We are so happy to be back.

A couple weeks ago, we dove into the numbers to figure out which men’s teams performed best when it mattered the most—in Majors and at The Championship. Y’all probably thought we forgot about the women’s side. But we didn’t. We just thought they deserved their own newsletter.

In this issue, we’ll also take a look at how to drop your opponents to their knees with the drop serve, and of course we’ll finish up with everyone’s favorite bite-sized roundnet content—Quick Hits.

Without further ado… | Read time: 5 minutes

💧 How to master the drop serve

What is a drop serve? It is when the server hits the ball with a downward motion, causing it to drop or “die” close to the net on the opponent’s side. 

The drop serve, if done correctly, is extremely effective due to its deception. The set-up and pre-contact motion looks identical, leaving your opponent with little time to react. 

Essentially, the only difference between a drop serve and the standard serving technique is the wrist action.

Right before you make contact with the ball, you are going to drop your wrist to create backspin on the ball. 

While the motion is quite simple, the drop serve can be difficult to perfect. If your opponent notices any sort of deceleration in your arm swing, they know the drop is coming.

Additionally, ball placement on the net is extremely important to execute an effective drop serve. You want the ball to hit the “near net” (the front third of the net closest to you) rather than the middle of the net. If you land the ball in the front third, the ball will shoot off of the net quicker, but if it is the center, the ball will bounce higher and your opponent will have more time to react. 

Here’s an old but great drop serve breakdown from How to Roundnet.

🍺 The Pocket’s 2023 Best Teams

🥉 2k• (Kayla Wu and Karah Hui)

• Record (Win %): 16-12 (57.1%)

• Points %: 52.2%

• Major Victories (Podiums): 0 (3)

Our third best team of the year is Kayla Wu and Karah Hui of 2k•

While 2k• didn’t have a dominant win or points percentage like the top two teams on this list, Wu and Hui found themselves on three podiums last season, the second most of any women’s team.

Not only were they third in season points, they also put up great matches against the top teams throughout the season, for example taking a huge game from TWINZ in The Championship.

They also won, The Thousand Lakes Grand Slam in May, without dropping a game.

• Side Note: Their profile picture on Fwango is a Getty Images photo of the Great Wall of China, which is incredible.

🥈 towerful (Ronja Lorenz and Laura Kunzelmann)

• Record (Win %): 18-1 (94.7%)

• Points %: 57.7%

• Victories (Podiums): 1 (2)

Laura Kunzelmann is the #1 roundnet player in the world for a reason. Early in the 2023 season at the Salt Lake City Major, Kunzelmann and her partner Katie Pierson took home the Pitcher, beating TWINZ in the final. Kunzelmann then teamed up with Ronja Lorenz for the remainder of the season to form towerful, and oh boy were they dominant.

towerful won their first eighteen (!) matches in Major/Championship play and won a jaw-dropping 57.7% of points played (and this doesn’t even include their undefeated run at ETS Prague).

However, towerful’s perfect season was lost in the final match of The Championship to our 2023 Team of the Year.

2007 New England Patriots go 16-0 but lose in the Super Bowl kinda vibe.

Still a truly remarkable run for Kunzelmann and Lorenz.

🥇 TWINZ (Ali Jenki and Olivia Jenki)

• Record (Win %): 35-2 (94.6%)

• Points %: 56.7%

• Victories (Podiums): 3 (4)

All these TWINZ do is win.

Winners of The Championship (for a 3-peat), the Richmond Major, and the Columbus Major. Only lost two matches the whole damn season—good for an unbelievable winning percentage of 94.6%.

Simply put, Ali and Olivia Jenki don’t make up the best women’s roundnet team in the world—they are the best roundnet team in the world. Period.

We really need to acknowledge the growth of the women’s game this year. Although, it was dominated by a few teams, there were others who were always in the mix, giving everyone a fight.

Special shoutouts to:

• tiramasu

• Royalty

• angst

And so many others.

Finally, although we didn’t know her personally, we would be remiss not to mention the passing of Allie Foster in January. We’ve heard an incredible amount of positive things about Allie. Obviously she was an incredible player, but what really stands out is the person she was and the impact she had on the roundnet community.

👊 Quick Hits

🥶 Introducing Canada’s newest roundnet team, Cold Sweep 

🪟 Always love to see transparency and player-involvement from the sport’s largest organizations on how to make roundnet better

🕺 Remind me to never get into a dance-off with Josh Cain at the bar…

🗺️ That Roundnet Podcast sits down with head of Great Britain Roundnet ahead of the 2024 World Championship

🍿 STS documentary streaming on ESPNU, March 3rd @ 6 EST