Games are won and lost at the net. And the best way to win points is developing your own pickleball dinking strategy around the net. Here’s 5 things you have to get right when hitting your dink shots.
Pickleball Dinking Strategies
Aim for the 3 Sweet Spots on the Court
You can win more games at the non volley zone just by working on your placement.
In general there are 3 main spots you want to hit your dink shots to. If you watch any of the pro’s play you’ll notice these are their favorite locations as well. You don’t want to hit to these every time, but the three main spots are going to be down the middle and on either sideline.
Down The Middle
This strategy is not going to do you much good in singles. It’s probably the last thing you want to do actually.
However, in doubles pickleball, especially at more beginner and intermediate levels, this is a great tactic to win some easy points.
What we’re counting on mainly is miscommunication between the opponents. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen two players at the net with a ball headed between them. Both get ready to hit the ball, both notice the other about to hit the ball, and freeze or pull their paddle back to get out of the other’s way. The result? The ball harmlessly falls to the ground bouncing a second time with the other team winning the point.
While this won’t fly in really competitive pickleball settings, it definitely cause confusion at lower levels. Even if one player returns the dink, introducing a little ambiguity can work wonders. They’ll be less confident going to hit the shot, and will be thinking more about whose ball it is to hit instead of where and how to attack you.
Cross Court Corners
When I said to attack the outer court boundaries, we actually don’t want to hit down the line. The real money is made cross court. In pickleball, dinking cross court, or diagonally from you offers some unique advantages.
One of the biggest mistakes players make dinking is putting too much air under their dink shot or having it bounce too high. Your opponent is much less of a threat when their hitting the ball back from an angle well below the net.
Hitting diagonally is much more forgiving in this respect. You have more space to hit the ball and the ball will hug the net more closely and really limit the offensive response from the other player. It also cuts off their angles to return from by putting them into the corners of the non volley zone.
Because there’s more space you can hit harder more line drive dinks that won’t be able to be hit out of the air because they’re so close to the net. You’ve created so much more space for the shot.
Add Spin to your Dink Shot
If you’re capable of it, spin is a great idea to add to any shot.
But it’s especially helpful on a dink shot.
Spin will always make the ball harder to return. The ball bounces off the ground differently, and makes it harder for the opponent to react to and put the ball exactly where they want to on their return.
It also makes the ball come off their racket differently. We’ve all returned a shot we thought we hit well but because of the spin ended up out of bounds or hitting the net.
Spin gives added help to your dinks though. A key to dinking is making sure you don’t hit the ball too high or it doesn’t bounce so high. Both backspin and topspin bring your ball back towards the ground, and will both results in muted but different types of bounces.
Lower dinks will force your opponent to lift their shots off the ground more to get above the net, and increase the chance they pop it up high enough for you to hit an overhand.
Change Your Dink Up and Move Your Opponent
One of the worst things we can do on the court is hit lazy dinks.
You know what I’m talking about. These are dinks that have no purpose, no direction. You might even find yourself getting into a rally with your opponent with these. Where you both simply dink it back and forth to each other, as if you’re trying to see how many you can get in a row.
Not only does this not accomplish anything, you’re allowing your opponent to set the terms of engagement. With a shot straight towards them, they decide who to hit towards, whether it goes to your forehand or backhand, and the depth of the shot.
These are all things you should be switching up when hitting your own dink.
Send them both forehand and backhand. Don’t alternate. Don’t do anything that would let them get into a rhythm or know what you might do next.
In this same theme, during a dink rally, don’t let the ball bounce every time! Sometimes taking a low volley out of the air can disrupt the other teams cadence and gives them less time to react or reset for the next shot because you didn’t wait for the ball to hit the ground.
Make sure to also vary depth. Try to get some dinks that just barely drop over the net. Then hit dinks deeper more towards their feet where they’ll be vulnerable.
Doing anything you can to keep your opponent guessing will keep them on the defensive and less aggressive.
Don’t Make the First Mistake
Pickleball dink strategy can sometimes be best in its simplest form. The dink isn’t fancy. Delicate and precise maybe but not fancy.
Think about both teams being at kitchen line.
When you’re in these scenarios, who wins the point?
It’s usually the team that gets an easy put away. A shot that came up too high, was above the net, and was able to be smashed hard at the other team.
Basically the other team made a mistake, and the winning team took advantage. That’s all it takes in pickleball. You don’t have to make your dink shot risky. That extra odds boost you might get from winning the point with your tricky dink is likely outweighed by the odds you mess the shot up. Sometimes it’s better to play it safe and be ready for the opponent to give you a chance to strike.
Now this by no means means play conservative or get lazy. You should still be doing all the things we talked about above. Work the forehand and backhand. Continue to switch it up on the opponent and keep them guessing. I just mean you don’t need to do anything drastic to win the point.
Play the Hand Your Dealt
This is more just a tip on how to play the game.
It kind of goes in line with above, but the last thing you want is to let your opponent dictate how you play.
It they come at you with an aggressive dink and try to up the tempo, the best thing to do is go for a reset. Don’t let them bait you into hitting aggressive dinks back because fighting fire with fire might lead to you popping the ball up, which as we’ve talked about is the opportunity your opponent’s been waiting for.
If they come at you aggressively, short hop the ball right out of the air, and take all the momentum out of it and force them to dink it back at you.
At the same time if they give you a weak, gentle dink, attack with harder cross court dinks that give you more space to operate and try to pin them in the corner.
Be open to any kind of shot. Hit the ball in whatever way is most advantageous given the situation.
Evolution of the Dink Shot
While we have touched on a bunch of different dinking strategies, we’d be remiss to not at least mention this.
The game around the non volley zone has changed a lot recently. If you don’t believe then go on youtube and find any professional pickleball doubles match and you’ll see what I mean.
Gone are the days of lollipop dinks where keeping the ball below the net meant it was safe. Better players can easily roll over the ball and add spin making for dangerous returns. The game around the net has gotten much faster in recent years.
Want to Work on Your Dinking?
Convinced you need to work on your pickleball dinking? Don’t worry. While being competitive and competent around the net requires more skill than ever, we’ve put together a list of dink drills so you’ll be ready to execute on any dinking strategy and raise your game at the kitchen.