Transcription
Hey, it's Coach Austin here with Pickleball Playbook. And throughout my past decade of teaching racket sports, I have absolutely obsessed over better understanding the game, specifically court positioning, strategies and tactics, and techniques that you can instantly implement to get from whatever level you're currently at and get to the next one.
This video in specific is going to break down the four mistakes that every plateauing player makes and it's going to teach you exactly how to fix them so that you can ultimately take your game to the next level. A few years ago, I was actually stuck at the 3.5 level and it was just simply because I was making one of these mistakes without realizing it. But I'll tell you more about that story throughout this video. So, without further ado, let's open the playbook.
Mistake number one is to never miss an opportunity to attack. I see this all the time out on the rec court and in matches where players get a pop-up opportunity or they have an opportunity to speed up the ball and they don't take it. They're late. They're in the incorrect position, whatever it might be, and it causes them to lose a point where they really had the advantage. Had they actually sped up that ball and attacked, they would have won the point.
The number one senior pro in the world, Dane Gingrich, recently asked a reflective question to his audience. He asked them, "Do you remember the days when you were taught to drop, reset, and dink every single shot in pickle ball?" Back three years ago, pickle ball was all about having touch and being ready to counterattack speedups. You never had to create anything. And that's just simply because paddle technology has increased, as well as overall player skill, tactics, and strategy. And so as time has gone on, it no longer makes sense to just simply dink, reset, and drop every single shot. But instead, we have to mix in power and never miss that opportunity to attack.
When I first started playing pickleball, I came from a tennis background. So I was attacking every single shot. And my partners without a doubt would always say, "Austin, you have to stop attacking the ball and you got to start dinking the ball. You got to start hitting it soft." And they were absolutely right for that specific situation, just simply because I was attacking everything. I wasn't just tacking the attackable ball. I was speeding up from a very low position, from a defensive position. It made absolutely no sense and it was causing us to lose. Now, what they missed in that instruction was I was actually making good decisions on about 50% of balls to speed up.
So, I want you to think back to Dne's quote, "Gone are the days of resets, drops, and dinks exclusively." If the ball is above your knees, you should be speeding up that ball 99% of the time. So, when I'm out watching matches from amateur players, what I'll see all the time is they miss opportunities to attack just simply because they didn't know that they should attack that ball. So, right now, I'm going to be breaking that down for you with each specific situation in pickle ball so that you never make a bad decision to not attack the ball again.
So, in order to never miss an opportunity to attack, we need to first understand when we should be attacking the ball. And what that comes down to is height. How high is the ball that's coming towards us? If it is above knee level, we should be attacking that ball regardless of if we're at midcourt or we're up at the kitchen line. If we attack that ball and keep it low over the net, move forward after we attack, we're going to be able to apply a ton of pressure on our opponents instead of if we reset this ball.
Now, if it goes below my knee level, I want to be resetting that ball. Since it's from such a low position, I can only hit up from that position. So, if I instead speed up a low ball that's either at my shins, feet, or shoelaces, I'm putting myself in a ton of trouble because I have to hit up above the net. So, all that they're simply going to do is counter the ball back down, put me back into that defensive position. So, these are shots that we want to be resetting. Whereas any balls that are above knee level, those are shots that we want to be speeding up, moving into the court, keeping it low over the net. And with that forward momentum from midcourt, we're going to apply a ton of pressure on our opponents.
So, a lot of people look over the midcourt speed up because they don't think that it's a good tactical decision. They think that they're putting themselves in a defensive position from doing so. No. If it's above knee level, you have to speed up this ball with your forward momentum coming into the court and them sitting on the kitchen line. You're automatically putting them in a defensive position and an extremely uncomfortable position because they have less time to react to your ball. They're going to end up popping the ball up to which you'll put away 90% of the time.
