Pickleball footwork: Unlock better dinks with this subtle move
Last Edited
Dec 15 2024
Category
Instruction
Whether you’ve played pickleball for 6 months or 6 years, odds are you need to work on your footwork.
Even pros are constantly fine tuning their movement on the court and doing footwork drills.
This tip applies to dinking at the kitchen line and involves a subtle shuffle step that will put you in a balanced position when dinking to the middle or cross court.
Scenario: better footwork, better dink
Let’s say we’re talking about a right-handed player who is playing the left side of the court.
For a visual, let’s say that player is Sammy Lee, the head teaching pro at Lucky Shots Pickleball, which has multiple locations in the Minneapolis area.
Photo credit: Gray Wolfe Media
Lee is an extremely consistent dinker and more than willing to grind backhand dinks with his opponents until they miss one in the net, give him a high ball to attack or try an ill-advised speed up because they simply cannot take it anymore.
See for yourself:
In this clip, Lee does two things really well once his team is established at the kitchen line:
- He’s looking to take every ball out of the air, either to attack it or send a dink volley back over the net, taking time away from his opponents and moving them around.
- When he realizes he’s not going to be able to take the ball out of the air, his first move is with his right (inside) foot, shuffling it slightly forward and to his left. This allows him to push off with that right foot, explode back and to the left and get into a low, balanced position to send a perfect dink back cross court.
Eventually, Lee gets the perfect ball to flick at the paddle-side hip of the opponent in front of him. We love to see it.
The process would be reversed for those playing the right side of the court -- step with the left (inside) foot first, then push off with that foot to move to the right.
Read next: Take Control of the Kitchen with the Volley Dink.
The next time you’re waiting to play at your local courts, watch the amateurs when they’re dinking at the kitchen line. We bet you’ll see a lot of them taking big, lunging steps with their outside foot or standing too tall, leading to an unforced error.
Don’t be that person. Fix your footwork and be like Sammy Lee — efficient and on balance.
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