Transcription
Pickleball is easy, and most players make it way harder than it needs to be. Today, I'm going to be breaking down all the core fundamental things that you need to know to get better at pickleball. Nothing that you need to memorize, just pure understanding. And this isn't the same recycled advice that you've already heard hundreds of other times. What I'm about to show you is different. And if you watch the full video and just apply what I teach, you will level up. Let's open the playbook.
And by the way, if you want to level up your pickleball game faster than you ever thought possible, go to pickleballdrillsapp.com and try out the pickleball drills app absolutely free. It has hundreds of different drill tutorials with video instruction taught by the pros. You can also comment the word "drill" below and I'll personally send you the link.
We have all been taught that patience wins games. Many players hear the word patience and they think that that means that they need to be really consistent and simply wait for their opponents to make a mistake. On the contrary, patience is all about proactive consistency. That means that we're not just hitting a ball in hopes that our opponent misses, but we're hitting the ball with the intent to make our opponent either miss or pop the ball up. Now, don't get me wrong, pickleball is not about winners and attacking every shot possible. It's about proactively creating errors. Players that are consistent push the ball without any thought, while players that are proactively consistent are hitting through their shots, trying to apply as much pressure as possible on their opponents. And the only way to be proactively consistent is to understand the why behind every single shot that you hit. So, what we're going to be doing is breaking down the why behind every single shot in pickleball so that the next time you step out onto the court, you always have a reason behind your shot. In other words, you're being proactively consistent.
And that brings us to the serve. The why behind the serve. What do you think the why is behind the serve? It's to set yourself up for a weak return. A lot of players just merely hit the serve because they want to start the point. But the reason behind the serve is to set ourselves up for an easier third shot. The best way to do that is to hit your serve deep. Hitting your serve with depth automatically makes it so that your opponents have a harder time making it up to the kitchen line and a harder time getting their ball to travel a far distance. This will make them have late contact, thus popping up the ball, giving you an easier third shot. So, now that we understand the serve is a setup shot, it helps us to be able to better execute that shot.
Now, let's break down the why behind the return. The number one thing is that we want to give ourselves time to make it up to the kitchen line. The way that we're going to buy time is we want our ball to be in the air for a longer period of time. Now, that's obviously not all. We also want to make the return difficult for our opponents. And that could mean that we hit a backspin return that is short in the court, making our opponents move forward, but not giving them as many options. Because as soon as you hit that low slice return, now they have to decide, do I drop it? It's probably going to be a pretty inconsistent drop because it's very low. It's skidding at them. If they drive it, since it is low, they have to hit up. So, they're just going to hit it to your strike zone. So, it's not necessarily that we're always returning high and deep into the court, but sometimes we're returning low and short. That will set us up for pop-ups. So, remember, the point of the return is to apply pressure and give yourself time to make it up to the kitchen line.
Now, let's talk about the third shot drive. Why do we hit a third shot drive? Now, many of you out there are probably just like, "I don't know, just because I was taught to in one of your previous videos, or I was taught to by my coach." The reason that we hit a third shot drive is to apply pressure on our opponents and ultimately set ourselves up for an easier fifth shot. We drive to get the ball on our opponents as fast as possible so that they create a popup or an easier shot for our fifth shot of the rally. The rule of thumb to use is to drive the ball at the returner if they haven't made it past midcourt. This is because they're not in a very good position. They're offbalance and you can get the ball near their feet. Or you want to hit the ball directly at the player that is down the line from you. So if I am on the even side, the player that's down the line from me is directly in front of me on their odd side. Same exact thing over here. If I'm on the odd side, the player that's down the line from me is the player that's on their even side. Now, a lot of the time the returner will be directly down the line from you. So, it's not going to make much sense for you to hit the ball crosscourt to the player that's already up at the kitchen because they're established there on balance and you're giving them a ton of time since you're hitting a greater distance. So, the optimal place to hit that third shot drive is going to be at the returner whenever possible and especially when that returner is directly down the line from you.
Now, let's talk about the reason behind the fifth shot drop. Now, there also can be a fifth shot drive, but we're not going to be talking about that because it's the same exact why. We want to apply pressure on our opponents and get the ball on them as quickly as possible to set ourselves up for an easier next shot. That's always the reason behind the drive.
The next shot to talk about is either the third or the fifth or the seventh shot drop. The reason that we're hitting a drop is because we want to give ourselves time to make it up to the kitchen line and apply as much pressure as possible. When we hit a drop and we move forward, we're taking court away from our opponents. The closer I get to the net, the less court they have to hit to. The further away I get from the net, the more court that they have to hit to. So, the entire intent behind the drop is to give yourself time to transition up to the kitchen and take court away from your opponents. The optimal place to hit your drop is going to be crosscourt majority of the time because that gives you more time to transition. Whereas, if you drop up the line, you don't have as much court to work with.
The next shot is the midcourt reset. The reason behind this one, the why, is a lot like the drop. We want to give ourselves time to get up to the kitchen and apply as much pressure on our opponents as possible. The optimal mid-court reset draws a straight line from paddle to your opponent's shins. Gone are the days of hitting a mid-court reset where it has a high loop on it and it's landing in the kitchen. That just simply doesn't work anymore because if that happens and it bounces high, your opponents can simply tee off on that ball and keep you back in defense mode. Whereas, if you draw a straight line with that reset right at your opponent's shins, it's automatically putting them in a defensive position where they have to decide, take the ball out of the air and pop it up or step back and pop it up from this position. So, it really puts you in a fantastic position, but the reason that we're hitting it is to apply pressure and gain real estate, take court away from them, and get up to the kitchen line.