And that brings us to the second and final thing that we need to be focused on so that we never miss an opportunity to attack. and that is that we always need to be following the ball. So if the ball goes to my left, I follow the ball. It's okay to go past this this midcourt line. My partner is also following the ball. If the ball goes to the right, I'm following the ball in this direction. And I'm doing something called recovering and hovering. So, if I run out wide and hit a dink from this position, I'm going to then recover back since I hit it crosscourt and hover over the kitchen in anticipation to put that next shot away to attack.
And this is where I see so many players miss opportunities to attack when I watch amateur play is they'll come out here, hit the dink, and then they don't follow their shot. They're not attached to the ball. And so, their opponents end up popping a ball up the middle and now they're really late getting to it. they don't get any power on the ball. They've completely missed their shot and their opportunity.
So, what you want to actually act like is that there's a string connected to you, your partner, and the ball. So, if the ball moves to the left, we both move to the left in unison. We're hovering over the kitchen. If we pop up the ball and it moves to the left, we're not just hovering over to the left. We're going to also back up as we move towards the middle. So, I dink the ball out wide and I notice that it pops up. I'm coming at a diagonal backwards so that I have more time to react to that ball. My partner's doing the same exact thing. They're just simply backing up to give themselves more time to react to that popup. But notice in this position, even though I popped up the ball, we're still attached to each other and the ball in this position. Since it's high, we move back. If it was low, we'd move forward because we have to get closer to it when it's low. When it's high, we move back. We're still connected to it. We're still moving in the direction of it, but we're moving back to give ourselves more time. Then once we do that and we notice that it's low, and then I hit it up the line, let's say, we then both follow each other towards where that ball is. They're now covering the middle. I'm covering the line. And I'm not missing that opportunity to attack that I see so many players miss.
So, all that it comes down to are those two specific things. Making sure that we're speeding up the ball if it's above knee level and we're always following the ball. If we can do that, we're always going to be in the right position.
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That brings us to big mistake number two, which is choosing the wrong shot at the wrong time. So, if you're plateauing in your pickleball game, it's probably greatly due to the fact that you're making the incorrect shot at the incorrect time. So, let's break down all the specific situations in any given pickle ball point so that you can give yourself the best chance of never making the wrong decision again.
The first is our serve and specifically when we hit our serve with either power or use our old reliable serve that we know is going to be extremely consistent or we hit a lob or spin serve. And what that comes down to is understanding our opponents. We want to figure out what do our opponents struggle with most. Sometimes the opponents struggle way more with a lob serve than they do with a power serve. And so since we figured that out, the correct decision is to continue hitting lob serves until they start hitting really good returns off your lob serves.
Next is the return. Now, we've all been taught that with the return, we want to get it deep and high to give ourselves time to make it up to the kitchen. But sometimes the players that we play against like a nice deep and high return so they can tee off on it with their drives. So, if they have amazing drives, it's not going to make sense for us to continue to hit our returns deep and high. Instead, sometimes it's going to make sense to switch the spin up from top spin to under spin and keep it short and low. If we hit the ball short and low to a team that's very drive dominant, well, now they have to hit their drive from this low position and they always have to hit up from there since the net is in the way. It's going to go directly to your strike zone and make it really easy for you to put the ball away. So, you have to figure out what do your opponents like more. Do they enjoy driving the ball more? And are they struggling with these specific returns? As you're gathering this analysis, you're making decisions based off of what you're going to do with the next return and the next return after that.
Up next is the third shot. And this is when we have to decide when do we drop the third shot and when do we drive the third shot. By far out of all the things that we talk about, this is what holds people back from getting up to the net and honestly taking their game to the next level. I see this mistake all the time where they'll hit a drive when they should have dropped and when they dropped the ball when they should have driven it. And so what it comes down to is this. If I'm ever in an offensive position and I can move forward, you might think I should drive the ball. But it's actually the opposite. Since I'm in an offensive position and I can move forward, I want to drop the ball. If I drop the ball, that's going to allow me time to move forward to the most optimal position on the court where I have more angles, where the net is lower, and I can see more court and have more opportunities to put the ball away while at the same time I'm taking court away from my opponents. The further I am from the net, the more court my opponents have to hit to. The closer, the less court they have to hit to, the more pressure I can apply. I can recover and hover over the kitchen and follow the ball and apply that pressure so much easier. And so if we have an offensive opportunity, meaning we have at least one foot inside the baseline, we're leaning forward as we're making contact with the ball, drop the ball 90% of the time.
