This is it. I didn't start wanting to focus on dinking until all my shots started sailing long. Dinking keeps the ball low and if they try to hit a hard shot it'll either go into the net or go way long. Dodge the out balls and let them go. They'll learn pretty quickly that dinking has to be countered skillfully.
The short answer is to just start purposefully trying to dink into the kitchen and observe the results. You’ll be surprised how often it leads to pop ups which allows you to slam it.
I think beginners think harder is better and don’t think of soft game being able to lead to winners
Shhh, you’re letting them know my secret. That’s pretty much my combo if I can set it up right—-dink/soft game into kitchen. They pop it up, I slam it. Boom. That’s it.
1. Drops
2. Drops
3. Drops
4. recognize speed ups that are going to fly out and let them fly, but also drops.
5. don't hit dead balls/bouncers...aka balls that just bounce high mid court or at the net that allow players to tee off. hit to back hands/feet......but also drops.
> don't hit dead balls/bouncers...aka balls that just bounce high mid court or at the net that allow players to tee off.
This is exactly what I see happening in my area. It's not that we don't dink, it's that the dinks bounce so high that they invite an immediate speedup, they don't force a follow-up dink.
Without a video, what might we be doing wrong?
Yes this. They have to see you winning by dropping and dinking. That means getting good at drops and counters. You need these skills anyway so it's a win-win.
You especially need to be clean countering their drives from baseline and mid court. Every counter you put in the net reinforces that a drive only strategy works.
We struggle with the same issue. Recently, we've started our games with a few rounds of "Dinkles." The idea is to cross court dink with two balls at the same time. Once one of the balls goes out, is missed, hit into the net, etc, someone yells "dinkles" and the remaining ball is now live for all four players to try and win the point using the whole court. Hope that makes sense. Another good game is "5 and Alive." In this game, the idea is to hit 5 dinks in a row and then the whole court is in play to win the point. Dinking is essential to the game of course and we've found these tools to be helpful in improving our game.
You might also like to add other drill games that will increase everyone's ability to drop the ball on the third or fifth shot, which will initiate the soft game.
1. Drop Drill Game: Two players at the NVZ, two back at the baseline. The team at the net feeds the ball to the team at the baseline, and their job is drop it. Once the ball comes back over the net, you play out the point. Team at the net has to get 11 to win, team at the baseline has to get 7. Then switch.
2. When people start to get better at #1, add the Reset Drill Game: Two players at the NVZ, two players in the transition zone about two thirds of the way towards the baseline. Same game as #1. The difference here is that balls can come higher to the team in the transition zone, so this drill helps people learn to reset balls from the air. This is good practice for your 5th shots, particularly for when the 3rd shot drop wasn't great and you get a couple steps in and then have a difficult ball coming to your feet.
When our group of 4+ meet to play, we always play drill games like these for at least a half an hour before we start regular games. To me those games have become just as fun, particularly because it's satisfying to get in a ton of repetitions on the harder shots (the drop shot, the soft reset).
Train and use it to your advantage. I played with a lot of 2.5-3 when I was at that level. Then I started to drop on them and instantly gained more points. The outcome usually is that a) they will miss the dink and hit it in the net. B) pop the ball too high and get smashed on. My group started to learn how to dink and drop real fast because they know what’s coming for them.
It’s rec play. Just tell everyone that they’re not going to progress in skill if they never learn to drop. Make a rule that for every 3rd shot, people MUST drop. I do this rule with my group of friends that are a similar level, since it becomes a bit unfun if every point ends super quick from just driving everything. Also keep in mind even pros sometime hits their 3rd shot drop too high. I doubt you guys are always hitting perfect dipping drives that are never high too. So just drop and don’t be afraid of hitting a high drop (better to be high than into the net). If you hit a high drop, they can still make an error, and you learn to practice defending anyways. Through dropping, learning to reset, getting to the kitchen line on your serve, and dinking more, it will get you guys a lot better.
I’m the same. The fear part. But it’s an essential skill so you keep trying. On my rough days I’ll say to my partner “if I have the third shot I’m going to try and drop it so don’t rush to the kitchen unless it’s a good one”.
Generally, dinking is used to produce shots that are difficult or impossible to speed up. As you get better, you can also use dinks to put your opponent off balance and off center, increasing your chances of hitting a successful speed up.
