Can You Hit 40 Dinks in a Row?

Author

Shea Underwood
April 12, 2024

WEEK 9

Welcome back to the Road to Pro!

Each week, I’ll be sharing one tip, one drill, and answering one question. BUT, that’s not all! The question I answer each week will be chosen from questions that YOU submit. The person who submitted the chosen question will receive a FREE paddle from me. Hugo, who provided last week’s question, won a $100 SLK Evo 2.0!

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

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

Tip of the Week

Hit and Recover

If you want to be faster and more prepared for every shot in a game, there’s something extremely important to remember. The faster you recover after a shot, the more ready you are for when the ball comes back to you. Next time you’re out playing, try to be aware of how long it takes you to get back to ready position after you hit a shot. It’s very easy to get into the habit of hitting the ball and watching it go over the net to see if it was a good shot. Watching the ball is fine; however, while watching you need to make sure you’re also getting your feet and paddle back into position for the next shot.

Here are two tips to help you reload and recover faster:

  1. Shorten your follow-through on shots like dinks, drops, and speed-ups. An exaggerated follow-through will often prevent you from having enough time to prepare for the next shot.

  2. Immediately after you hit the ball, check that you are in an athletic stance with your paddle out in front. If your body is positioned like this BEFORE your opponent makes contact with the ball, you will be more prepared to return whatever shot is coming your way.

Drill Highlight

Hidden Weaknesses

Here’s a super simple drill you can do that can quickly reveal the weak parts in your dinking game:

Stand across the net from your drilling partner. Choose a dinking direction - either straight ahead or cross court - and try to get 40 dinks in a row (collectively). But there’s a twist…don’t take it easy on your partner. Both of you should be trying to win the point. Once you achieve 40 dinks, choose another direction and run it back.

When you’re trying to win a dink rally, you’ll naturally go for lower margin shots, causing you to lose the point by hitting it into the net or wide. By turning a casual dinking drill into a game with purpose, you’ll be able to see what areas you may need to improve on.

Q&A Spotlight

This week’s question comes from Heather. Time to win a prize!

Is it true that if you drop the ball before serving, you don’t have to swing below the waist?

Answer: Yes, that’s correct. You don’t have to swing below your waist if you perform a drop serve. Somewhere along the way I learned way too much about pickleball serving rules, so let me break it down for you🙂 

There are two types of serves: the volley serve and the drop serve.

Volley Serve - This means that you serve the ball by releasing it from your hand and hitting it before it hits the ground. Here are the requirements for this serve:

  • Motion: If you choose to do this serve along with 99% of other players, you need to make sure that you are hitting the ball below your waist, your swing is in an upward motion, and the tip of the paddle is below your wrist.

  • Release: You can choose to toss the ball up high, drop it, or even throw it into your paddle as long as the motion requirements above are met.

Drop Serve - For this type of serve you drop the ball from your hand, let it bounce, and then hit your serve. Here are the rules:

  • Motion: There are no restrictions on your paddle motion if you perform a drop serve. That’s the whole point of a drop serve. It was invented as a way to make serving motions easier to call as legal or illegal. However, not everyone knows the rules, so it’s still a point of contention.

  • Release: If using a drop serve, you have to release the ball out of your hand from a natural, unaided height. This means you can even stand on your tip-toes with your arm overhead to drop it. The key here is that you must only drop it. You can’t toss it up or throw it down, just a simple release and let gravity do the rest.

This is a really simplified version of the serving rules. If you are interested in learning more, you can read all the details in the Official USA Pickleball rulebook here (Section 4): https://usapickleball.org/docs/USA-Pickleball-Official-Rulebook-2024-v1.pdf.

Click the video below to see what paddle Heather won this week for her 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 paddle!

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