Top 9 Basic Pickleball STRATEGY Mistakes & How To Fix Them

hi welcome to prime time pickleball my name is Nicole Havlicek in this video we're gonna go over the top nine basic pickleball strategy mistakes we see out there on the courts as well as how to fix them let's jump right in missing one of our videos is like missing an easy put away don't let that be you subscribe now alright so the first mistake that we see a lot of players making is something we like to call the wandering server or the drifting server so let me kind of show you what we see a lot of people doing what you're gonna see a lot of people do they're gonna get ready for their serve and then they will hit their serve and then without really noticing it they're going to drift into the court instead of staying back at the baseline here we go alright so as you can see the problem with that is if you hit that serve and then you're drifting into the court the better players that you're going to play are going to want to hit that return as deep as possible so that they can make a more difficult third shot for you so if you're hit that serve and you're drifting into the court now if they hit it right at your feet you're going to have to hit it while backing up and that's not a good option for you so instead of that what you should do hit that serve and and maybe take a take a step or two back behind the baseline now this will cancel out all those balls right at your feet and then you can hit your third shot moving forward here we go alright so the second mistake that we see many players making is that they are standing right at the baseline when they are hitting their return and the problem with this is is that as you play like I said in the first mistake as you play better players they're going to hit closer and closer to that baseline and it's going to be hard for you to hit that ball and advance to the non-volley zone line ok so if you're standing right here at the baseline and they're hitting a foot or two from the baseline with a lot of pace you're going to be you're going to have to half volley that ball which is right after the balance which is going to be a tough shot or you're going to have to back up and then hit that ball to create the right space so then your momentum is going backwards and what you should have your momentum do is you should be hitting that return and going to headed towards the non-volley zone to meet your partner up there it's very important that you are off that baseline maybe anywhere between two to five or more feet depending on how hard and how deep that server is serving it's going to really help you out and put you in a better position especially with your momentum moving forward to capture the net with your partner all right so now let's move on to mistake number three which we like to call hitting dead dings now hitting dead links are basically just hitting really safe conservative high Dinks with almost no spin and they're very easy to attack so I'm going to show you right now okay so I'm hitting it right in the middle of the kitchen right to right to my opponent and because they're sitting up high and they don't have a lot of spin and a lot of placement just hitting it right to the middle of his body he can pretty much do anything he wants to with that ball okay alright so as you can see if I'm hitting those dead links not a lot of spin and my placement is the same every time and they're sitting up high it's very easy for my opponent to attack that ball so instead of that instead of hitting dead links I'm going to now place the ball place it to his forehand and his backhand and more at his feet I'm gonna change the depth um sometimes I'm going to hit it short close to closer to the net hand and closer to his non-volley zone line and also adding some spin and it's going to be a lot harder to attack those balls here we go all right so as you can see moving those Dinks around putting in different spots changing the depth of that ball and also the placement which is to the body or to the foreign to the backhand and adding some spins is really going to help you not set yourself you and your partner up for those attacking shots all right so now let's jump into the fourth mistake that we see a lot of players making and that is that they are too easily pushed off the non-volley zone line so either they're not aware of it and they are not holding their ground making sure it's a habit to stay up there and they're putting themselves at at a more of a disadvantage as they they come off the line and they keep backing up or stay at the line or stay off the line for no apparent reason and they're not noticing it so here we go here's an example of that all right so that's something we see pretty often in the beginner and sometimes intermediate levels that you are pushed off players are pushed off and they have no idea why and they don't have that mentality of they really want to stay up at that non-volley zone line because the further you move back you're gonna have more cord exposed at your feet and it's going to be harder to defend because your opponent is going to have more surface area to attack at down at your feet so one thing that you can do to not let this happen is instead of letting these deep Dinks bounce as you can see my opponent was pushing me back instead of always letting them bounce and backing up I want to take that ball out of the air as a volley as a dink volley and it holds my position at the non-volley zone line here we go okay all right so now instead of me backing up on the balls right near my feet I'm gonna decide to take that out of the air just like that a volley dink okay that was right on my feet that was a tough one but I'm having a mindset making sure that I'm constantly not backing up on every shot that that's hit at my feet all right so making sure that I'm getting every ball out in front and that if I do have to take a step back sometimes I'm gonna make sure I come back right up to the line and put myself in this neutral positioning so that I'm not way back off the non-volley zone line all right so now onto the fifth mistake that we see lots of players make and that is having the mentality of playing back at the baseline and trying to win the game back okay and