The next is the midcourt swinging volley. In other words, we're attacking the ball from midcourt because it's slightly high. And the reason that we want to do this is to apply pressure on our opponents and get a popup with our forward momentum going into the court. If we swing at this shot, it's going to add more pace than if we were just merely standing in this position. And so, because of that, it puts the ball on our opponents extremely fast and a lot of the time causes them to pop up the ball or just make a simple mistake and hit the ball into the net. The goal with this shot is a lot like the drive to hit it directly down the line at our opponents because we want to take away as much time from them as possible. Just don't forget to crash the net directly after you hit this shot.
And so, some of you might be asking out there, "Well, how do I decide if I want to reset the ball from midcourt or if I want to hit a swinging volley from midcourt?" And what it comes down to is time. I like to actually picture a bubble around myself that comes a foot off of my chest/belly button. If the ball is going to enter that bubble before I have time to react, I'm going to be resetting. If instead it's going to stay outside that bubble by the time I can react, I'm going to be hitting a swinging volley. So, if you have more time, you're going to be hitting a swinging volley. You're going to be attacking. If you have less time, you're going to be hitting that mid-court reset. But remember that this mid-court reset isn't a defensive shot. It's an offensive shot where we're drawing that straight line, automatically applying pressure on our opponents. So, don't think of one of these shots as better than the other. They're both offensive. It just comes down to the time that we have to react.
Up next is the offensive dink. The reason that we're offensive dinking is because first of all, we have time. We have space to offensively dink. And it's to move our opponents around, open up the court, and ultimately cause a popup. The goal with the offensive dink is to keep the ball low over the net, and to hit it away from your opponents, to get your opponents on the move.
The defensive dink is the exact opposite. Our goal in the defensive dink is that we are in a scramble. We're barely getting to the ball. Our job is to hit the ball back to the middle of the kitchen and ultimately reset the point so that we can hopefully create some offense from there. Both of these shots are equally important because you can't ever just always be on offense in every single match. You have to be able to strategically play and apply pressure from both of these positions. And the best way to apply pressure when you're in that defensive dinking mode is to put the ball back up the middle of the kitchen. Because whenever the ball goes in the middle of the kitchen, it takes away your opponent's angles, makes it way harder for them to create offense.
So then that brings us to the volley. What's the reason behind the volley? It's to put the ball on our opponent's feet and ultimately create a popup. So if we're ever hitting a volley from the kitchen line, our goal is to hit that ball down. The first team to hit the ball down is most often times the team that's going to come out on top of the hands paddle. The best way to do that is to just simply angle your paddle face downwards.
And that brings us to the kitchen line reset. So instead of hitting a power volley at our opponent's feet, we're now resetting the ball. And again, this is an offensive shot still. And the goal with the reset, the reason behind it is so that we can take our opponent's speed from their speed up and put it right back at their feet. Again, we're drawing a straight line directly to our opponent's shins. And the best way to reset is to keep your paddle angle slightly open. So if I'm resetting on the backhand side, it's slightly open towards the sky. I don't want to open it too much because then we're going to get that huge arch that we don't want.
Up next is the reason behind the speed up and that is to first of all take time away from our opponents and ultimately create a popup. The best place to speed up is to the chicken wing position, which is near hip area on the dominant side of the player's body. The reason that you want to hit to this position is because your opponent now in a split second has to decide, do I hit a backhand with my paddle face open and pop the ball up or do I try to hit a forehand with my paddle face slightly down and cause a mistake. It just causes the gears to turn and then it causes indecision because they don't have time to react. So, this is an optimal position. Another optimal position is to the dominant shoulder. It's achieving that same exact indecision and awkward paddle angle and most importantly to the open court, causing your opponents to stretch out in order to get to the ball.
Up next is the offensive lob from the kitchen line. The reason that you want to hit this shot is to move your opponents from an offensive position to a defensive position. You're always going to be in a defensive position if you're back on the baseline and both of your opponents are up at the kitchen. It's optimal to hit this ball crosscourt because it gives you the most distance to hit the ball, thus increasing your consistency.
And that brings us to the last shot. I know that there are other shots and middle shots in there that I haven't covered, but if we're just talking about all of the basic shots that we hit in almost every single game that we play, the last shot that we're going to be talking about is the overhead. And the whole goal of an overhead is to create a popup so that you can then put the ball away. A lot of players make a mistake on an overhead that they instantly start trying to put the ball away when instead they should be looking to get the ball at their opponent's feet if possible in order to create a popup that comes near the sideline. As soon as the ball comes near the sideline, you now have all the angle to work with to put that ball directly into the kitchen and onto the side fence, which won't give your opponents any chance of getting to it.
And so I want you to notice that there's absolutely none of the shots that we just barely talked about where the why behind them, the intent, the goal behind them is to put the ball away. I'm hitting an overhead to set myself up to hit a winner. And that's what drives me crazy with pickleball players is that they're constantly trying to go for winners. And one of the main reasons that you might be stuck at the current level that you're at is because you're trying to actually hit through your opponents. You're trying to hit winners on every single shot. Treat every single shot that you hit as a setup shot until you ultimately get that overhead that's out wide that you can put away. And if you treat every shot like a setup shot, what will happen is you'll start hitting more winners. Whereas, if you try to hit a winner on every single shot, you're going to be way less consistent. And this is exactly what proactive consistency is all about. Understanding the why behind each shot so that you can set up winning plays and instantly become a better player. So, don't be the player that just pushes the ball and just hits shots just because you were told to. Always have a reason behind every single shot that you hit. This is definitely a section that you're going to need to listen to again and again until it becomes a part of you where when you're out on the court, you don't even have to think about why you're hitting the shot. You already know. It's already built into your muscle memory. And once you can do that, it's magic.