If instead we're in a defensive position, we're running back. We're scrambling to hit the ball off of that third shot of the rally. We would want to be driving that ball to set ourselves up for an easier shot. And as soon as we get that easier shot, that's our offensive opportunity to drop the ball, gain real estate, and get up to the net. Now, that said, if the return comes back short and high, meaning that it is above net tape, I'm going to drive that ball because that means that my opponents haven't probably made it up to the kitchen. They're probably in a defensive position. If I drive this ball, it's going to set me up for a popup from this position because now I'm already up at the kitchen where I want to be since the ball was short in the court. And since it's high, I can hit down on the ball. I don't have to hit it up to their strike zone. But other than that, I see so many players give up their opportunity to drop the ball by just hitting a senseless drive just simply because the ball is short in the court or just simply because they see an offensive opportunity and they think that they need to speed up the ball. Instead, all that the drive is doing, it's setting us up for an easy offensive drop where we can apply pressure on our opponents and get up to the kitchen line. And so if that return comes back short and low, it's going to make a whole lot of sense for me to just drop the ball. It's as if I already hit a drive, which I did since I just barely hit a serve, right? They hit the return, it comes back short and low. Well, I already set myself up for success. So now I'm leaning forward. I'm offensive. Why wouldn't I drop that ball? It makes no sense to drive that ball from that low position, from that position up here. It would make no sense to drive this ball from this position. It's going to give me way less chance of actually making it up to the net and a way bigger chance for my opponents to keep us back. So, if you already get an offensive opportunity based off of a weak return from your opponents, unless it's high, drop the ball, get up to the kitchen, apply pressure on your opponents.
That brings us to fourth shots of the rally. So, when making the correct decision on what shot to hit, we have to decide when do we attack the fourth shot and when do we concede? When do we hit a reset and allow our opponents to come up to the kitchen? What that comes down to is the height of the ball and our opponent's position. If the ball is ever high, we obviously want to continue to attack. And that's because we can hit downwards. We can hit it at our opponent's shins and at their feet, putting them in a more defensive position. Whereas, if they get the ball low over the net and they're passed midcourt, it's going to make a whole lot of sense for us to just concede the kitchen, to just hit a nice dink, allow them to move forward, and then we can further create the point from there. So, concede when the ball is low and they're pass midcourt, and attack if the ball is ever high or they're back on the baseline.
The next one that causes a ton of decision fatigue is players not knowing when they should dink the ball out of the air verse when they should dink the ball off the bounce. The entire point behind dinking the ball out of the air is to take time away from our opponents. The problem is is that players try to take time away from the opponent while at the same time feeling uncomfortable. And that's all that it comes down to. If you feel uncomfortable, don't try to make your opponent uncomfortable. And so, in other words, only dink the ball out of the air to apply pressure when you can comfortably get that ball out of the air. Other than that, let the ball bounce. you can create offense off the bounce. Obviously, you're not taking as much time away, but you're also not putting yourself in a defensive position. So, all that it comes down to is if you're comfortable, take the ball out of the air. If you're uncomfortable, let the ball bounce, you're still in the point, you can still keep the ball low and you still have other opportunities throughout that next point or the current point to take the ball out of the air.
