Now that you have been playing pickleball for a while, your basic skills are starting to develop and you are getting to be one of the better players on your local courts. But, while you saw a lot of improvement in your pickleball game in the beginning, you now seem to have plateaued and further skills improvement seems to be harder to come by. If this describes your pickleball game, lets take a look at what pickleball shots you will want to learn to improve your pickleball skills in order to take your game to the next level.
Which Pickleball Shots Are Important to Know for the Intermediate Player?
We covered the pickleball basic shots in our beginner pickleball article and some of those shots are the same as those covered in this article, but with a slight twist. Now that you have learned the basics, it’s time to take some of those shots to the next level and make them a skills advantage that you can use in a pickleball game to actually win some points.
5 Skills Every New Pickleball Player Should Learn
1. Third Shot Drop
This is one of the hardest shots to learn to hit well because it requires a lot of finesse to hit a good third shot drop. But having an effective third shot drop that you can hit consistently in a game will certainly elevate your game to the next level.
My experience as a former tennis player when first playing pickleball was to sit at the baseline and try to overpower my opponents by hitting hard drives to the middle, to the outside, and anywhere I thought I could overpower my opponents. And that may work well against beginner pickleball players, but as I started to play better players more often, I learned that strategy doesn’t work well because these players can return drive shots easily.
So over time, I made it a point to learn the third shot drop and that has elevated my game, and my game strategy tremendously. Now I can play the fast game because that is what I am used to as a tennis player. But I can also play the finesse game and slow the game down with a third shot drop that brings an opponent in to the non-volley zone who might have been caught napping back at their own baseline.
I love having this new shot as part of my skills set as it has really changed the game for me and made it fun to compete using it against more advanced players.
2. Reset Shot
For me, this has been one of the shots that has also been quite important to learn. You see, when I started playing pickleball I was just learning how hard I needed to hit the ball to get some shots over the net effectively.
What I mean by that, if you return a shot with too much height, your opponent will return the shot with a missile hit either at your feet or angle the return to a spot where you will never reach it. Check, been there, done that. Then, I started to try to finesse the ball in order to just get the ball over the net so my opponent couldn’t smash it right back at me. The trouble is, I was probably returning from the middle area of the court where I shouldn’t be playing from, or the baseline. Check, made these mistakes as well.
After playing many games, making many mistakes, and being able to watch the more advanced players play their game on our local courts, I determined that I needed a “reset shot”.
This is a shot that you use if you are up at the non-volley zone (NVZ) and an opponent hits a hard volley at you, having the ability to return the ball softly so it drops in the kitchen on your opponents side of the net both slows the rally down and “resets” the pace of the rally so the slower pace may be more favorable for you to control the pace for the remainder of the point.
The other opportunity to use a “reset shot” is when you have hit the ball too high over the net, maybe a lob to push your opponents back from the non-volley zone and they hit an overhead smash that you are hoping to return. I find it easy to return overheads but my returns of overheads are always too high over the net which gives the opponent another chance to hit a better overhead smash than the first one.
To avoid getting caught in this trap, have a reset shot where you are able to return your opponents overhead smash shot with a soft return shot that lands in the kitchen or just beyond the kitchen, which will once again slow down the pace of the point and take the control of the rally away from your opponent and put you back on equal footing in that rally.
Having this shot now has also been a game changer for my pickleball skills development.
How to go from a 3.5 to a 4.0 player
3. Crosscourt Dinks
In my beginner pickleball article we talked about learning how to dink for the beginner pickleball player. Learning to dink is an important skill for the new player because the dink shot is such an important part of pickleball strategy.
But as your game progresses, you will want to be able to hit not just a simple dink, you will want to learn how to hit a crosscourt dink with placement that serves the purpose of taking your opponent out of position at the non-volley zone so he/she may hit a weak return or a dink that travels too high above the net, creating an opportunity for you to hit a winner return shot.
There are many drills out there to practice crosscourt dinks with a focus on placement, try to make time to practice and drill to improve this skill so this becomes a seamless part of your game.
4. Placement Serve
The first stage in a pickleball players learning curve is to just learn the awkward pickleball underhand serve motion enough to where you can get your serve in consistently. From my experience, this comes easy for some, but it is hard for those that may not have a lot of experience with racket or paddle sports.
But now that you have gone beyond the serve basics and you can get your serve in consistently, it is time to elevate your serve game to use the shot as an advantage.
The two items that you can control without hitting an illegal pickleball serve are placement and power. I find that serve placement is an effective pickleball serve skill to know, because if I can serve to an area of my opponents serve receiving box that they are forced to hit a weak return, I can be on offense right away at the start of the rally.
For example, many players have a much better forehand than their backhand and stand at the baseline in an area of the court when waiting to return a serve that favors them hitting a forehand return of serve. If you can learn to place your serve to the backhand side of the receivers court, you create an advantage for you with every serve by making it difficult for your opponent to hit a strong return.
But if you do get a weak return of serve coming your way and you come up to “put it away” with a smash winner, remember the double bounce rule and let it bounce first on the serve return before you hit your return winner.
You can also learn to hit your serve with placement so it lands slightly beyond the non-volley zone in the receivers court and just near the sideline which is a very difficult serve to return. Most opponents expect the serve to land deep, near the baseline, so if you can mix up your serves with some landing in the receivers court just beyond the non-volley zone line that keeps your opponent “off-balance” and unable to “lock-in” on the same serve every time.
Practice your serve placement and learn to serve to different areas of the court. The goal is to start a rally on offense and put pressure on your opponent that results in weak return shots allowing you to win the point.
5. Overhead Smash, at an angle
This is a shot that many players can execute because the lob is so common in pickleball, but players often hit their lob shots short which creates an opportunity for a player to hit an overhead smash for a winner.
The intermediate player needs to be able to hit an effective overhead smash shot because you will see so many lob shots as you play more pickleball games. I have learned that the better players I have played against don’t just hit an overhead smash. They hit a smash with the goal of placing their shot so the smash is hit wide to an area of the court that makes it difficult for the opponent to return.
Try incorporating this strategy in to your game so you don’t just smash a lob right back at your opponent standing near the baseline, for some, those are pretty easy to return for opponents with fast hands and good reaction time. Angle your overhead smash shots so the ball is hit to an area of the court away from your opponent and setting you up to win the point.
final thoughts
Learning these shots and incorporating them in to your game will be a difference maker for you as you move from a beginning pickleball player to an intermediate player. Practice these shots enough so you can hit them consistently in games, and your pickleball friends will be impressed with your new skills and how your game has developed.
Good luck, and see you out on the courts!