And that brings us into section number two, which is percentage awareness. Every single shot that you hit in pickleball has a risk versus reward. You always need to know which side you're on. A lot of players view a risky shot as one where we have a very low percentage chance of hitting the shot in. But a risky shot could also be the safe option or the safe shot. Because a safe shot isn't going to necessarily provide you with a reward, but it's also not risk-free because every single time that you make a decision to hit the safe shot, you're giving up an opportunity to make the right shot. And that's a risk. Say feel strategic because you think that you're giving yourself the best opportunity to win when in reality you're setting yourself up for failure again and again and again. Instead, what you want to do is always go for the right shot. The right shot might be the riskier shot at times and it might be the safer shot at times. So, let's break down exactly what the right shot is. All that it comes down to is understanding the why behind every single shot. So, if you're hitting a drive directly at the player that just returned the ball, you're hitting the right shot. But the safe shot in this position might be to hit a drop into the kitchen because you might be more consistent at hitting drops than drives. Although that's the safe option, it's not setting you up for success and it's not applying pressure on your opponents because now they're teeing off on that ball that just landed in the kitchen from your drop. They're keeping you back and you're never going to be able to make it up to the kitchen line. So, the right shot all comes down to the why behind why we hit each shot.
So, let me tell you two different stories about one where I played as the smart player and the other one where I played the right shots. Back in 2024, I was playing in a 5.0 tournament and throughout the entire day, we were just breezing through teams. Everything was going super well. I was making the right decisions. I was playing to my strengths. I was playing comfortably and I wasn't overthinking. Well, we made it to the gold medal match. And as soon as me and my partner Tyler got to the gold medal match, the nerves set in. And what we noticed is that our opponents were just simply pushing the ball in and waiting for us to make an error. So this flipped a switch in our minds from hitting the right shot, playing to our strengths to trying to be smart players and play their exact game to out rally them. And so we'd go up to the kitchen and we just started dinking over and over and over again. And we weren't coming out on top of any of these dink battles because that was their game. They could just continue hitting the ball in over and over again. We weren't creating. We weren't hitting offensive dinks. We were just simply keeping the ball in. And what happened was we ended up losing in two games. They swept right through us. And so when I went home and thought about it, I was like, "Yeah, I didn't play to my strengths. I didn't play the right shots. Instead, I played their game." And we hear this so often. So many players out there will start playing their opponent's games because they feel pressure. As soon as you start to feel pressure, that's when you need to say to yourself, "Okay, I'm just going to start hitting the right shots. I'm going by the book. I'm going to hit the shots because I know the why behind each shot."
And so that brings us to tournament number two. Now, this tournament also took place in 2024, but this was a 5.5 tournament. And what happened was it was double elimination. So, in order to get out of the tournament, you had to lose twice. Well, we took that very literally because we got into our very first match and we ended up losing. And the reason that we lost, as you have guessed, is because we were playing our opponent's game. We were trying to hit the smart shots. And of course, they swept right through us. We felt that pressure. We gave into it and we played the smart shots. But what happened throughout the rest of the day was absolute magic because we started going for the right shots. We then won 12 consecutive matches to make it to the gold medal match. And since we had that lesson at the beginning of the day and we lost because we were playing our opponent's game, we understood that we just need to go in loose, play our game, and play the right shots. So that's exactly what we did. And what was so funny is the team that we played against went undefeated that day until they played us. We not only had to beat them two out of three, but then we also had to beat them in a deciding match to 15. So, we won the first two games in the two out of three, and then we headed into the game to 15 and won that one. And all that it came down to was hitting the right shot. Playing to our strengths rather than our opponent's game. And this is obviously something that's easier said than done, but just understanding the difference between a smart shot and the right shot will help you do so much better in a tournament and automatically calm those nerves.
That brings us to section number three, which is movement fundamentals. And this is one of my favorite things to talk about because it makes a real change in your game without you having to do anything. And that is staying balanced over staying fast. If you've ever watched a pro match, it might appear to you that the pros look like they're moving very slowly. And the reason for that is because they have such good footwork that they don't ever take an extra step unless they absolutely need to. And this has all come down to them getting reps in and training that footwork. And the most important thing that you can implement into your footwork so that you're always in the right position and you can react faster is the split step. A lot of players know what the split step is, but the correct timing on a split step is absolutely essential. We want to split our feet apart and stop our momentum from moving forward or side to side right prior to our opponents making contact with the ball. What this split step does is it allows us to be able to react in any direction faster. Whereas, if we just continue running through as they're making contact with the ball, we're going to be late reacting to the ball. So, that split step and that slight knee bend, putting all the weight on the balls of our feet, leaning forward, sends signals to our brain of accuracy and consistency, helps us to react faster. The timing is absolutely essential. You have to split right prior to your opponents making contact with the ball. Now, the more that you play and the more that you focus on this, the less that you'll have to focus on it and the more that it will just become muscle memory. But it's absolutely essential and it's one of those things that's just an easy way to instantly become a better player.
And that brings us to the transition zone, specifically moving forward into the court. The transition zone is what I like to call the graveyard for most players. The vast majority of players that play pickleball never make it past the transition zone up to the kitchen line. The vast majority of the time, they're just stuck back here at the baseline. They're trying to move forward and then, oh, there you go. You have a shot that just hit your foot. And that's why it's so important to learn the midcourt reset because if you have a good midcourt reset, you don't have to have a perfect drive and you don't have to have a perfect drop. You can consistently get up to the kitchen time and time again. And so here's a quick video from a couple weeks ago teaching you the midcourt reset. So this is what a reset is from midcourt. Our opponents are hitting the ball at us and our job is to draw a straight line with our reset and hit it directly at our opponent's shins. If we can do that, they're going to be in defense mode backing up. Then we can close and put the ball away right at their feet. So, the two most important movement fundamentals that you need to focus on is the split step, making sure that you're splitting right before they make contact with the ball, and the reset. That will take you automatically up to the kitchen line, and then you're going to start winning way more than you currently are.
That brings us to section number four, which is the mechanical fundamentals. And there are five specific building blocks with this. The first is the contact point. The second is power and spin generation. The third is your grip pressure. The fourth is your body sequencing. And the fifth is the spin and trajectory of the ball.
