Guinness Lists Zane Navratil’s 70 MPH Legal Pickleball Serve

Guinness World Records lists Zane Navratil’s 70 mph (112.65 km/h) serve as the fastest legal pickleball serve in its male category. He achieved it at The Kitchen Pickleball HQ in Austin, Texas, on September 13, 2024. That is the record shown on Guinness’s public page as of October 10, 2026. Source: Guinness record entry.

The precise answer matters: this is a recognized legal-serve record, not a claim about every pickleball shot ever hit, an average professional serve, or the fastest serve recorded during tournament play.

The record and its measurement

These details come from the Guinness record entry. Guinness’s February 2026 pickleball records feature also identifies Navratil’s 70 mph serve and the calibrated speed gun.

There is a unit-label inconsistency on the record page. Its summary field says “70 kilometre(s) per hour,” but the explanatory text explicitly states 70 mph (112.65 km/h). The February 2026 feature repeats the latter figure. Use 70 mph when quoting the record; the summary field conflicts with both narrative accounts.

The public entry identifies the instrument and referee, but does not give a complete testing protocol—for example, the gun’s placement or the exact point in the ball’s flight represented by the reading. It therefore supports the recognized record, not a detailed comparison with readings from differently arranged speed tests.

A fastest hit is not a fastest serve

Guinness separately lists Elizabeth Pritchard’s 59 mph (94.95 km/h) achievement in Edina, Minnesota, on January 28, 2025, as the fastest pickleball hit (female). That category is “hit,” not “legal serve,” so it should not be relabeled as the women’s serve record. Source: Guinness fastest-hit entry.

For any competing “fastest serve ever” claim, check three things before comparing speeds:

• Category: Was it a legal serve, another shot, or an unrestricted hitting attempt?
• Measurement: Is the device and measurement setup documented?
• Status and date: Is it a recognized record, a tournament statistic, or an informal reading—and when was it achieved?

Serve legality is a separate question from speed; our pickleball serving-rules guide explains that side of the comparison.

For a defensible citation, write “Guinness’s publicly listed fastest legal pickleball serve (male): 70 mph, Zane Navratil, September 13, 2024.” Guinness notes that record changes are not immediately published online, so the public listing should not be described as a real-time inventory of every accepted performance.