Do You Know Where To Aim Your Drives?

WEEK 11

Welcome back to the Road to Pro!

Each week, I share one tip, one drill, and answer one question. The question I answer every week is chosen from questions YOU submit, and the person who submitted the question will receive a FREE paddle! Last week, Patrick submitted a great question and won himself a $100 SLK Evo 2.0.

To submit your question(s), click on the button below to be taken to a Google submission form:

Hint: There is no limit to how many questions you can submit!

Tip of the Week

Place Your Drives Here

Where do you aim your drives? When you’re at the kitchen line and want to hit a speed-up, you probably already know that you should aim at your opponent’s shoulder on their paddle-holding side (attack the right shoulder of right-handed players). Targeting this spot can result in your opponent defending with a chicken-wing like motion which is not a great position to be in. This happens because they have less time to react to the speed-up, allowing the ball to come too close to their body. However, when you're hitting drives from the baseline, your opponents have more time to react. They are less likely to allow the ball to get too close to their body, which lets them attack the high ball instead.

The best place to hit your drives is where your opponent is most likely to pop it up. It's unlikely, especially in doubles, that you will hit a clean winner on a drive. Of course, it's possible, but the vast majority of the time, your ball will come right back. Players often hold their paddles in a way that covers their backhand, meaning they'll find it easier to block fast drives with their backhand. Personally, I've had the most success hitting drives to my opponent's forehand at hip height. This is the spot on the body where most people will have to perform a chicken-wing motion to achieve the proper paddle angle for their return shot. If they don't do it correctly, it almost always results in a poor block.

Try it out and see for yourself!

Drill Highlight

The Drive Drill

Here’s a drill designed to help you learn how to place your drives effectively. This drill will unlock a ton of potential in your game. Grab a drilling partner and stand on opposite sides of the court at the baseline. You can position yourselves either diagonally across from each other or directly opposite each other. Stay at the baseline and limit yourself to hitting groundstrokes, aiming your shots at just one half of the court.

Here’s the twist: If you’re on the right side of the court diagonally across from your drilling partner, use only your forehand to hit every ball. Similarly, if you're hitting cross-court from the left side, use only your backhand. This will help you learn how to maneuver around the ball effectively and to accurately place shots from uncomfortable positions.

Turn this drill into a game where the first to score three points wins. Aim to keep all your shots in play beyond the kitchen line. If you hit the ball into the net or out of bounds (including into the other half of the court), your drilling partner scores a point. If a ball lands in the kitchen, the point is replayed.

For those of us who don’t come from a tennis background, hitting accurate groundstrokes can be challenging. This drill is great for strengthening this area of your pickleball game if you’re a beginner, or for polishing your groundstrokes if you’re a seasoned pickleball veteran.

Q&A Spotlight

This week’s question comes from Samuel. Time to win a paddle!

Answer: Samuel is talking about a situation in doubles where one partner is up at the kitchen and the other partner is back, a setup similar to tennis. This setup is generally not the optimal strategy for most pickleball players, but it can offer some advantages when executed by the right players.

In professional play, particularly with players like Riley Newman, you might see this strategy used because one partner excels at poaching and can effectively cover the entire front half of the court alone. It's rare to see this done intentionally; however, during matches, a player may move up to the net to poach a drive or a drop shot and then stay there to handle subsequent plays.

If you or your doubles partner is particularly agile, be aware that this situation might occur during a game. The best thing you can do in this situation is try to get back to a standard side-by-side doubles formation. To do this, if you’re the one in the back, tell your partner where you’re at on the court (to their right or left) and approach the kitchen whenever you can. If you don’t communicate to your partner, they will have no idea which side you’re on if you’re behind them.

I hope this helps! Thank you for your question.

If you have a question you’d like for me to answer, please click the button below to fill out the question submission form.

If your question is chosen for next week’s newsletter, you’ll win a free paddle!

Videos You’ll Enjoy

• I don’t have a new video for you this week, but here’s a video I made you might not have seen yet: Pickleball Pros Try To Guess Ratings of Regular Players.

  

• Here is another fun YouTube video I posted this week with my friend Caleb, go check it out! Pickleball Pros Guess The Ratings of Amateurs.

  

• Do you want another chance at a FREE paddle? Click on the video below to enter my most recent paddle giveaway on Instagram!

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