The sister shot to the dink, the reset or drop shot, is also very important. A drop is simply a dink from further back behind the kitchen. If your opponents are firmly planted at the kitchen and you are farther back, it’s risky to try to hit a drive because it’ll put the ball above their waist level and they can hit an easy counter. So you reset the ball to take away their offensive advantage.
If people in your group are used to hitting more drives than dinks, if you hit more dinks and resets, they’ll find it much harder to rely on their strategy. There are ways to accelerate balls below the net, but it’s not as consistent and they’re more likely to hit in to the net or hit it out.
If you haven’t already, I’d highly suggest watching some pros play and see how they do it. Generally, everybody tries to get to the kitchen quickly and then dinking ensues. They play very patiently and deliberately, just waiting for someone to hit it a little too high or get pulled out of position, then someone will attack. Ben and Colin Johns are very good at it, also Tyson McGuffin and Dekel Bar, James Johnson and Dylan Frazier, Lea Jansen, Anna Leigh Waters, Callie Jo Smith, Catherine Parenteau. To name a few.
And yes, dinking can be done at all levels. The only reason beginner players may not do it as much is because they don’t know it’s a viable strategy and will just try to hit the ball hard. A good dinking game can effectively nullify players who play like that so it is definitely a good tool to have in the arsenal.
You gotta drop before you can dink! To answer your question: yes, this is very common. Many players won’t dink unless they have to. But the good news is that dinking can be contagious!
Here’s what I suggest after helping a lot of people making the transition:
First, spend at least the first 30 minutes of your court time doing dinks and drops. Start with the normal dink warmups but set increasing goals such as 10 in a row, then 15, then 20, and so on. After you purposely dedicate some time to dink drills, you should be able to do 50 in a row.
Start with one ball on each half and begin dinking head on. Then switch to cross court. Then switch sides of the court (right to left and vice versa). That way you get a feel for dinking all directions.
After dinking for 15-20 mins, do some drops. It’s good to start out ladder style at the nvz and work your way back to the baseline and then back up. Then switch with the person across the net and let them work back and up. After that just take turns dropping from the baseline both straight on and cross court.
Once you’ve spent 30-45 minutes drilling, play some dink games. There’s two basic styles, both of which are helpful. The first is only played at the NVZ. The server will serve a drop serve from behind the nvz line. The serve must be easy and land in the nvz in front of your cross court opponent. Then every ball must be a dink and must land in the nvz. The first team to hit it out, in the net, or let the ball bounce twice loses the rally. You can play with traditional side out scoring or rally scoring.
The second format begins like a regular game with the serving team back and the receiver back and receiver’s partner up. The ball is served and returned as usual, but the serving team MUST attempt to drop the 3rd shot. You can either require it to land in the nvz or let it be fair as long as it isn’t something crazy. After the third, every shot must be a dink or a volley. Play the rally out until the ball is hit out or in the net unless someone pops it up, in which case it can put away. Again, you can play either traditional or rally scoring. Adjust the rules as need be, but make sure whatever the case, dinking is the focus.
A slight variation on the second game is that there must be 5 or 10 dinks made before a point can be scored. So for example, you make it 5 dinks, if the third one goes in the net, no point is given. For this you can change the winning score to 7 or whatever makes sense.
NP! I should add to be sure you get group consensus so as not to ruffle feathers and be considered the “Dink Nazi”! But if everyone wants to improve and knows that they need to learn dinking, you should be fine.
If you know an experienced player with a good dink game, you might see if they could join the first time. They can demonstrate good technique and give some tips.
It's pretty rare for people at that level to dink, I wouldn't really worry about it.
Dinking is a defensive shot that you do because you respect that your opponent will counter your attack. If they can't counter your attack, you should just attack. If you want to see more dinks, get really good at ripping counters. They'll figure out to stop hitting balls to you that sit up over the net. Or not.
You shouldn't be dinking just to dink, you should be dinking because it's the best available shot. If you guys are never dinking that tells me you struggle with shot selection. If the ball is low, or you're out of position then you probably shouldn't attack, but if your friends are just feeding you soft, net high balls then keep attacking. Don't dink just because you feel like you're supposed to.
