Pickleball shots, drills, and playing
tips
Dave Brower, USAPA Ambassador, Metrowest
MA daveb@marksmoving.com
The shots and drills
below cover the most important elements of the game to master. If you practice these techniques, your game
will improve. If you don’t practice
them, and your opponents do – you will win less often and get frustrated more
often; so do your drills to improve your skills!
The Serve. Get your serve in deep, aim for about three
feet in front of the base line. If
possible, serve to your opponent’s backhand, but don’t go for winners at the
expense of missing the service court.
I don’t have any specific drills for the serve, but keep in
mind the three elements of a legal serve:
strike the ball from below your
navel, with an upward motion,
and the bulk of the paddle below your
wrist. If you are having trouble
getting serves in, face more to the side with your serving arm back, drop the
ball close to your body, swing through and concentrate on hitting the ball near
your opponent’s feet.
Soft and Deep Service
Return. This shot is overlooked as a
weapon, so let us review the shot and the reasons for it. Return serves soft and deep to the middle of
the court, closer to whichever player has their backhand down the middle. This keeps both players back from the
non-volley-zone, and allows your team to advance into the court before the next
shot is made. Occasionally, your
opponents will each think the other is returning the shot and they will both
let it go, or you might get a high, weak backhand return which you can
slam. At the least, this gives you an
advantage over a fast return which may trap you at the baseline, since the
faster you hit the ball the faster it comes back. Do not automatically run all the way up to
the NVZ line, since that makes it easy for your opponents to lob over your
head. Move up halfway so that you can go
back or forward to hit the ball coming back to you. This shot does not need to be drilled, just
use it during play and see how well it can work for you.
Third Shot Soft. This shot is one of the hardest to master, so
it must be practiced more often than any other.
When your opponents have control of the court (they are both at the
NVZ), you have three choices – hit it hard and just over the net, hit a lob, or
hit a soft shot which drops just over the net into the kitchen (NVZ). The hard low shot must either be down the
middle, or down the line. It is more
likely that the ball will hit into the net or be returned for a winner than it
will be successful. The lob is also
problematic, since it must be just out of the player’s reach AND be deep enough
so they can’t just take a step back and smash a return. The shot with the highest chance of success
(once you master it) is the soft shot that reaches its high point over YOUR kitchen and drops softly into your
opponent’s NVZ. This shot forces a soft
return shot which will be easier for your team to handle. If your opponents hit it too high, you can
hit a hard return back to them. If they
execute a good dink, you can dink it back and forth until one team makes a
mistake.
Slinky Drill: Two players
start at their NVZ lines, hitting dinks back and forth. One player takes a step back after each shot
while hitting a longer soft shot each time.
Once that player reaches the baseline, they begin working their way back
to the NVZ, hitting soft shots each time.
When they are all the way back to the NVZ, the other player starts
backing up. The player who remains at
the NVZ line just keeps feeding balls back to the player practicing the soft
shot.
Dinks.
As discussed above, a dink shot is your best defense against hard fast
returns. If you don’t give your
opponents a ball they can drive, you can stay in the point until you get a
putaway shot. The dink does not have to
be perfect - try to get it over the net so that it bounces low and near the net
to force an upward stroke on the return.
Once in a while you can try a deeper dink outside the opponent’s foot on
their backhand side. Once in a great
while you can try a hard shot into their chest when they are expecting a
dink. J
Dink Drill: Practice (either
singles or doubles) dinking, both forehand and backhand dinks, as well as
crosscourt dinks (forehand and backhand) until you are comfortable sustaining a
long dinking rally.
Kitchen Game: Four players
play a whole game where any shot that lands outside the NVZ is a fault. Keeping score will assist in the importance
of learning the shot. This game works
well with beginners to help them learn how the game is scored, and very well
with experienced players who want to sharpen their dinking skills.
Pops Drill: To increase your ability to react quickly
to balls hit right at you, stand at the NVZ and volley back and forth with someone. Do not try for kill shots - just keep the
ball going back and forth, gradually increasing the pace until the rally ends,
then start again. This will train you to
keep your paddle in the ready position and improve your reaction time.
General Playing Tips:
Placement is more
important than power.
An explosive shot which misses the court won’t win many
points, but an accurate shot to the right spot is frequently a winner.
Down the middle is
safer than angled shots to the sideline.
Unless the opponents are crowding the middle, there is more
room to hit a winning shot down the middle than down the sideline, and you will
hear fewer “OUT” calls.
When it’s high, let
it fly, when it’s low, hit it slow! When
the ball is in the NVZ area and it is below the net, it is impossible to hit
the ball hard. You will either hit the
net or hit the ball out of the court.
Hit a soft shot (a dink) or a lob to stay in the point.
Partners should try
to stay side by side.
One partner up and one back does not control the court as
well as both partners do when side by side.
Watch the ball until
it hits the paddle.
The net does not move, the court lines do not move – watch
the ball to avoid mis-hits.
The better players
practice, the best players practice with a purpose!
If you do not work on your game, only your increased
experience will help make you better. If
you work on learning better shots and learn when to hit them, you’ll be gaining
experience hitting good shots, not just hitting the same mistakes better.
