Serving Up New Rules in 2024
If you think about the structure of pickleball, you'll pretty quickly realize that the sport is designed for the server to have a DISADVANTAGE…
• You must hit the serve underhand and below your waist, which limits how hard you can hit it.
• You get one serve.
• You have to let the return of serve bounce.
Despite all of these limitations, players have still found ways to weaponize the serve in pickleball — and the PPA (Professional Pickleball Association) has decided to push back.
In an effort to prevent servers from making contact with the ball above their waists, the PPA introduced new rules to the volley serve at last week's Masters tournament in Palm Springs. Here they are below...
1. The ball must be dropped, it CANNOT be thrown up.
2. Said drop must start from below your waist.
3. The palm of your dropping hand must be facing down.
While these new rules are not officially part of the game yet, they certainly could be soon. And it wouldn't be the first time that pickleball put restrictions on the serve. Just last year, the pre-spun serve (spinning the ball with your fingers) was banned.
We'll see if these new PPA Tour rules can finally diminish the power of the pickleball serve. If not, then who knows, maybe in 2025, we'll all have to hit serves with our non-dominant hands. ?
