In-game pickleball strategy: Be flexible to exploit the weak link
Last Edited
Jan 08 2025
Category
Instruction
A lot of us have experienced something like the following scenario:
You go into a doubles match with a clear plan to keep designated players on the left/right, the plan doesn’t work, you forget to call your timeouts (or are too stubborn to do so) and the match is over before you considered changing your strategy.
Sound familiar?
A simple dinking strategy to implement
Unless one of the players on your team is significantly better or more comfortable on the left or right side, most teams should consider playing straight up (or not stacking) in the early points of a match. More pros are starting to play this way, a notable shift after stacking was considered the optimal strategy for almost every team the past several years.
Playing straight up, at least early on, allows teams to better and more quickly assess how they match up with their opponents. In the first 5-10 points of a match, focus on making high-percentage shots, getting to the kitchen line and moving dinks around to different spots.
During this phase of the game, pay close attention to which of your opponents – and which player on your team – feels more comfortable dinking at the kitchen line. Once you or your partner have identified the weaker dinker on the opposing team, call a timeout.
Use the break to get on the same page with your partner and answer these questions:
- Who is the weaker dinker (WD) on the opposing team?
- Who is the stronger dinker (SD) on your team?
- Which side have those two players been playing to this point?
Now that you have those answers, it’s time to stack.
The goal here is to position your SD cross court from their WD. Most players will choose to dink cross court. Now when their WD does that, they will be playing to your SD, falling right into the trap you have just created.
You’ll be surprised how clear the strategy becomes – when all four players make it to the kitchen line, construct points that result in cross-court dinking rallies involving your SD and their WD, while the “off” player on your team waits for a pop-up they can attack or waits to counter a panicked speed up by the opponent.
If they switch sides to try to get out of this pattern, switch with them to keep your SD cross court from their WD. Follow this pattern until it’s not working anymore, then call another timeout (if you have one) and try a different strategy. But we bet it will work for long enough to win you the match.
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