Serve Time

Continuing our incarceration theme with Serve Time, a great dual purpose game. No more boring serve practice. No more lost opportunities to improve the second most important stroke of the game (return of serve).

Players pair up and are playing together as a team. One player serves; the other is across the net retrieving the serve by hand. Retrieving player must catch ball after one bounce. For every successfully completed serve and catch, the pair earns one point. First pair to earn seven points, wins. Players switch roles and repeat. Players switch partners and repeat twice more so that each player has a chance at performing both roles.

You might argue the receiving player isn't exactly hitting a return. But the coordination required to track and catch the served ball bare-handed is critical to this process, and some might add even more difficult than having a racquet in hand.

Adapted from USTA's Learn To Rally And Play booklet