First is the contact point. The number one predictor of a proactively consistent shot is predictable contact. Our main goal when we make contact with the ball. And all that you should be focusing on is making sure that you contact the ball out in front of your body, never contacting the ball behind you. A lot of us will watch pro matches and we'll see that they contact balls behind them all the time, hitting balls in between their legs. The reason for that is because they've already perfected hitting the ball at that perfect contact point in front of them. So, when you perfect that, all of a sudden, it becomes second nature. Now, you can get to balls that you weren't able to get to before just because you simply don't have time to contact them out in front. So many players make late contact, whether it's their serves, their returns, their volleys, just simply because of their contact point. So, what you need to do is change in your mind where you're making contact with the ball. And the goal is to get it in front of your front knee. So, if you're standing with a closed stance like I am, let's say I'm hitting in this direction. Closed stance meaning my feet are facing towards the side fence. I'm hitting in this direction. I want to make contact in front of my front knee. If I'm standing with an open stance, I want to make contact in front of my front knees. So, if I'm in a closed stance, I'm never making contact here. So, if I turn towards you and I'm hitting in this direction, I'm never making contact here. What this does, this late contact point, is it puts the ball down. And the most common miss in pickleball is into the net. And this is one of the main reasons for it. A lot of people aren't thinking about their contact point. You don't even have to think about your stroke mechanics. If you can just consistently hit the ball out in front of you, you're going to automatically become a way more proactively consistent player.
And that brings us to power and spin generation. So contrary to popular belief, power is not coming from our arm. Power is released through our arm and through our hand, but it's not coming directly from there. In order to get the optimal amount of power, we have to utilize our legs and our hip rotation as we come through the ball. So in other words, power is generated from the ground up and released through our hand. Obviously, your arm is contributing power into the shot, but you're missing out on a ton of power if you don't utilize your leg and hip rotation as you make contact with the ball. Now, the same goes for spin. If you want to create a ton of spin on the ball, if all that you use is your arm, yes, you're going to be able to create spin, but not nearly as much as if you use your legs and hip rotation as you make contact with the ball. And so to break that down further, whenever you're at the baseline, in order to utilize all of the power that your body possesses, you're going to bend your knees and you're going to stand through contact and finish with your shoulders flush towards where you just hit the ball. So, I'm starting with my shoulders closed and my front shoulder is pointing in the direction of where I'm going to hit the ball. I'm then going to stand at contact and I finish with those shoulders flush. That's all that you have to focus on. It's as simple as that. That will help you to utilize that power from the ground and release it through your wrist.
Up next on these mechanical fundamentals is our grip pressure. Now, the vast majority of us out there have all been taught that we need to keep a loose grip pressure as we make contact with the ball. What this does is it automatically makes it so that the ball can better absorb into your paddle. It's as if you're hitting the ball with a relaxed arm in comparison to a stiff arm. If you have a stiff arm, you're taking away all the opportunity that that ball has to create spin and power. And so the grip pressure that I recommend on almost every single shot that you hit is a two out of five. With a one being the paddle's falling out of your hand and a five being you're hanging onto the edge of a cliff. So use that two out of five grip pressure.
Now what happens is players think about this. Everything's going really well. They're being super consistent and then all of a sudden it shuts off. Even though they're keeping a loose grip pressure, the ball is still flying. And so now that you have that loose grip pressure, the most important thing that you can do now is change where you're aiming. The mind is so extremely powerful that just simply saying to yourself, "I want to hit the ball to this location. I want to hit the ball to my opponent's shins." Your body can automatically take care of that because it's already done that before. And so it can go into the files in your brain and be like, "Oh, there it is. That's exactly how I do that." And it's just simply from you telling yourself, "I want to hit the ball to my opponent's shin." And so all that you're simply doing is changing where you're aiming. So let's say that on your midcourt reset, you're noticing that it's going super far and it's just continuously getting slammed by your opponents. Well, think about it. Where are you trying to get that midcourt reset? Maybe it's to your opponent's shin, but what's happening is it's going more towards their head. And so, all that you have to do is change where you're aiming. So, instead of aiming for their shins, aim to hit the top of the net tape. Just simply changing that one thing where you're aiming in your brain automatically will make the ball go to your opponent's shins the next time. If you notice that you're hitting your serves and they're all going really wide out this way, change where you're aiming because you're trying to aim for this box, but what's happening is that they're all going into the fence. And so now you just change where you're aiming. Try to hit it into this box directly in front of you. And all of a sudden, voila, it goes into that box. And then it gets to the point where you no longer have to think, "Okay, I'm trying to hit it in this box," and it goes into that box. Now all that you have to think is, "I'm trying to hit it into that box," and it actually goes into that box. So the brain is an absolutely amazing tool that we can utilize. All that it comes down to is overcorrecting so that we can get the outcome that we want.