not up at the non-volley zone a lot of players they're not alone they're not very comfortable of coming up to that non-volley zone but what you'll notice as you play better and better players that the team that dominates the net is going to win the game okay so you don't want to be playing from the baseline all the time you want to make sure that you are always making your way in and coming to the net so that you can be at a an advantage as opposed to a disadvantage playing from the baseline so I'll kind of show you how that looks okay so a lot of players will especially on the on the serve because they have to stay back anyways because of that that second ball the two to bounce rule when I serve it the opponent returns I have to stay back but what they're gonna do is continue just to stay back and play back at the at the baseline or around the baseline because they feel more comfortable doing this all right here we go all right so as you can see even if you have pretty good groundstrokes if you get a player at the net that is has very good hands and they could volley that ball deep consistently it's going to be really hard to win points at the baseline so instead you really want to work on that third shot drop or just work on that transition be comfortable with with advancing to that non-volley zone line so that you can give you and your team and advantage alright so number six this kind of goes almost hand-in-hand with the fifth one the six mistake that we see many players making is called the drive in a rush we like to call it because the driving rush because they serve and then that team returns it and they're going for their third shot drive and they just run in without without even looking at what what that drive did if it was high if it was low if it was a good Drive or a bad drive they just hit that drive and they come in and then they get caught while coming in because they're not stopped and they're just they're just running in without regard to how good or how effective that drive was so as you can see driving that ball as a third shot it's not a not a bad idea but you should want to be mindful of what you're going to do after that Drive okay you don't want to just come in on every single Drive and without stopping and being ready for the ball and just running in like kind of like a headless chicken you really want to be in control of the point even when you hit that third shot drive see what it does and get ready for the next ball so here here it was what it would look like here we go all right so we're onto mistake number seven and that is being a spectator on the court and we what we mean by that is after you or your partner hits that ball you're kind of just kind of seeing what's going to happen with that ball instead of anticipating and getting into the correct position so if you get pulled out wide or if you or your partner are getting pulled off the court and then there's a gap in the middle or you know that there's a good chance of your opponent's hitting it away from you you got to make sure you get back into position so that you can play that next ball all right so here we go all right all right so if I get pushed way off the court and I kind of just I kind of wait and see what happens of course my opponent is going to want to go want to hit that next ball in the space in between me my partner so if you're you're getting pulled off the court off wide or you're getting pushed back or if there's any gap between you and your partner you want to make sure that you close that gap you get pulled off wide make sure you get in position again so that you can be ready to play that next ball okay so on to mistake number eight and that is avoiding your backhand at all costs now this can be either at the non-volley zone hitting Dinks or even returning on the service return anytime that you are given a backhand you try to avoid it and run around it and hit your forehand now over the long period of time this is not going to be a good play for you because it's going to keep you out of position and it's really you're really selling yourself short as your backhand is not going to be developed all right so we're on to number nine the last but not the least pickleball mistake that we see a lot of players making and that is playing with too small of a margin okay playing with very small margins and what this means is that no matter what shot they're hitting there they could be hitting a pretty good shot selection shot like they're hitting the right shot maybe it's a cross-court dink or a return to the back end but their margins are way too small so that they are hitting it really close to the sidelines or or the baseline and they're going to be missing those balls wide and also deep and out past the baseline because they are not giving themselves enough cushion and enough margins okay so here's what it looks like all right so that is the top nine basic pickleball mistakes that we see most players making and if you have any questions go ahead and comment below on this video and also if you are not subscribed to this channel make sure you hit that subscribe button so that you can be part of the primetime pickleball family and we hope that you really enjoy that once again and we'll see you in the next video if you enjoyed this video please give it a like thanks so much for watching for more free video lessons please visit primetime pickleball comm but before you head on over there make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you don't miss out on any future videos also for prime time pickleball shares like this and other great apparel please visit PTP gear.com

Channel: PrimeTime Pickleball

Views: 307,508

Rating: 4.9225197 out of 5

Keywords: pickleball instruction, pickleball, pickleball mistakes, pickleball top 9, learn pickleball, pickleball errors, how to play pickleball, pickleball improvement, pickleball help, pickleball beginners, pickleball lesson, pickleball tips, pickleball strategy, pickleball beginner mistake, return of serve, pickleball return, pickleball instruction videos, how to improve pickleball, improve pickleball, beginner pickleball, pickleball novice, pickleball top mistakes

Id: iL3Vkgr1Gq8

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020