has a curve left to right but it is also going up low to high over the net so yes it was hit low to high as the ONLY away to get a ball up and over and have a low to high arc is if you hit it legally with a low to high motion at point of contact. It’s physics people and the flight of the ball is proof it’s a legal serve. You don’t need a slow motion camera just watch the flight of the ball. The other rules are simple feet behind the line AT POINT OF CONTACT this is NOT like the kitchen line rule you CAN step in on your follow threw on a serve you can not step into the kitchen on your follow threw on a volley. So many people confess this rule also saying if you step over the base line as you serve it’s illegal. Again IT IS NOT it’s legal ona serve .
The fact it’s most people at rec level ONLY a complain about Serves being illegal is when they can’t return them. They see spin on the ball as it bounces and say you’re cheating. They see you biting hard serves that are not going out and assume your hits g above your waist. As to them they can’t see point of contact your your finishing your follow threw high and start your back swing high and they say it’s an illegal serve. (Mostly because they can’t return it). So just avoid all that and just use a drop serve and not a volley serve ALL THE RULES about tip below your wrist and contact below your waist do not apply to drop serves. The only rule is you must drop not throw the ball down to bounce. As a pickle ball dropped will not CAN NOT bounce above your waist so it will be legal. And they can’t complain when you smash them with a top spin serve right at the base line T they can’t get to because they are so afraid of hitting a back hand return they stand way on the other side so every shot will be on their forehand. (That is ever shot but your screw ball that bounces on the side line and they goes off the side of the courts to their back hand they also can’t return so they call it illegal
That is quite the message that I don’t have time to read haha. The more concise you can be the better!
Entire motion (swing) need not be “low to high” (upwards). Only at “point of contact” need it be “low to high” (upwards).
Yes
You can toss the ball UP on a volley serve???.
Yes. So long as you’re not playing in a pro PPA tournament 👍
1 and 3 legal
All are legal 👌
all are legal as they are below your waist
Yes!
PPA needs to stop with the stupid rules. If a sport needs to be changed every year, why take it seriously then?
Every sport has changes ever year unfortunately:/
@@pickleballplaybook i played tennis competitively for 11 years and have been following it for 20+ years. No changes to actual gameplay. Only changes to hawkeye and challenges.
A sport that needs to keep changing its rules has badly designed mechanics which then needs constant changing to alleviate said bad design
I have played tennis my entire life. 26 years. Tennis has had lots of changes. Such as time to serve between points has been changed to 25 seconds.
There’s lots of changes in every sport, just not physical changes like pickleball is seeing regularly.
@@pickleballplaybook brother, if time between serving is the only thing you can come up with, then you and I both know the rules have barely changed. You really have to dig deep to find changes, and they can hardly be classified as changes. Let's be honest here.
The constant physical changes reveal a weakness in pickleball design. It's ridiculous regardless of how whether you've played tennis for 25 years, or 200 years
Sounds good brother!
anyone spot the cat?
🐈⬛
1- legal. 2 not legal. 3 legal
No quite! Super close
All these different serve rules are a detriment to the game, and to new players. I am not here to promote any other sport, but to have some serves legal for non pros, but illegal for pros is a great part of what creates the confusion. Tennis doesn't have this, why pickleball? Most everything else about the game is straightforward, but there should be a way to simplify things without having to worry about my navel, how high my paddle is in relation to my wrist etc.
It’s still in its infancy. Getting all the knots worked out 🙌
4.A.7.a The server’s arm must be moving in an upward arc at the time the ball is struck with the paddle. It sounded like you were saying that as long as you finished with the paddle higher then when you started it was o.k. to hit the ball while moving the paddle sideways. If that was what you meant then it is not right. I will say that if you are keeping the paddle below your wrist like you are supposed to it is pretty hard to due, but I guess with practice…
So what I’m saying is if you start below your belly button and finish above your shoulder, you had to have been going low to high prior to contact with the volley serve. Hopefully that makes sense!
Upward arc
Yes!
Just starting to love this game and they’re tryn ruin it already. It’s pickleball it’s supposed to be fun, very few serves are unreturnable. If it ain’t broke…
It’s broken haha. Thats why it needs fixing
All l hal
🙌
Pickleball is a joke lmao
Thanks!