Tips from Coach Nick

1. The Soft Game: Why Dinking Wins More Points Than Power

Most new players think pickleball is won by power. Then they play someone who barely swings and still can't miss.

Almost every player I coach starts out thinking pickleball is a power game: big serves, hard drives, smashing anything that pops up. Then they play someone who barely swings the paddle and somehow wins anyway. That's the soft game. Once it clicks, you won't look at the kitchen line the same way again.

What a Dink Actually Does

A dink takes real control, even if it looks lazy from the sideline. Its job is to neutralize your opponent, draw an error, and buy you time to get into position at the net. None of that happens if you're swinging at it.

• Keep a loose grip. A tight hand kills your feel for the ball.
• Use little to no backswing. Cradle the ball instead of hitting it.
• Get your paddle out front and make contact early, before the ball drops.
• Power comes from your legs, not your arm. Bend your knees and lift.

Why Cross-Court Is Your Best Friend

Watch a high-level match and you'll notice most dinks go cross-court, not straight on. I still catch intermediate players dinking straight on out of habit. There's a reason cross-court wins out: the net is lower in the middle, you've got more court to work with, and a cross-court ball is genuinely harder to attack than one coming straight at your opponent's body.

Dink With a Purpose

Don't just rally back and forth aimlessly. Every dink should accomplish something: move your opponent, open a gap, or set up your next shot. A simple rule I give my students: never hit the ball to the same spot twice in a row. It forces you to keep thinking instead of going on autopilot.

Try this: Grab a partner and dink for five straight minutes without trying to win a single point. Focus only on getting your paddle up and ready before the ball arrives. That habit alone will clean up more of your soft game than any drill.

2. The Third Shot: How to Choose Between Drop, Drive, and Drip

The third shot decides whether you get to the net as a team or hand your opponents the advantage. Here's how to pick the right one.

In doubles, the serve is shot one and the return is shot two. The third shot is the one that actually decides most points. Get it right and you're on your way to the net with your opponents on the back foot. Get it wrong and you're stuck in no-man's-land while they take over. The good news is that choosing the right third shot isn't guesswork once you know what to look for.

Your Three Options

• Drop: a soft shot that lands in the kitchen and buys you time to walk in behind it.
• Drive: a firm, flat shot at your opponent's feet or hip, used when they're out of position.
• Drip: a drive-drop hybrid, a low, rolling ball aimed at the feet of an opponent stuck in mid-court.

Read Before You Decide

The return of serve tells you almost everything you need to know. If your opponent hit it off their back foot, they won't have time to get all the way in, so that's your cue to drip it at their feet. If they're already moving forward, respect that and drop the ball. If they're sprinting to the net, drive it. You want to make them uncomfortable before they get set.

Whichever shot you choose, hit it off your front foot with your weight moving forward. Leaning back on the third shot is one of the easiest habits to fall into and one of the hardest to break later.

Don't Forget the Fourth Shot

Players spend so much energy on the third shot that they forget the fourth is just as important for setting up the point. Roll it deep, drive it, or drop it. Just don't pop it up. If your opponents look like they're on their heels, keep them there with a well-placed drop instead of giving them a free reset.

Try this: Have your partner feed you returns from three spots: deep and centred, short and angled, and rushed off the back foot. Practice calling out drop, drive, or drip before you even swing.

3. Ready Position and Footwork: The Habit Everything Else Depends On

Every shot you're proud of started with your feet in the right place before the ball ever arrived.

It's tempting to skip straight to the fun stuff: spin serves, speed-ups, trick shots. But almost every shot that falls apart does so because of what happened before contact, not during it. Footwork isn't glamorous, and it doesn't look impressive in a highlight reel, but it's usually the first thing I check when a lesson isn't clicking.

Ready Position, On Repeat

• Stay on the balls of your feet, weight forward, paddle up and out in front.
• Move your feet early. Get your paddle where the ball is going before it gets there, not after.
• Keep one foot anchored when you lunge for a ball in front of or behind you, so you can recover instead of falling out of position.
• Split step and stop right before your opponent makes contact. You can't move sideways well while you're still moving forward.

Serve, Return, and Run

After you serve, step back. You need room to react to the return. After you return serve, do the opposite: get moving forward immediately. There's no excuse for not getting to the net. A deep return buys you the time to make that run; a short one doesn't.

Try this: Shuffle-step into a forehand dink, three touches, then shuffle back to the middle and repeat on your backhand. Push off your outside leg to get back into the court quickly. That push is what most players skip.

4. Reading Your Opponent: Turning Their Paddle Into a Cheat Sheet

The best players aren't reacting to the ball. They're reacting to what their opponent's paddle told them a half-second earlier.

The biggest jump I see in players usually has nothing to do with a new shot. It's learning to watch the right thing. If you're only watching the ball, you're always a step behind. Your opponent's paddle tells you what's coming before the ball ever leaves it. It took me embarrassingly long to actually trust that in my own matches.

What Their Paddle Is Telling You

• Paddle up high, like a stop sign: they're ready to go at your feet. Stop, open your paddle face, and don't swing.
• Paddle at waist height: get low and meet it at your waist or knees.
• Paddle down near the floor, head dropped: that's your green light. Move in with your paddle up, ready for a pop-up or a drop.
• Opponent stepping back: they're loading up to drive. Get as far in as you can and split step right before contact.

Start Reading Before the Point Even Starts

If you're playing someone new, use the warm-up to watch, not just to hit. You can usually tell within a minute or two whether you're facing a banger or a soft-game player, based on what they choose to do when there's nothing on the line yet. Just remember players often show their best stuff in warm-up, so don't assume that's their whole game.

Try this: In your next warm-up with an unfamiliar opponent, spend the first minute purely observing. Don't try to win anything, just notice what they reach for.

5. Building a Game Plan: Communication and the Mental Side of Doubles

Pickleball is a mental game as much as a physical one, especially in doubles, where you're only as good as your communication.

Technique gets most of the attention in lessons, but a lot of the points I see thrown away in doubles have nothing to do with skill. They come down to two partners not being on the same page. I've lost matches I should have won because my partner and I never called out who had the middle ball. It's a boring fix, and it works.

Talk to Your Partner, Constantly

• Use short, clear calls: "Mine," "Yours," "Switch," "Stay," "Bounce it."
• Move as a unit, close enough that you could reach out and touch paddles.
• Play the X. If the ball is going cross-court to your partner, leave it. Don't scramble out of position to poach a ball that isn't yours.

Have a Plan A, B, and C

Before you step on the court, decide what you're going to lean on if things go well, and what you'll switch to if they don't. If your first approach isn't working, don't be stubborn about it. Try forcing a soft game against a power player, or testing a soft-game player with more pace. Whatever you try next, commit to it instead of second-guessing every point.

Reset Between Points

Pickleball is a mental game more than people realize. Use the few seconds after each point, win or lose, to reset instead of spiraling. A quick, honest read of what just happened is useful. Replaying it for the next three points isn't.

Try this: Next time you play doubles, pick one verbal call you're currently skipping and commit to using it on every single point, even the obvious ones. It builds a habit your partner can rely on.