Good Tips/Drills from our friend to the west

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.