Pickleball Techniques

Technique Table of Contents

Bookmark this page so you can always come back to it to develop the next technique. Find what technique you are weak at and go from there. 

New to racket sports and overwhelmed? Start from the serve first. Pickleball serve is basically hitting a forehand groundstroke so it’ll help you develop the technique and you don’t need a partner to drill it, can practice it by yourself. If you are coming in with racquet sport background, you’ll be able to jump through to the ones you don’t know.

This is for Doubles.

• Serves
  • Regular drive serve
    • Teaches you the form for drives
      • (2nd shot return drives are just the higher deep serves but more compact and less backswing).
      • (3rd shot return drives are the low over the net short serves but more compact and less backswing).
  • Topspin underhand serve
• Returns
  • Advanced Slice Returns
• Third shot
  • 3rd Shot Drop
    • Forehand topspin drop
    • Backhand topspin drop
  • 5th Shot Drop
    • Forehand slice drop
    • Backhand slice drop
    • Flat drop
  • Drive / dro-ve
    • Forehand drive / dr-ove
    • Backhand drive / dr-ove
  • Off-Ball Movement – What To Do When Your Partner Is Hitting The Third Shot
• Overhead Smash
• At The Kitchen
  • Forehand
    • Forehand flick
    • Forehand roll
    • Forehand putaway / counters
      • JW Johnson putaway
      • Side spin putaway
  • Backhand
    • Backhand punch / counter punch
    • Backhand flick
    • Backhand roll
    • Backhand putaway / counter
      • I Took a Lesson to Fix My Horrible Counter Attacks 
    • Backhand two handed volley
  • Speed-Ups
  • Dinks
    • One-handed Backhand dinks
      • Slice
      • Topspin
    • Two handed backhand dinks
    • Forehand dinks
      • Slice
      • Topsin
  • Erne
  • ATP
• Transition zone
  • Resets
  • Transition Attacks
  • Off-Ball Movement
• Dodging Out Balls
  • https://youtu.be/VWpqKZsGupk?si=rH58ZT5p0JKVNN0W
    • If you get the chance watching them play other players will also help you know what type of swing they do when they hit it out. And which of their shots they often hit out.

• More Advance Tech (that you don’t really need)
  • Scorpion
  • Lob
    • Offensive lob
    • Defensive lob
    • Lob Retrieval
  • Running Third Shot Drop
    • Drop Volley
      • https://youtu.be/1imKA4QKPVU?si=6WAu05CVj0tENTEo 
      • Colin Johns Volley aka why hit it back when you can just outright win the point
    • Crosscourt dipping drive to the kitchen
      • For when people are coming late to the kitchen (this usually happens crosscourt when people are stacking).
      • There is a reason why this isn’t used as much and is an advanced tech in doubles is because it’s very easy to miss out wide.
  • Reset Drives
  • Tweener

Strategy

• Patterns Recognition
• Mental

Physical

• Strength
  • Wrist/Forearm
  • Core
  • Leg
• Flexibility/Mobility
  • MovementByDavid
• Footwork
• Hand Speed

Once you learn all of it, then basically go back and repeat but increase accuracy. Put cones on the ground where you want to hit to. Like a basketball player would when shooting shots.