Why Pickleball is winning me over

I was a skeptic. For the past two months, I’ve logged a lot of hours on the pickle court. I average three to five days a week. When I’m playing pick-up games, I’ll hang around for three hours. When I play scheduled pickleball games, I play for two hours and possibly hang for another ½ hour depending on how the games are going and the atmosphere (body language of the players in the group). 

There’s been some transition.

How much you want to improve depends on a few things: 

• Time spent on the court.
• How you play
• Who you play with
• Variety

You can play a thousand hours, but if you are making the same mistakes, you’re going to hit the ceiling quickly. Most players, when rising up through the ranks, go through stages of self-doubt. That’s ok, that’s part of the growth process.

There are days I want to toss the paddle in the trash because I’m not seeing the results I want (which is silly and childish). Those are good days, believe it or not, because it’s allowing you to look in the mirror and evaluate yourself. 

How to process the game

Nine out of ten times the problem is how you process the game. 

Generally, the players who seek affirmation by wins and losses are losers. They lose in the long run because of shortsightedness. They see today and not tomorrow.

They don’t see it as a journey (which means they view life in the same way. Which is one-dimensional). 

**Learning to lose is a big part of the process. Both in life and in sports. That’s how we improve. 

**Side note. My background in tennis affords me some luxuries the average player doesn’t have. I have a surplus of high-level players at my disposal that I can supplement games with. I can play 4-4.5 games and then hit up some 4.5 to 5.5 players. This speeds up the learning process. What I get away with at 4.0/4.5 I can’t get away with at 5.0.

Speed ups, they have to get better.

Kitchen rallies: They have to get quicker by hitting balls that “push” the player back rather than bumps that have no value.

Angles: I said this before I got started. The area mid-way up the court is gold. Angles in the kitchen get ATP’d. Angles halfway up the sideline open up doors.

Topspin vs Slice on the volleys: Both are needed but topspin volleys are easy to return back to the kitchen for resets (but they are needed at certain times). A little cut on the volley makes it hard for the players to reset. It really depends on the opponent. Some players are used to one or the other. Give them a taste of what they want and then give them a switcheroo. 

You have to work on that by drilling. 

Top-top-cut

Top-cut-top

Top-top-top etc etc.

I would master 2 and 3 ball combos of change of pace playing below 5.0. Between 3 to 4.0 level 2 ball changes work fine. At 4-4.5 they get used to it and three ball changes are required. 

**This comes back to how they train. Once you get beyond 4.0 the players (like in tennis) train in repetitions and do the same shot over and over and over. Once those players realize this (and most never do which is why their ceiling is low), the next stage of training is FLIPS.

Hitting speed ups, 

1. right to left. 
2. Left to right
3. Right right left
4. Left left right

Two v One drills are essential too. The speed-ups get way stronger. 

One v One drills are fine but limited

Muscle memory is a killer. Be careful of how much of one thing you do. Once you know something works at different levels, reinvent yourself with a new aspect. A slice for some. Topspin for others. 

Me, I want to work more on different forms of dippers.

When I set up for a drive, I work on hiding what’s coming. A drive, A cut, A dipper so the opponent is confused.

**I’m starting to put together a base plan for the point structure to work off of. If you play games to 11, work in fours. Have a plan to start until someone hits 4 on the scorecard. Evaluate, adjust or don’t adjust depending on the level. Then when someone hits 8, evaluate again before it’s too late. 

**One cross-over drill from tennis that works well is a volley/volley/overhead rally drill playing at full speed. It helps with the transition volley getting back to the kitchen. There are many variations to this and you should solidify the learning by playing points out. Skinny singles only does so much. When one player can focus over and over on transition, it speeds up the process.

Last thoughts

There’s no way I could train tennis for four hours straight, nor would I want to. Tennis is best trained two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. You hit a saturation point. 

But, I could play pickleball for four hours straight because the ball weighs nothing and the impact on the paddle is minimal compared to the weight of the tennis rackets and the swing weight when hitting the ball.

Because life is quicker caused by our low attention spans due to social media, pickle is growing. The problem with tennis is that the governing bodies are trying to “copycat” pickle (which will never work) by making things shorter or no ad which has caused less players playing tournaments. What Tennis needs to do is make it more fun.

-Have tournaments that are played in a dingles format (dingles is a game that is played 2 v 2. It starts as two singles points, generally crosscourt, until a player misses a shot and then the point goes full court).

-Have more team-oriented play for juniors. Like, Duos. You come to the tournament with a partner and you play 1 and 2 singles vs other 1 and 2 singles and then follow up with doubles. 

-Have blind duals where the draws are broken up into 6-player teams that compete like college tennis (The top 6 players are the ones for their team. The next 6 are the twos and so on). And have a social before the tourney starts where each set of six players is picked out of a hat. This adds excitement which tennis is lacking. 

-Groundstroke game tournaments

There’s so much tennis can do that they won’t because you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Their vision is blinded by blinders. Typically, tennis coaches and the people in charge can’t think OUTSIDE THE BOX.

Tennis will die out if they can’t find new ways to add excitement to the tournaments. There’s a camaraderie in Pickleball I don’t see in tennis. The atmosphere is competitive and fun. Tennis taught me to be selfish as a player and focus on numero uno. Pickle has more of a backyard feel that is inviting (but, will that change when more tennis players cross over).

**The biggest difference between pickle and tennis is that more people have access to it. More players come from different backgrounds. Like everything, this is good and bad. But for now, it’s mostly good.

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