Pickleball in Canada

When I am playing pickleball competitively, there is nothing I like better than to look across the net during warm up and seeing that one or both of my opponents is returning shots with the telltale long strokes of a tennis player. Once I see that, I know exactly what to do.

Long strokes may lead to winners on tennis courts, but they can lead straight to lost points on the pickleball court. I say “can” because that is not always the case. If you play with a long stroke and your opponents don’t recognize it or don’t know what to do with it, you may do fine. You may even win a lot. But the moment you face an opponent of equal level who understands the liabilities of long stroke pickleball, you are more likely to lose than to win.

As with every stroke pattern, there are pros and cons to long strokes. On the pro side, long stroke players tend to have more power and more directional control at lower levels. At the lowest levels they will even be able to blast balls through opponents and win a lot of points. And as a added bonus, long stroke players who want to can develop an enormous amount of impressive top spin which will certainly WOW spectators and opposing flat-ballers.

Unfortunately, that’s where it all ends for long stroke players at about the intermediate level.

Intermediate and advanced short stroke players know that long strokes break down the moment side-to-side spin is introduced. So they hit the ball over the with spin and keep it short. They force long-strokers to move forward and to the side or back and to side on every possible shot.

Long strokes are designed for balls that are moving more or less north and south through the hitting zone when the striker is able to adjust his/her positioning to take the ball consistently at waist height. They are not at all good strokes for balls that are moving east-west or northeast-northwest. Long-strokers who are able to hit balls moving this way have tremendous eye-hand coordination. They do exist, but they are representative of tiny fragment of the gene pool and tend to be few and far between.

The other disadvantage to long strokes is that they are fairly easy to read. By the time a long stroke player lines up his feet and shoulders and then gets his racquet prepared to hit the ball, the receiving team or player has a pretty good sense of the direction the ball will be traveling in. Unlike short-strokers, who can disguise their shot until the last possible moment, long-strokers who are preparing to hit a slice or a drive will make that clear up to 0.5 seconds before their paddle actually strikes the ball.

And to make matters worse, there are genuine health risks associated with long stroke pickleball that every player and coach should keep firmly in mind, including RSI damage to rotator cuffs, elbows and wrists.

As someone who coaches both tennis and squash and who watches players from both sports competing on the pickleball court, I have to say that short-strokers have an enormous advantage over long-stokers — especially on the backhand. In fact, I see this advantage as so utterly complete that I no longer recommend or teach long strokes to pickleball players at any level.

Watching new pickleball players advance through the levels from 2.0 to 4.0 is fun. I enjoy giving them tips and pointers. I enjoy watching them learn and progress and gradually become the best players in their group.

Unfortunately, 4.0 is where most players stop progressing and begin stagnating. In fact, I am willing to predict that 99 out of 100 pickleball players who achieve the 4.0 level on their own without coaching will stay at that level for the rest of their lives. The reason for this is built into the nature of the recreational game.

Widespread in the sport of pickleball is an inherent bias against formal coaching. Some players will even go so far as to say that formal coaching has no place in our sport. As a result, many players would never considering consulting a coach to help them progress beyond the 4.0 level.

The end result of this attitude plays out on the court in the form of legions of 4.0 pickleball players who are unable progress to the next level. Without coaching, only a tiny number of special athletes in this group will advance to 4.5 and beyond.

So what makes a 4.5 level pickleball player better than a 4.0 player? Generally, it’s a perception issue. Most 4.0 players see pickleball as a game of powerful winners. They crave the big shots that end rallies in dramatic form. As a result, they blast balls from the baseline. They pound every overhead and they aim every angle for the sidelines. They seem to crave applause even more than winning the game.

Players at the 4.5 level and beyond are after points, not applause. They have figured out — either on their own or with the help of a coach — that pickleball is a game of errors.

The best players in the game do not step on the court expecting to hit winners. They understand that players at the 3.5 level and beyond are capable of returning most shots and that blasting winners and painting lines is a sure way to give up free points.

Players at the 4.5 level are masters of every shot. They can hit hard, they can hit soft and they can hit everything in between. They can hit groundstrokes, volleys, drives, dinks, slices and drops. They can hit top spin, bottom spin, side spin and no spin. Most importantly, though, they know how to keep nearly every shot in the court.

Players at the 4.5 level and beyond do not try to blast balls through their opponents. They place the ball and make their opponents move to get it. The best among them will do this over and over and over again and simply wait for their opponent to make a mistake. At that point they will let the ball sail out of bounds or die into the netting.

Sustained pressure causes errors. Errors win points. Points win games. Every 4.5 level player I have ever met understands this — in pickleball and in every other racquet sport as well.