At rec play, you are going to get a lot of bad advice mixed in with some good advice. The hardest part as a beginner is knowing which advice to follow. If you follow the bad advice, improving becomes a winding road full of u-turns instead of a straight path.
What hinders beginners is that they hear these bad advice over & over, and eventually it wears on them and they give in. Part of why people take so long to get from the rec level to the next level in any sport is due to lack of understanding of the game.
Understand the reasoning behind the bad advice and ignore it.
A lot of bad advices are like the “e before i except after u” rules of pickleball. The exception happens more often than the rule itself.
Other times, the advices are simply outdated, with new paddle technology, you hear pros say a lot that pickleball right now is nothing like the game being played 3 years ago.
#1 Respect The X
So “respect the X” says if someone speeds up or attacks from crosscourt diagonally, let the partner diagonally across them hit the ball.
What if they are hitting the ball diagonally, within reach of you, but out of reach your partner? If you respect the X, the ball flies down the middle and you lose.
The actual rule: if you can get a clean hit on the ball, hit it. If you can’t get a clean hit on it and your partner can, let your partner hit it. And err on the side of clashing paddles. It’s better to clash paddles than to let a ball go through the middle.
And if the ball is wide where the opponent can hit shot down the sideline, the partner closest to that side covers it, and the other partner shifts over and covers the middle.
Also learn to communicate in rec games. Say “you” or “me” as soon as the ball leaves opponent’s paddle. Not after it crosses the net. After it crosses the net, it’s too late. Remember, your partner needs enough time to react to what you say and also move in to cover it. Call it early. If you call “you” last minute and your partner didn’t have enough time to react and move and the ball flies past both of you, that’s on you.
#2 Move Up The Court Together
A common bad advice is that both player should be tethered and move up the court together when dropping.
See Understanding The Transition Zone to understand why the person who isn’t dropping the ball should move up and put pressure on the kitchen and cut off angles. You actually want to be untethered from your partner so you can crash on any pop ups.
#3 Just Get The Serve In
A common bad advice is the serve is “just to get the point started”.
The serve is a weapon. If you are serving, you are at a disadvantage because the opponent starts with one person already at the kitchen.
So take the risk on your serve.
The serve is also literally the thing you can practice the most on alone without a partner. And it’s the one thing you have control over that will give you an advantage on the serving side.
On a day without wind you should be able to hit the baseline basically every time. Practice a deep fast serve that hits a foot off the baseline every time. Pros aim to miss 1 out of every 10 serves deep. If you aren’t missing 1 out of every 10 serves, you are leaving money on the table.
If you are a 3.5 level player or below, you’ll notice that your team gets to the kitchen line probably less than 30% of the time.
So if you are a rec player ~3.5 level or below, you should probably aim to miss 2 out of every 10 serves deep.
At the lower level, where you haven’t mastered the drop and resets. Which means you have even more incentive to serve bigger and take bigger risks.
A weak return increases your % of getting to the kitchen by a lot, especially if they are late running to the kitchen after returning.
#4 Mid Court Is No Man’s Land
This isn’t tennis, you need to get comfortable playing in mid court.
Against any decent 3.5+ team, you won’t be able to get to the kitchen in 1 drop.
If you never advance up and take some space in no man’s land, you will lose even if you have the best drops. Go into no man’s land, and take away their angles. Most common mistake 3.5 make is they just learned to drop and that’s all they do. They stay back and drop all day. Because they are taught “dropping is how you get to the kitchen”, they think if they drop a good enough one, they’ll get to the kitchen off the one good one. With modern paddles with grit can flick up on the ball even if it dips below the net, the kitchen opponents can keep you back even off a good drop. You need to learn to reset as well to get to the kitchen.
#5 Don’t Attack In Transition
Back in the day, you couldn’t really attack in transition against balls around net height because the paddles were smooth and made of plastic or wood. Even balls above net height, if you hit it from mid court, it will slip off your paddle and go into the net. Now with grit, you can apply topspin so even balls that are little bit below net height, you can attack and make it dip as it crosses the net.
#8 Don’t speed up crosscourt
Don’t pop a ball high and soft when speeding up crosscourt, because it’ll get countered down on your partner hard.
But if you see an opening down the middle or at the opponent’s body… and you can reach in their a speed a ball fast out the air right at them, do it.
If you can keep the ball low and fast do it.
If you watch pro play, you will see a lot of cross court speed ups out-of-the-air.
#9 Don’t Drive, Always Drop
Three years ago before gritty carbon fiber paddles came out, you really couldn’t drive unless the ball was super high. There was no grit and the ball would just slide right off or fly off the court. Now you can drive, and the topspin will keep it dipping low over the net. The key for driving is don’t drive for a winner. Aim to drive so it dips at their feet. If they are hitting down on your drive, that’s a bad drive. Make them hit up.
Feel free to drive the 3rd, then drop the 5th. Or if the pop the ball up high enough, drive the 5th, drop the 7th.
#10 Don’t Drop Volley
The common advice is: don’t drop volley a low ball into the kitchen.
If you see your opponents are on their back foot and off the court, a drop volley in the kitchen will likely be a winner.
In fact, it’s more likely for a winner than if you hit an overhead smash back at them.
This isn’t tennis, an overhead smash right back at them at the baseline isn’t too hard to get back because the pickleball speed dies as soon as it bounces. And if they are at the baseline, you have to hit the ball in the court and bounce it in front of them.
Just make sure you make the drop shot volley good and it bounces inside the kitchen. If it’s high and long, that’s just a free ride for them to the kitchen.