Number four is body sequencing. So, we're always keeping the ball out in front of us, as we talked about before. But sometimes we have to decide, do we take the ball out of the air or do we let the ball bounce? And this is where it comes down to moving our feet to the correct position based off of comfort. If I can comfortably take the ball out of the air, I'm going to take the ball out of the air because I want to take the ball out of the air whenever I'm dinking the ball if possible, so that I can apply more pressure on my opponents. I can take time away from my opponents. If I'm not comfortable taking the ball out of the air, let's say that it's too far to reach in, I want to step back, let the ball bounce, and then dig a relatively offensive shot if possible. And so, I'm moving my body based off of my comfort zone. And the best way to know if you should take a dink out of the air in comparison to letting it bounce is to just do this simple exercise. You're going to stand as close as you can to the line. Make sure that you are not bending your knees. Reach out directly in front of you with your paddle. And then you're going to bend your knees now and just go directly down. And draw a line from that exact position. Okay, so I know that this is my comfort zone. If I can get the ball right around this area, it's going to make sense for me to dink the ball out of the air. Specifically, trying to get it right at that sweet spot near the top of my paddle. If I can get it at the sweet spot area, it's going to be about right here. So, I want to take every dink that I possibly can out of the air from this position, so long as I'm on balance and comfortable, so that I can apply pressure on my opponents and take time away from them. And what's brilliant about this is we did this exercise while standing straight up and down. And so if I bend my knees, I have more reach automatically just from bending my knees, which I'm going to be bending my knees if I'm dinking the ball out of the air. So since I bend my knees, I can now dink the ball out of the air. I can reach in further than that initial point that I just saw. But I'm still going based off of that initial point. Because just because I can bend my knees and get further, it doesn't mean that it's going to be a good idea to try to take that dink out of the air. Again, we're going back to comfort. That gives us our exact comfort zone. The last thing that I'll say about taking dinks out of the air is that if you put your non-dominant arm behind you, you get even more reach. Okay? So, we're bent, arm comes behind you, you get even more reach. And the reason for that is because it's pushing your front shoulder further forward into the court. So, bend and put that non-dominant arm behind you and you'll be able to get even more reach, making it so that you're more comfortable. Just don't go beyond your specific line that you've drawn for yourself. And then if it bounces more shallow than that, or I'm just simply scrambling to get out to the ball, I'm letting the ball bounce, trying to create offense. Or if I'm scrambling to get to the ball, I'm hitting that ball, that dink back up the middle of the court. Again, it comes back to the why behind each shot.
And that brings us to the fifth block of mechanical fundamentals, which is spin and trajectory awareness. A lot of players aren't aware of the spin that their opponents are putting on the ball. So, there's multiple different types of spins, but the two main ones are under spin and top spin. That's what you need to be watching for. If your opponents are hitting with under spin, they're cutting underneath the ball. That is creating backspin for them and top spin for you. Because if I cut underneath the ball, I'm your opponent. I cut underneath the ball. It's spinning off of my paddle in this direction. It's creating under spin coming towards you. But if you change the direction of the ball, say you hit it without changing the spin, now you have top spin in this direction. So if it's coming in this direction, it's under spin towards you. But it's top spin for you. So a lot of players struggle when their opponents hit under spin to them. And it's a huge strategy that I've used throughout all of my pickleball matches that I've ever played as I figure out these people struggle with under spin more or top spin more. Because if they struggle with under spin, chances are they hit the ball into the net a lot. And the reason for that is because they already have all the top spin that they need in order to hit the ball back down into the court. So if your opponents ever hit under spin in your direction, notice that it already has all the top spin that you need. So you need to aim higher. Again, it comes back down to your brain utilizing the files in your brain. You're going to pick a new target. You see that they hit under spin. Okay, I automatically need to aim higher because they've already given me all the top spin that I need for the ball to drop back down into the court. So, I want to make sure that that makes sense because that's one of the most important things, one of the most overlooked things that causes so many early errors in points where points should be extended, but they're not just simply because the player hits it into the net because they didn't recognize the spin. If your opponents hit under spin, you aim higher. If your opponents hit top spin, you aim lower. The reason that you want to aim lower when your opponents hit top spin is because it's coming to you in this direction with top spin, but as you hit with your top spin, you're changing the direction of the ball. And so because of this change of direction of the ball, so it's not getting as much top spin as if they hit under spin. So because of that, you need to aim slightly higher. So if you've noticed that your opponents hit a slice and you hit it into the net again and again and again, please adjust that. Just simply aim higher. I've played with so many players who just continue to hit the ball into the net like, "Oh, I can't figure out this player's return." All that it's coming down to is that they're hitting with under spin. Or all that it's coming down to is that they're hitting with top spin. Make the adjustment. All that it comes down to is height. If they hit with under spin, aim higher. If they hit with top spin, aim lower.
That brings us to section number five, which is strategic fundamentals. There are three phases of every single point. Phase one is serve and return. Phase two is the transition. And phase three is the non-volley zone. So, first of all, phase one of the point we are serving. We already know the why behind the serve. They're returning. The strategy with our serve is to cause as much pressure as possible on our opponents and get a weak return. The strategy as the returner is to cause as much pressure as possible on our opponent and give ourselves time to make it up to the net. Phase two is the transition. As the returner, we're transitioning up as quickly as possible right after we make contact with the ball. As the server, we're transitioning after that third shot. And that brings us to phase number three, which is the non-volley zone. This is a place where not a lot of players make it to. But as soon as you understand the why behind each shot, you're going to start making it there way more often. And what's really important to understand in this position is the acronym CPR. C stands for control, P stands for patience, and R stands for resetting. Now, again, we've talked about resets, but remember, resets at the non-volley zone line are not always going to be a defensive shot. The vast majority of the time, they're an offensive shot. We're drawing that straight line. So, starting with C, control, we're dominating the net. We're dominating tempo. We're moving the ball around, causing a ton of pressure on our opponents. Patience. We're waiting for the opportunity to attack. We're not making stupid shots. We're making the correct shot. We're not trying to create something out of thin air. Instead, we're waiting to set ourselves up. And then that brings us to the R, which I talked about is reset. When in trouble, we're going to slow that ball down and change their offense automatically to defense. Thus, either resetting the rally to a neutral position or automatically taking over the point. So, remember CPR. As soon as you get up to the kitchen line, think about controlling your opponents, being very patient, waiting for the opportunity to attack, and then resetting whenever your opponent speeds up the ball so that you can automatically take advantage of the point again.
And that brings us to shot purpose. Every single shot that we hit has a goal, has a why, like how we've talked about before. The goal with every single shot that we hit in pickleball is either to neutralize the point, attack our opponents, or to apply pressure. So, if we think about the neutral shots, that's going to be any defensive shot that we hit, whether that's a defensive drop where we're offbalance hitting it, or a defensive drive where we're offbalance hitting. The most common, as soon as you start getting up to the kitchen line, is going to be a defensive dink. That's where we're going to be neutralizing the point, hitting it up the middle of the court, trying to get it at our opponent's shins, and ultimately regain advantage on the point. An attack shot is going to be anything from a speed up from midcourt to a block volley at your opponent's feet or a speed up from the kitchen line. And then pressure shots. That's going to come down to offensive drives, offensive drops, and offensive dinks. We're moving our opponents around, applying pressure, making the court feel smaller, and ultimately causing pop-ups. So remember that every single shot that you hit in pickleball has a purpose. You're either neutralizing the point, you're attacking, or you're applying pressure.