The next situation is when we speed up out of the air in comparison to when we speed up off the bounce. And it comes down to the same exact principle. We want to speed up out of the air whenever we're on balance. We're comfortable. We can comfortably reach in and speed up that ball. Also, the height of the ball. Is it above knee level? If so, take that opportunity to attack. We're then speeding up off the bounce whenever the ball is bouncing high or when we have time and can keep it out in front of us. We're also looking at our opponents in both of these situations and figuring out where are they at on the court. Are there openings? Did I just barely pull them off the court with a dink? And now I have this opening up the middle that I can easily speed up the ball to. So speed up regardless whenever the ball is high and take those speed ups out of the air when you are comfortable and can comfortably do it on balance. Take them off the bounce when you're a little bit more uncomfortable. Allow that ball to bounce. Give yourself more time and then you can create from there.
And then the last two to talk about are lobs and overheads. When are we going to be hitting a swinging volley out of the air in comparison to an actual overhead, the kill shot? What it comes down to is the height of the ball. If the ball is over my head, then I'm going to be hitting an overhead. If the ball is instead out in front of me and I'm reaching to make contact, that's when I'm hitting the swinging volley, keeping my opponent's back, trying to keep it on their feet. So, if you're reaching, we should be hitting with top spin and contacting the ball at a 45 degree angle here so that our paddle face is faced downwards so we can keep the ball down at our opponents. And we're just simply brushing over the ball as we're hitting these swinging volleys.
Now, when it comes down to lobbing the ball from the kitchen line, something that we have to pay attention to is our opponents. Are they leaning in? Are they doing that recover and hover that we talked about before? if they're leaning over the line here up at the kitchen, that gives us a good inclination to lob the ball over them because since they're leaning in, they're going to be late getting back. So, situations in which this happens all the time where your opponents are leaning in is when they take a dink out of the air and apply pressure on you. So, you're scrambling to get to the ball. When the ball trickles over the net onto your side, that'll really cause them to lean in because they're expecting a popup. And so, they're leaning in over the kitchen. you pop it way high over their head, they won't even know it hit them. And so that was a digestible breakdown for you of what shot to hit in which situation. This is definitely a part of the video where you'll probably want to watch this again and again and again until you don't even have to think about it anymore. That way when you get out onto the court, you don't make the wrong decision very often.
And that brings us to big mistake number three, which is choosing the wrong location at the wrong time. I constantly see players maybe making the correct decision to drive the ball because they're in a scramble or making the correct decision to drop the ball because they have an offensive opportunity, but they're putting it in the wrong location. So, I'm going to be breaking down the specific locations that you want to put the ball based off of what shot you're hitting.
Number one is serve location. And I see so many players that just settle for hitting the serve to their opponent's forehand. 90% of the time, 90% of the players that you play against are going to have a weaker backhand than they do a forehand. So, it's going to make way more sense to try to target that backhand if you can consistently because then they're going to have to run around it to hit a forehand. It's going to take them longer to get up. If they commit to hitting the backhand, it's going to be a popup. It's going to be short in the court. It's not going to be as pretty as their forehand. So, most importantly with the serve, keep the ball in, but as you advance levels and get better, focus on going to your opponent's weakness.
With the return, we talked about this a little bit already, but we want to be returning deep and high if that's what your opponents struggle with. And we want to be returning short and low if that's what your opponents struggle with. From what I found, if my opponents like to attack the third with a drive every single time, they really struggle if I give them a low slice return just simply because they have to hit up from that position. If instead they're doing really well with that slice return, well, then you just simply switch it up. So, it's always a game of, okay, I got to figure out what do they like and do the opposite thing.
And that brings us to the third shot of the rally. So, we have drops and we have drives. We obviously have the hybrid, which is a mix of a drop and a drive. For the drive, we want to be hitting our drives down the line or up the middle the vast majority of the time. The reason that we want to hit drives down the line is cuz we're going to get the ball on our opponents way fast. And by so doing, it causes them to either pop up the ball or give us an easier shot to then drop. The drive is a setup shot that allows us to be able to drop the ball, gain real estate, and get up to the kitchen. So, we drive down the line and we drop crosscourt. The vast majority of the time we drop crosscourt because we have more distance to hit to. It also goes over the lowest part of the net and it allows us time to make it up to the kitchen since that distance is so large.
