Advanced Dropping Tech: Put your weight forward on to your front foot when dropping. Move forward into the ball like you would on a return.
You are taught to always split step before you drop.
Once you master that, the next level is to ignore that. If you can consistently topspin drop while moving through it, why not do it.
If you can’t, drill it.
It’s like the fadeaway jump shot in basketball. In the beginning of basketball, coaches would tell you to never do it, always have your feet set. Nowadays most basketball even at the high school level will jump and then square their shoulders mid air to buy themselves more time. In modern basketball, if they split their feet, square up, and then shoot, they won’t get the shot off before the defender closes in on them.
Same in pickleball, as players get better, techniques get more advanced. Sure it’s harder to do, but that’s why it’s an advanced technique.
When you get good enough with the aggressive hybrid drop, you can move through it just like you would a return of serve. This way you are at the kitchen way faster and close off their angles after.
I remember thinking about this and DMing my friend about this in late April:
“I thought of this last Sunday. So from the defender aka the person at kitchen line’s perspective. What is harder to keep the ball from popping slightly high over the net:
A great topspin drop that dips with a lot of spin? OR a dink from when everyone is at the kitchen?”
My friend replied: “the first one.”
Me: “That’s what I’ve been realizing too.
The player basically has more room to create more topspin and make the ball dip from high to low from further back in the court. When I’m at the kitchen, there is only so much topspin I can put on it before it becomes too high. But when I’m dropping, there is naturally a lot of topspin.
So that actually flips the offense on it’s head.
The goal previously for drops is to get to the kitchen for 50-50.
But if it’s easier to make the opponent make a mistake when coming in off of that drop, that’s actually when we should strike. It’s actually a 60-40 when dropping and transitioning in.”
Me: “So imagine this. We have the person returning the 3rd shot: topspin drop crosscourt.
He pinches middle, his partner moves up the line. Basically crowding the returner at the kitchen. A slight pop up occurs, both are already there to hit the ball down.”
My friend replied: “Interesting idea”.
And then months later Tyson McGuffin came out with the video.
Tyson McGuffin talks about it here when he analyzes Jaume’s running third shot drop:
“Jaume can hit this running topspin drop. It takes a good amount of feel. He sneaks in and is in right away.” – Tyson McGuffin
“He doesn’t just get to the line, he gets to the line with a gain!
He gets to the line with a weaker dink [from Ben Johns] and he is able to pull [speed-up] right away.
If he does a loopier third, and resets in transition, he probably gets to the line but for the first couple of dinks the Johns brothers are likely in control of the point. He might have to grind out some really high level dinking, just to get a look for a ball he might be able to speed up.
So again, sometimes it makes sense to take a little bit more risk and get out of the mindset of just getting to the kitchen line. But get to the kitchen line on your own terms.” – Coach McKenzie
He also talks about it here on ALW’s drop:
If you move through the drop, you might take only 1 drop to get to the kitchen, as opposed to 2. Or 2 drops as opposed to 3. And every additional drop you need to do, is additional % chance of missing.
Pickleball Journey has the same philosophy as me as well: “Now I’m taking a whole drop away that I have to hit. I might only have to hit only 1 or 2 drops [instead of 3].”
“I want you to be moving as you are hitting the ball”. – Pickleball Journey