So with this section of strategic fundamentals, let's talk about some winning patterns that you can instantly implement. The drive and drop combo. So if I serve the ball, I serve, they return the ball. I'm going to drive that initial shot like 90% of the time and then I'm going to drop the next shot. We already know why we're driving the shot. We already know why we're dropping the shot. What it's going to create is a short shot for us to drop so that we can make it up to the kitchen. So, this is a fantastic strategy and pattern that you can implement in every single game that you play in order to automatically take advantage of the point and automatically be a better player. And the best part is is that you can implement this directly after watching this video. You've already hit hundreds of drives. Unless, of course, this is your very first time ever seeing pickleball. You've already hit hundreds of drives. You've already hit hundreds of drops. You know how to hit these shots. But doing them in this pattern, in this way, and understanding the why behind them makes it so that as soon as you get out onto the court, you're automatically a better player and can automatically implement them.
The next one is the solo shake and bake. With the solo shake and bake, I'm driving that initial third shot after I've served, they've returned, and I'm rushing the net because I know my drive is low. If I don't know that my drive is going to be low and I think it might be high, I'm going to stay back and not do the play at all. But since I know that my drive is low, I drive that initial shot, rush the net, and then I'm going to be hitting that next ball out of the air. Again, this next ball that I'm hitting out of the air isn't a putaway shot. I'm ready for that next shot to come back. Every single time that I hit a shot, I'm trying to get it down at my opponent's knees because I'm hitting these swinging volleys, but I'm not trying to win the point. I'm trying to set myself up for a winner. And then as soon as that overhead comes up high and out wide, that's the winning opportunity. But what happens more times than not is that your opponents just make a simple mistake because of all the pressure that you're applying on them. So I really prefer the solo shake and bake in comparison to the normal shake.
And bake where you hit a drive, your partner crashes the net, and they don't know if your drive is high or low, but you always know if your drive is going to be high or low.
And then the last play to implement takes place up at the kitchen line, and that is moving the dink around, specifically crosscourt. So, we're moving from our opponent's inside foot, the one that's closest to the center line, to our opponent's outside foot, the one that's furthest away, closest to the sideline. And the reason that we're hitting crosscourt is because we have a much greater distance to hit to. If you hit all your dinks down the line, or even some of them down the line, which I'm not saying to never hit your dink down the line, but if you do, you don't have as much court to work with. You're going to be way more inconsistent. And so, the way to move your opponents around and be consistent at the same time is to hit the vast majority of your dinks. And what I suggest at the 3.5 and 4.0 level is to just strictly hit your dinks crosscourt, changing from inside foot to outside foot, hitting a couple to the inside foot, a couple to the outside foot, until you get that pop-up.
So, there are three winning patterns that you can use to automatically take advantage of each point. That brings us to section six, which is understanding team dynamics. And the first subcategory of that is roles and doubles. Different players have different instincts. If you think about someone like Ben Johns, they're a player that likes to take up a ton of court and are typically super aggressive. So Ben Johns, as I said before, Hayden Patrickquinn, Andre Deescu, and on the women's side, we have Anna Bright, Annalie Waters, and Leia Jansen. They are the finishers. They are the ones that want to take up court. They're the ones that want to attack.
Now, you might be watching this video and be like, "Yep, that's me." And you also might be watching this video and be like, "No, that's not me at all." And that's why there's other players like the Colin Johns, the Gabe Tardios, the Christian Alshon. They're the ones that are setting up their partners for success. They're the ones that have extremely good counterattacks and really thoroughly enjoy bringing the point back to a neutral position. Whenever their opponents are on offense, if they ever speed up the ball to this player, this player is going to put that ball back down on them and automatically turn their opponent's offense into defense. These players don't care so much about taking up a ton of the court. They just want to set up their partner for success and do their job perfectly.
So, with team dynamics, you want to make sure that you understand who you're asking to be your partner, first of all. After that, who you're playing with, who is who out on the court. There's always going to be a more aggressive player, and there's always going to be a less aggressive player. And most often times, these players mesh really well together. In comparison to two really aggressive players that are playing on the same exact court, they tend to clash a lot. And even if they're both fantastic players, they can lose to teams time and time again that are much less skilled than them. And that's just simply because they have that good balance. And it's the same exact thing when you have two non-aggressive players out on the court. They're giving up a lot of space in the middle, and typically what it creates is a lot of winners down the middle. So when you're asking someone to be your partner, make sure that you understand what player you are and make sure that that person that you're asking balances you out.
Now that you have your partner, that brings us to partner communication. Communication is an absolute weapon out on the court. Not just while you're inside the point, but between points, while you're on the bench, prior to the match, in the warm-up, whatever it might be. Every single opponent or every single team you play will have to have a different strategy going in. They might be the super consistent players that are going to try to out-rally you. They might be the super aggressive players that are going to be attacking everything. Whatever players it might be, you need to strategize with your partner beforehand to figure out a game plan.
So, here's the best way to do that. Prior to playing, you're going to meet up with your partner and you're going to say, "Do you know anything about these people?" If you don't know anything about them, if your partner doesn't know anything about them, then you're going to have to figure that out during the warm-up and during the first few points. In the dream scenario, let's say that you do know who your opponents are. You're going to decide with your partner who you're hitting the return to, who you're going to be hitting third shot drives and drops to, and who you're going to be hitting your dinks to.