Now with the hybrid, the hybrid meaning we're hitting a pretty much powerful drop, okay, with a ton of spin. When we hit the hybrid, we can choose our location. And since we're a more advanced player, it's going to make sense based off of where our opponents are at. And so whenever I'm hitting a hybrid, it's going to be to the player that is either further back in the court and not on balance or to the open court. So typically I'm going to be hitting the hybrid shot to the returning player because they're not in a very good position. They're not on balance. They're not established up on the kitchen. It's going to make a lot of sense for me to hit the ball to them because I'm most likely going to get a popup directly from them in that defensive position. Now, this obviously doesn't apply 100% of the time. It's going to make a lot of sense for us to drive the ball crosscourt when the returner is late coming in. Just like it's going to make sense for us to drop the ball up the line, but that said, for drops, the vast majority of the time we want to go crosscourt, it's not going to make sense to hit a drop to a player that's trying to make it up to the kitchen. You're pretty much just inviting them in.
And that brings us to the fourth shot of the rally. So, you and your partner are both established up at the kitchen, or at least you should be. Your opponents are both back on the baseline. You're trying to keep them back. We have to decide, do we hit our fourth to the player that is further back or do we hit it to the player that is closer up? So, what that comes down to is the height of the ball. If I can ever hit down, it's going to make sense for me to go to the player that is closest to me. So, whichever player is closest to me, I want to hit down to them because they have less time to react. Whereas, the player that's further away has way more time to react. So, if I hit the ball down to them, well, they're still going to be in the point like 80% of the time. Whereas, if the ball is low and it's below the net tape, I want to hit it to the player that is further back. If instead I hit it to the player that is up, well, I'm hitting it right to their strike zone, they're going to attack that shot. Now, I know that this is a super simple principle, but a lot of players don't follow it. So, remember, if you're hitting down on the ball, hit to the player that's closer. You want to put it on them as fast as possible. Specifically aiming for the shin area. If the ball is below the net tape, we're keeping the player back that's furthest back.
And that brings us to midcourt shots. When we've made it to the midcourt, we have to decide where we're hitting our resets in comparison to our attacking shots. Now, typically we want to hit our resets crosscourt. And that's just simply because we have more distance to hit to. It's over the lowest part of the net. It gives us time to come up to the kitchen. So vast majority of the time those resets should go crosscourt if not all the time. As for our attacking shots where we're attacking the ball because it's above knee level, we're going to be attacking down the line the vast majority of the time, getting it on our opponents as fast as possible, keeping the ball in front of us rather than in front of our partner. And we're also going to be attacking crosscourt if the opponent is still back. So we're first of all looking for which opponent is further back. If the opponent that is crosscourt for me is further back in the court, that's the player that I want to attack from this low position, just like how we talked about before, since it's low and I'm not hitting down, I don't necessarily want to go to the player that is closest to the net. But if they're both up at the net, I want to go to the player that is as close as possible to me to catch them off guard. And if I can keep it low over the net, I'm going to have a way greater chance of winning the point than they are. And the best part about this strategy is since I'm speeding up this ball up the line, I know if that ball is going to be high or low as soon as it leaves my paddle. So if I recognize that it's high, I'm then backing up and I'm ready to reset that next ball. Whereas if I speed up the ball crosscourt and the player's up at the kitchen line and I know that it's high and I start to back up, well, chances are my partner is already up here past midcourt. And so because of that, they're going to get the ball absolutely launched at them just simply because I put it in front of them. So hit those attacking shots down the line the vast majority of the time. And also make sure that you're hitting them to the player that is further back. That's the first thing that you should look for.
And that brings us to the kitchen line. So when we're hitting dinks, the vast majority of the time we should hit our dinks crosscourt. This is actually something that I want you to try the next time that you go out and play. hit 90% of your dinks crosscourt. And what you'll find from doing this is that you don't only increase in your consistency, but you actually end up winning way more points just from your opponents missing shots that they normally wouldn't.
