Play Smarter Pickleball: Strategy, Targeting, and Shot Selection

Hello Pure Pickleballers - it's time for another coaching post.

As we all look to continue our journey to becoming better players, it's important to start moving our games away from just seeing the ball and hitting the ball, or hitting the shots we just like hitting and putting some thought and strategy into what we are doing on court.

This is an article I wrote for the July issue of World Pickleball Magazine - free to download!

Another crucial component of a "system" that aims to make pickleball easier and more fun involves understanding and adapting to your opponents' play styles and weaknesses. This strategic approach is key to confident, calm, and clean execution in every shot, where you don't just hope to play well, but you expect to.

Here are the key aspects of this strategic system:

Understanding Your Opponents: The First Step to a Winning Strategy

The first step in this system is to understand who you're playing. This is a two-question process where you aim to identify the better player in each position and their tendencies:

• At the Baseline: Determine which player is more offensively inclined (e.g., someone who drives every shot) versus defensively inclined (e.g., someone who drops every shot).

• At the Kitchen Line: Ask the same questions: which player is more offensive and which is more passive (e.g., a "dinkbot" who dinks every shot).

• In Defensive Position: If you're speeding up the ball, figure out which player has a better counter and which player struggles to counter more or generally resets more.

Ideally, you'd know your opponents beforehand, but often it takes a couple of points at the beginning of a match to gather this information.

Once you've figured this out, call a timeout with your partner to brainstorm together.

• Targeting Returns: Decide if returns should go to a player who is more inconsistent or simply more passive.

• Targeting Dinks: Determine which player tends to pop up their dinks or is super impatient and can't help but speed up the third ball. It makes more sense to hit your dinks to and target such a player.

• Targeting Speed-ups: Identify which player is better at countering the ball (you generally want to avoid hitting to them) versus the more passive player or the one who pops up counters. The source provides an example from a PPA match where Matt Wright strategically told James Ignatow to "speed up every single ball whenever you get an opportunity to DJ [Young], he doesn't have a counter," indicating a clear plan to target a weaker counter for pop-ups and put-aways.

Tournament vs. "Rec" Play: It's critical to note that this strategy should be flipped based on the circumstance.

• Tournaments: The goal is to win, so you should hit to the weaker player.

• "Rec" (Recreational) Play: This is an opportunity to practice. To give yourself the best practice, you should hit to the better player, even if it's the opposite of what you'd do in a tournament. You must use your best judgment to improve your game.

Taking Away Your Opponent's Superpower: Neutralising Their Strengths

Step number seven of the system involves taking away your opponent's superpower. This means identifying what your opponents are doing exceptionally well that's applying significant pressure on you, and then devising a strategy to neutralise it.

• Example Strategy: In a 5.5 gold medal match, after losing the first game, a player and their partner identified that one opponent's crosscourt dinks were their "superpower," pulling them off the court and causing pop-ups. Their counter-strategy involved two main parts:

  1. Dinking to the Partner: They started dinking the ball to the aggressive opponent's partner instead, initiating a crosscourt dinking exchange for their own partner, who found it easier to dink with the less aggressive player.

  2. Adjusting Court Position: The player being pressured took one step back from the kitchen line. This gave them more distance and time to react to the aggressive opponent's deep dinks, preventing them from being thrown off the court and allowing them to hit easier balls up the middle or back crosscourt. This also set up random opportunities to attack balls out of the air when the opponent became used to hitting deeper dinks. This simple strategy led to winning the match.

The key takeaway is to strategise with your partner if you're ever down, figure out what their "superpower" is, and then stick with one, or a maximum of two, simple strategies that work.

This focus helps neutralise the point and ultimately win the match.

Rethinking Shot Selection: Choosing the "Right" Shot Over the "Safe" Shot

Step number six emphasises that you need to rethink shot selection by choosing the right shot, not the safe shot.

• Context Matters: The "right" shot isn't always obvious and can depend on the level of play. For example, if dinking crosscourt forehand to forehand, the best location to speed up the ball against a right-handed player is typically their right hip (the "chicken wing" position). Speeding up through the middle might work at lower levels, but at higher levels, opponents will cover that middle shot, making it a bad habit.

• Applying Pressure: Sometimes, the "right" shot is not the safest, but it applies pressure or can be a clean winner. For instance, on a third ball where you're comfortable, speeding up the line might not be safe, but it could be the "right" shot to surprise opponents expecting a crosscourt dink and apply pressure.

• Practice and Drilling: This mindset of going for the "right" shot, even if it feels uncomfortable, is especially important in "Rec" play and drilling, as these are opportunities to practice and build the repetition needed to execute these shots without thinking.

If you start to employ some strategic thinking to your play, you will be pleasantly surprised by the results - don't just see ball, hit ball. See ball and hit ball with a purpose!