So, let's start at the baseline. Let's say that I know both of the opponents on the other side of the court. I know that the opponent on the left side over there, their left side, is an extremely aggressive player, and I know that their partner is a very passive player, a consistent player. I'm going to talk to my partner beforehand and say, "We need to hit all of our returns to the aggressive player." The reason that we want to do that is, yes, they're going to be driving the ball from the baseline, but if we can get good deep returns or even low shallow returns that are slicing and kicking at him, he's going to have a hard time creating offense because since he's so aggressive, his whole goal is to get up to the net. Whereas, if we return to his partner, his partner is going to consistently hit drops in over and over and over again. And we don't want that to happen. So, I talked to my partner beforehand. We figured out, okay, that's where we're going to be returning the ball.
And so, now we're asking the same question. Where should we hit our third shots of the rally? We've served. They've returned the ball. We're now hitting the third shot drive majority of the time. Who should we drive the ball at? The more consistent player or the more aggressive player? Now, this is where you have to figure out who struggles more with drives. Who struggles more with drops? Because it could be the more aggressive player, it could be the more consistent player. And then moving on from there, we come up to the kitchen line and we got to figure out who are we dinking the ball to. Again, this could be the more consistent player or it could be the more aggressive player because maybe the more consistent player struggles with dinks or maybe the more aggressive player speeds up the ball way too often. So, you can just keep dinking it to them and then just simply get out of the way.
So, now that you have that game plan, you've moved from the return of serve to the third shot of the rally to now up at the net. You continue using that game plan until it stops working. So now, let's say that you're out on the court. You're playing in this match and this game plan isn't working at all. That's why we have two timeouts in pickleball. Every single game that you play, you get two timeouts to go sit down, not just to take a break, and not just to take away your opponent's momentum, but to strategize. That's where you'd be like, "Okay, we've been hitting all the returns to the more aggressive player. He's been absolutely chomping us up with his drives. Let's go to the more consistent player, allow them to come in, and then we can create from there." And so whatever it might be, now you go in with that new strategy and you're just focused on that one strategy throughout the entire rest of the match.
And I have seen this work so well in all of my pickleball tournaments. One match in specific where this happened was a gold medal match, and we ended up losing the first game 11-6. We had a strategy going in, and the strategy was not working. We went and sat down and we didn't come up with a new strategy. We just wanted to take away our opponent's momentum. Bad decision. We came back in, and they just kept steamrolling us. So on the changeover in between games one and two, we came up with a strategy to take away our opponent's superpowers. My strategy was I noticed that my opponent that was directly crosscourt for me, since we were all stacking, was throwing me off the court with all of their dinks, and it was causing me to pop up the ball over and over again. And so I decided I'm going to take one to two steps back from the kitchen line and give myself more time to dink the ball. I then also had a game plan that I would sneak up randomly and take the ball out of the air because now he had started hitting his dinks even further and deeper to where I could scoot up now to where the kitchen line was and take the ball out of the air. And my partner had the strategy to change the direction of the dink from the player with the really aggressive dink that was absolutely eating me up to the other player who was lefty, and so we could get it to his backhand, and it would be his backhand dink versus my partner's forehand dink. And so we stuck to that plan for the next game. We ended up winning 11-5, and then we didn't go into the next game and say, "Oh, we need a new plan." No, this was what was winning. So, we stuck with it, and we won the next game 11-2. So, remember that all that it takes to win against anyone is one winning strategy.
And then that brings us to partner communication during each point. The words that you need to be using most often are yours, mine, and out. You want to always be letting your partner know that you're either making contact with the ball or they should be making contact with the ball, and most importantly, that they need to let the out balls go out. With the pickleball rules, it's completely fine to have partner communication, and you can really say anything so long as it's to your partner. Obviously, something that you wouldn't say to your partner is, "Don't miss right when your opponents are making contact." And so, you obviously wouldn't get away with that, and you obviously wouldn't want to do that anyway. But what I am saying is that so long as you're talking to your partner and saying either yours, mine, or out, you're going to be way better off than your opponents that aren't talking to each other. That partner communication has to happen during each point so you guys don't have confusion in the middle and so that you guys know who is hitting each shot and when the ball is going out. Because a lot of the time when your opponents speed up the ball to you, you tense up, you're ready to hit it. You're not thinking, "Is this ball going out?" But your partner, on the other hand, is.
And that brings us to the fundamental that most players miss, and that is reading the game. The first thing to talk about is anticipation over reaction. We want to be able to anticipate when our opponents are going to speed up the ball. We want to anticipate if they're going to be driving the third shot or if they're going to be dropping the third shot. We want to anticipate if we should be earning the ball, if we should be jumping over the kitchen to hit that shot out of the air. And the way that you anticipate is simple. You see cues from your opponents, such as paddle angle, body rotation, and foot movement. If your opponents are moving their feet rapidly to get to a ball, they're not going to be speeding up the ball. So, you can anticipate that the ball is going to either come as a soft drive or a soft drop. If your opponent's feet are planted, you see that they have a big backswing and their paddle angle is closed down towards the ground, they're not going to be dinking the ball. They're going to be speeding up that ball. And the best thing is is if they were doing a fake speed-up, but then they actually dinked the ball, you have time to react. Because with a dink, the ball's hit so soft that you have time to get to the dink anyway. Just because you set up for a speed-up doesn't mean that you don't have time for the dink.
The last thing to focus on with anticipation is your opponent's paddle face. Where is it facing? If it's facing upwards prior to contact, they're dinking the ball. If it's facing downwards prior to contact, they're not dinking the ball. If they have a load-up prior to contact, they're not going to be dinking the ball. And then the second way to anticipate rather than just react to your opponent's shots is to recognize patterns of play. What are your opponent's strengths and what do they absolutely love doing? Maybe any time that you hit the ball slightly high to their forehand side when you're up at the kitchen line, they speed it up 90% of the time. So because of this, we can anticipate since my dink is slightly high to their forehand side, I should take a step back, split step, and get ready to counter the shot. And let's say that I do all that and they end up dinking the ball that 10% of the time again. I have time to get to that dink. So recognize patterns with your opponents. Specifically, focus on what their strengths are. Take their strengths away, and then you don't have to worry about anticipating that speed-up.
