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Doubles Pickleball Strategy Starts BEFORE The Match
Last Edited
Sep 17 2024
Category
Instruction
As you start becoming more competitive in pickleball — whether that competition is exclusive to rec leagues or in tournaments — there is one skill you can adopt that you can enact before even stepping foot on the court.
Game planning for matches gets easier the more consistent your opponents and partners are, and knowing this can improve your doubles pickleball strategy going into each game.
You might have played a given set of opponents before, or at least have a sense of what their shots look like and their intentions on the court.
The Dink Master Pro from Enhance has a dual-sided design, with one side dedicated to fire-fight training & another to practicing the soft game.
I think most pro’s don’t do an insane amount of strategy preparations, but we do often touch on a few important things.
Ask yourself these questions before each doubles pickleball match:
Who do we return to? Who’s less comfortable getting in, or more of a crash threat?
Who’s taking the majority of the thirds? Who are we targeting as we are transitioning?
Is there a shot at the kitchen we want to avoid? For example, does one of our opponents have a mean backhand speedup that can find one of our weaknesses? What dinking patterns are advantageous for us?
What are their tendencies countering? Does one player like to cheat to one side a little bit?
It’s important to remember each piece can change throughout a match. Every day is different, and each player could do something better or worse than usual that day.
Read Next: Take Control of the Kitchen with the Volley Dink
As you improve, you’ll start being better able to figure out what’s working and what’s not earlier in a match.
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