5 Pickleball Tips to Quickly Improve Your Game

Author

Shea Underwood
June 30, 2024

WEEK 22

Welcome back to the Road to Pro!

Here’s what you can expect this week:

  • A rare offer from Selkirk

  • Five essential pickleball tips

  • Discounts to help you save on pickleball gear

  • A world record attempt

As always, I’ve answered a question that one of you submitted, and this week, Travis gets a brand new paddle for his question! If you want the chance to win a paddle, click on the button below to submit your pickleball questions. Anyone whose question is featured in my newsletter will automatically win a new paddle!

Rare Selkirk Offer

LAST DAY OF THIS PROMO IS TODAY!

To celebrate ten years of growing the sport of pickleball and creating trusted paddles, Selkirk is offering their loyal customers as well as new players a rare discount on the best paddles in the game!

Use promo code TrustInSelkirk at checkout to save $115 on an SLK OMEGA when you purchase select Selkirk paddles. (This offer stacks with my personal discount code: ‘ADV-SHEA’)

Q&A Spotlight

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

Say I have 10 minutes to soak up as much information that I can about pickleball. In those 10 minutes what would you run me through?

Travis

Answer: This is a great question! There are 10 things I consider to be the most important pieces of information I would share if only given 10 minutes. I don’t want to overload you all with information, so I’ve provided the first five tips this week, and I’ll give the remaining five in next week’s issue.

Now let’s get into it!

The Body Serve

Aiming serves just outside your opponent's backhand foot is a strategic move. If the serve targets their body, they must decide to move over slightly for a backhand return or step across for a forehand return. Most players prefer using their forehand, so this type of serve forces them to step across their body, moving their right foot over their left. When they do this, their momentum will be moving horizontally rather than going forward into the court. This slows their approach to the kitchen and prevents them from adding as much power to their return.

Aim for just outside their backhand foot

Shot Peaking

For dinks, drop shots, and resets, the peak of the ball’s flight path should be on your side of the court. For example, when you’re dinking, if the ball is still rising as it’s approaching the net, it might hit the net or continue rising on your opponent's side, giving them a chance for a speed-up. The same principle applies to resets and drops. If the ball peaks and starts to fall before crossing the net, it reduces your opponent’s opportunity to hit an attacking shot.

Spin Continuation

There are a lot of players, especially ex-tennis players, who have incredible backspin returns. These shots can be difficult to return properly, and most players attempt to hit these shots with no spin or with their own backspin. Neither of these approaches is effective. If a ball is coming towards you with backspin, then you’ll need to add topspin to your shot to keep the ball rotating in the same direction. If you try to add your own backspin to the ball, you’d be going against the ball’s rotation, which won’t allow you to hit an effective shot.

When there is a lot of backspin on your opponent’s return, the ball will stay very low to the ground. You should position yourself in a closed stance, bend your knees, and get low to the ground so that you can get your paddle underneath the ball. The face of your paddle should be angled more open towards the sky, and you need to hit with an upward motion.

Closed stance - low to the ground - paddle face angled towards the sky

On the flip side, when dealing with heavy topspin returns, many players mistakenly try to counter with topspin drops. To keep the ball’s spin rotation moving in the same direction, you’ll need to apply backspin instead. For these kinds of drops, you’ll need to keep your paddle movement minimal, lock your wrist, get under the ball, and move your paddle forward with an open angle. Keep your paddle in front of your body so that you can hit the ball in front of you. This simple stroke will allow the ball's speed to carry it back over the net while continuing its spin rotation.

Where to Aim Drives

When hitting drives to opponents at the net, don’t assume you’re going to hit a winner. Trying for the perfect drive often leads to your technique breaking down, which causes errors like hitting the ball into the net or too far out of bounds. Instead, focus on placing your drives where your opponent struggles to return, which could then set you up for a point-ending shot.

This may surprise you, but the best place to target is not always your opponent’s backhand. Often you’ll want to target their forehand. The reason is because most players use a continental grip (see image below), which means they can block a drive better with their backhand since their wrist is strong and stable in this grip. However, when they have to use their forehand to block a drive, their wrist bends slightly back, so it’s not as strong. This reduces their ability to return your shot with as much power or speed.

Continental grip - like shaking hands with your paddle

Where to Aim Drops

You should avoid aiming your drops too close to the sidelines on either side of the court. There are three reasons why this is not the best place to aim your drops:

  1. A drop that close to the sideline could easily open up the opportunity for your opponent to hit an erne.

  2. Trying to aim for the sideline could cause you to hit too wide out of bounds, immediately losing the point.

  3. The net is a little higher on the side, so if your drop isn’t high enough, it could stop at the net.

Instead, you should aim your drops anywhere from the middle of the kitchen to about 2-3 feet away from the sideline. This way you will have more consistent drops and avoid the risks of hitting too close to the sidelines.

Keep your drops 2-3 feet away from the sidelines

Just like last week, I’m making a a video where I explain all these tips, plus the ones I’ll be going over in next week’s newsletter. I’ll send you a follow-up email when that video is out!

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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!

SwingVision Offer

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Videos You’ll Enjoy

  • I’m on a mission to break pickleball world records! Check out the video below to watch my most recent one.

  • If you haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet, I posted a video with my friend Caleb on our channel, Cracked Pickleball, where we give you 50 advanced tips to help your game. Click on the link below to watch it!

  • If you want another chance to win a new paddle, go check out my current giveaway on Instagram!

Discounts for You

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