Group Serving Lesson Plan

Here's a serve lesson plan great for larger groups.

Warm-up
Form two teams. Station each time at the service line. Players take turn tossing balls overhand across the net into the correct service box (cross court). Continue until ball hopper is empty.

Ball pickup/water break

Skill activity: modified Clean Sweep
Teams at service line. One team member is sent across net cross court from rest of team. Players take turns serving from service line. If serve is in, team member across net retrieves ball and places it on the ground at net as a scorekeeping device (one ball = one point). Server now runs over to other side of court and is now score keeper. Next player in line now serves. Play continues until one team achieves 10 points.

Coach is stationed near servers. Teaching opportunities with groups between rounds and during serves with individual players.

Ball pickup/water break

Repeat above activity moving players back, now hitting serves from halfway between service line and baseline. Have teams switch sides of court to get practice serving from both ad and deuce.

Ball pickup/water break

Final repetition from baseline. Team winning best two out of three wins.

We had time at the end of our one-hour clinic for a round of Champs v Chumps which served as our cool down. They had done enough serving for one day. :)

Safety Tip: Be sure players take care not to run in front of servers or score keepers to avoid being hit by balls or slowing the game down.

This is a good cardio workout in addition to being a good serve drill. One player commented it 'wasn't fair' because the other team had one more player. I explained to them that was only an advantage if the other team was serving better. Players soon learned the more efficiently and quickly they ran this activity, the quicker they would win. It was fun to watch them manage themselves, encourage each other, and basically just figure stuff out on their own.