Now, let's talk about speedups. So, the correct shot at the correct time with the speed up. There are three particular speed ups that we can do that are going to be effective. In order from best to worst, we have the crossbody speed up. The cross body speed up is the absolute best because it goes across the body of our opponents. Their paddle is typically going to be ready on the side that you're speeding up the ball from. So when you go across their body, it causes them to be late making contact with that next shot. Number two is going to be speeding up the ball to either the dominant hip or the dominant shoulder of our opponents. The reason that we want to go to this position is because it puts our opponents in a really difficult and awkward position to decide if they should hit a backhand or a forehand from this position. And so if I'm counterattacking my opponent's speed up and they come to this awkward position, well, chances are I'm either going to pop up the ball or be late making contact. And then the last really effective speed up, but not quite as effective as the previous two, is speeding the ball up down the line. The reason that we want to go down the line is because it's the least expected speed up. It's over the highest part of the net and it's the last place that your opponents are going to be covering. So, it's not going to be as consistent, but it's still a good speed up to use just simply because your opponents aren't going to be ready for it the vast majority of the time.
The next shot that we have to decide where it should go is overheads. So, with my overheads, if the ball is ever up the middle of the court and it's deep, I'm going to continue hitting my overheads up the middle of the court, causing confusion in the middle. As soon as they pop the ball out wide and short, that gives me angles to now hit to. I can either hit a winner way over into this corner, or I can hit directly down the line here, or I can pop the ball back up the middle. So, if you get the ball way out wide here, it's going to make a lot of sense to put it away on the angle, shoot it into the fence. They don't have a chance of getting to it. Whereas, if they're lobbing it up the middle of the court, keep it up the middle of the court, cause confusion in the middle until you get that opportunity to hit that angle. So, in other words, don't go for the putaway too early. Wait until that ball is near the sideline.
And that brings us to the fourth and final mistake that every player is making. that is stuck at their current level and that is that they don't have a structured training plan in order to actually see improvement. And that brings us back to the story that I talked about earlier where I was stuck at the 3.5 level and I didn't know what to do.
One of the very first times that I ever played pickle ball was with my friend Jace. And when we played together, we were about on the same level. We had started pickle ball around the same time and so there wasn't a big difference between his skill level and mine. We then didn't play together for a very long time. It was actually 3 months. And after this hiatus that we took from each other, we got back together, he played in our group and he ended up winning every single game that we played together. And so obviously with him winning all these games, I had to figure out like, bro, I'm stuck at where I'm at. What is it that you're doing to actually improve your pickle ball game? And what he shared with me was that he had been training his pickle ball game. He'd been doing drills and exercises in order to build muscle memory and feel tournament-like pressure. And so this was an absolute gamecher for me. I felt like I understood when I should be hitting each shot, what shots I should be attacking at that point, but I just didn't have the consistency with those specific shots. And so from that point forward, I started training. I got my specific drilling plan. And within just 3 months of following this structured drilling plan, I went from losing a 40 tournament, getting second to last place, I think is what I got, to winning a 5-0 tournament. And it was all from following this structured drilling plan throughout these three months. and it helped me majorly increase my consistency out on the court under pressure.
And so, something that I've been doing a little bit under the radar is one-on-one coaching through my six-w week fast track. I only take a limited number of players at a time. And since I build a specific structured training plan based off of each player that's specifically personalized to them, I only take a few players every 6 weeks. So, the next six week starts in January. So, if you're interested in applying for that, link is in the description below. It's going to be one of the best ways for you to get the personalized structure into your training plans to take your game to the next level. And the promise is that if you do 90% of the trainings that I give you based off of your specific schedule, you'll add.5 to one full point to your pickle ball rating. So, if that sounds interesting to you, be sure to check it out.
That's everything for this video. I hope that you guys enjoyed it. Be sure to stop making those four mistakes. You're going to play a whole lot better pickle ball. Let me know what you think in the comments below of this specific video. and watch this video right here if you want to continue improving your pickle ball game. And I'll see you over there. Peace.