That brings us to pattern repetition. This is a fundamental that most players miss. They try a pattern for a couple of points. They win two points, lose the next two, and then they totally give up on that pattern. That might be, "Hey, this player really struggles when we drop the ball to their backhand foot." And so, because of that, they hit a couple of drops to the backhand foot, they struggle, they win some points, they lose some points. Just because you lost a couple of points doesn't mean that that's a bad strategy. What it means is that you're not executing what's happening after that. And so what you'll find with the pros is that they run the same sequence, the same pattern, the same strategy over and over and over again until it doesn't work. And what I mean by doesn't work is that it doesn't work quite a few times. They don't stop doing it just because it's not working 50% of the time. They stop doing it because it's not working the majority of the time. As soon as that happens, it's time to move on to a new strategy. And so don't think just because your opponents have won a couple of points with your newfound strategy that it's a bad strategy. You just need to execute better with that strategy. Again, that's going to come down to the why behind each shot. If you understand the why, you'll automatically be able to implement that strategy and better execute at that strategy.
That brings us to section number eight, which is power versus control. Now, we've already talked about proactive consistency, but what we need to understand is that control is and will always be the foundation. Power is absolutely useless on its own. So, remember that control is the foundation and power is the upgrade. The illusion that you see when you see a player hit a huge power shot on the Pro Tour and win the point is that that shot has hidden control. And the reason that it has hidden control is because they've practiced that shot thousands and tens of thousands of times. So, what I suggest is building your control layers first. Learn the soft game. Learn how to dink. Learn how to reset. But at the same time, don't neglect your instincts. If your instincts are to be that power player, that player that takes up space, you don't want to just solely focus on improving the consistency of your dinks. Instead, and I can't stress this enough, you need to balance focusing on the consistency part of your game and the power part of your game. Because as you increase in consistency, the power will come as a byproduct.
And so, when I first got into pickleball, I would speed up every single shot. I just wanted to attack. I wanted to hit through my opponents. And my partners, time and time again, would come up to me and say, "Austin, you got to dink the ball, bro. You got to hit the ball soft." And it wasn't because I was hitting these power shots and winning the point. It's because I was losing the vast majority of points by hitting with power. And so throughout the next few months, all that I focused on was my soft game, being soft, making sure that I'm dinking the ball. But I didn't have any purpose behind my dinks. I didn't know why I was doing it other than it was more consistent and I could out-consistent my opponents. And what happened was is I lost all the consistency that I previously had on my attack game and on my power game. And I realized that I needed to get that consistency back in order to be a hard player to play against. And so gradually I started working on implementing more power into my consistency game. And as a result, it turned into that illusion that you see today where I will hit a power shot, but it has hidden control because I've hit that shot so many times. So again, it's not control versus power. It's control and power. You start with control. Don't lose your instincts of power. Combine them and create the beast. And again, the best way to do that is with the Pickleball Drills app. It gives you all those drills that you need to take your game to the next level and become the most consistently aggressive player possible.
That brings us to section number nine, which is the mental model of pickleball. We want to be thinking in time and space, and not necessarily in shots. And what I mean by that is time is equal to how long it takes the opponent to make contact with the ball that you just hit. And space is the part of the court that we allow them to hit to, the part of the court that we essentially give up. The goal is to take away as much time away from your opponents and as much space away from your opponents as possible. And the best way to do that is going to be to move forward up to the kitchen line. The closer you get to the kitchen line, the less space that they have and the less time that they'll have to react. And so, a lot of players have been taught that the goal in pickleball is to get up to the kitchen line. But the goal in pickleball is not to get up to the kitchen line. Instead, the goal in pickleball is to win. And although getting up to the kitchen line is a really effective way to win, it's not the goal. You can still be effective and take time away from your opponents from the baseline. You just can't take as much time away from your opponents as if you were up at the kitchen line. So, it's extremely important to take that time away as well as the space away from your opponents. So, get your butt up to the kitchen.
Another example of how to take away time from your opponents and space is to hit your serves deep and hard into the court. If you hit it hard, it's taking away that time. If you hit it deep, it's taking away space. So remember that the mental model for high-level pickleball is always thinking in time and space. How can I take time away from my opponent? And how can I take space away from them? It might be by hitting drives at the baseline at the player that's already up at the kitchen line because they don't have as much time to react.
Section number 10, which is how to practice these fundamentals. And so the way that you're going to practice this is through drills that build not only repetition but understanding. In other words, you're doing drills that have purpose behind them. The absolute best drills to do to increase consistency are going to be those cooperative drills where we're just simply hitting shot after shot after shot, trying to focus on the fundamental form as we make contact with the ball. That's going to increase consistency, but that's not necessarily going to increase consistency when we get into a match. Soon as we get into a match, now those nerves kick in, and our consistency automatically plummets. And that's why it's also important to do drills that are competitive. Competitive drills build that anticipation. They make you feel nervous. You're keeping score. You're trying to hit a certain amount in a row. What this does automatically is it makes it so that when you get into that tournament, you've already felt those tournament nerves. So, the absolute best way to build muscle memory and to build confidence when you're out on the court is to do cooperative competitive drills.
We have hundreds of drills to choose from on pickleballdillsapp.com and a constant influx of new drills coming in. And what's super exciting is there are thousands of players that are currently on the app that are seeing insane improvement in their game. So, it's super cool to see players that are using the app leveling up their game. And that was the entire intent behind creating this app as a way for you to see the exact system that I have used to make it to the 5.5 level. And if you want to continue crushing your opponents out on the court, I just barely uploaded this video right here. In it, I'll teach you exactly how to play aggressively consistent. I hope you enjoy it, and I'll see you over there.
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