If you play singles pickleball, you will know that it can seem like a different sport than playing doubles. With the whole court to cover, you need to be efficient with your movement and your shots. Here are 5 tips to help you win playing singles pickleball.
How To Win Singles Pickleball
Work On Your Groundstrokes
Even if you’re not a fan of driving the ball in pickleball doubles, groundstrokes are extremely important in playing singles. You need good form and technique for good groundstrokes with pace and power. For those that come from other racket sports, there are only some minor adjustments to make.
If you don’t have a racket sports background, working on your groundstrokes will help wonders for your singles game. Groundstrokes are important, not just for a serve return or hitting back at your opponent. The pace, power, and accuracy will allow for good passing shots.
When you can’t use all three, it makes it easy for your opponents to return your shots. If you don’t have the right form and technique, working with a coach or even watching videos and drilling will improve your groundstrokes. Hit with a friend or even against a tennis wall to practice.
Learn Shot Variations
Whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, or advanced player, learning different shots to use is extremely useful to win singles pickleball. That includes shots such as using topspin for serving, slicing serve returns, being able to safely drop the ball into your opponent’s kitchen, dinking, lobbing, and being able to use your backhand.
The more shot variations you have, the harder it will make it for your opponent to predict and counter those shots. Like playing pickleball doubles, you want to make your opponent uncomfortable with each shot.
Work On Consistency
What separates those that play lower levels in pickleball from intermediate, advanced, and pros is the level of consistency. No matter how good you can make a shot, if you can only make it 50% of the time, it will not help you in the long run.
That is why drilling is so important. Most people that play pickleball do not think about or want to be drilling. But if you want to win your games, level up, and be more consistent, you need to develop muscle memory with making those shots. Using things like targets to mark areas of the court to aim for and hitting hundreds of shots will help with your consistency.
Footwork Is Key
Another tip and strategy for pickleball that is not mentioned enough is good footwork. Knowing when to move, when to stay low in a stable position, moving up and down the court, and having great lateral movements are very important in singles pickleball.
If you don’t have a tennis or other racket sports background, this is something to definitely catch up on. There are ladder drills that you can follow on YouTube from tennis coaches.
Look To Move Up Cautiously
In pickleball doubles, you know you will want to move up as soon as you can with your partner. While the goal is still to move up to the kitchen line for better angles, you want to do so more cautiously. Why? Because if you make a weak shot to your opponent and they have great passing shots, they can easily pass you.
You want to give your opponent a hard shot for them to return. For example, it could be deep to their backhand. You can then move up since they will have to make a shot from the baseline, which would give you time to react.
But if you made a shot, high shot, and your opponent can crush it, you want to stay back to allow yourself more time to react. That is why you should look to move up to the kitchen line but don’t make a beeline for it without considering the shot you made and what your opponent is capable of.
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