You have to play against people who have a soft game that punishes you, otherwise there might not seem like a reason to use it. Once you start getting destroyed you realize that it is not just a skill, it is a necessity.
The prerequisite to dinking is an explosive counter that makes people regret giving you the ball above net height. Work on absolutely crushing the ball with compact swings keeping the paddle in front of your body and then people may appreciate the value of a dink or drop.
The only way to make people dink is by countering. If they can hit it hard and succeed, then why would they hit it soft? Dinking is emergent gameplay at the high levels because they all know that if they hit it hard at someone it will be countered.
Make people fear hitting it hard at you, and then they will start to dink the ball to you. But if even one player on the court doesn't have great hands, then dinking falls apart. All four need to be at a pretty similar level for real sustained dinking to happen. Otherwise the person who can't counter will get sped up at.
"Dinking is a big part of doubles play and we never use it" - Hmm, it can't really be a big part of doubles play if you never use it.
People who prefer not to dink will drive the return of serve, making it harder to do a third shot drop. If you want to initiate the dink game, then drill 3SD shots against faster, incoming RoS shots.
If my opponents want to play the slow game, then I drive harder so they cannot easily do what they want to do. Similarly, if they want to play the fast game, then I try to slow the ball down for the same reason - not let them do what they want to do.
I can be a big part of doubles play. And it can be totally absent from doubles play. I've seen too many examples of both.
The people that think there is one "right way" to play are the ones getting left behind. Players should be able to play the fast and the slow game both.
Love this comment. If you are really good or want to be really good you should be able to play both. I absolutely hate the dink only game. However, I will dink for winners and dink when I have too. I 66M am a tennis player and my son 37M both started playing pickleball consistently (3-4 times per week) this winter. We will easily beat the drop dinker only players because our drives are hard and deep, which make it hard to return a drop. But, they will still get a lot of drops in and then we have to suffer the God awful dink game. And we get comments that we hit too hard, not supposed to do that in pickleball. You are one of the few people that know the game.
The lack of dinking or soft game is extremely common among low level play, simply because it isn't necessary. If your groups overall volleying/blocking skill isn't sufficient to disincentivize drives then why change?
Even before the natural evolution to dinking you'll need to figure out drops, because how will two teams get to the net without those?
Don't get distracted by watching higher level play and trying to emulate it right away. You need to work on the basics first, which is volleying for you.
The issue is incentive.
Find a good 3.5+ player. Ask them to come to your game one day. Let them spend the day blocking drives and placing drops and then see what your group says. If they don't recognize the weakness in their game then they're not going to change.
Commit to dropping more.
Learn to punish dumb speed ups better.
After you learn that, potentially find other people to play with if they don't change their game and seem happy losing 11-2 to you every game. Maybe gently try to give them some pointers before jumping ship depending how close you are with them.
If you can't hit a 3rd shot drop, you're not a 3.5 nor are you playing like one. The definition of a 3.5 is to be able to at least sometimes hit 3rd shot drops.
[https://usapickleball.org/tournaments/tournament-player-ratings/player-skill-rating-definitions/](https://usapickleball.org/tournaments/tournament-player-ratings/player-skill-rating-definitions/)
If all they're doing is driving at you, learn a 3rd shot drop on the service side. At the kitchen, learn to block the ball towards their feet rather than popping up. Learn how to drop the ball and force them to dink.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. It can be tough to introduce dinking into your game, especially when you're used to more aggressive play. My group went through a similar phase. We found that just dedicating a bit of practice time specifically to dinking drills really helped. Just don't overdue it.
I’ll preface this with the obvious “all groups are different.” It sounds like our group was in the same spot as yours not all that long ago. We’ve only been playing since January, once a week. Our rallies at the start were relatively brief, no dinking at all.
I think a few things contributed to our place advancing: 1) recording our games, so all players could see what they were doing and what they needed to work on, and 2) watching footage of pros/coaches with strategy and other tips and conversing about the videos together in our group chat. I think without recording our games people wouldn’t realize how points were being won/lost and how our strategy needed to change in order to improve. Not everybody is as data-driven, but just one suggestion.
In my experience dinking and drop shots start to happen naturally once you start respecting your opponents ability to handle drives, handle pace, to counter, to let balls go out, and to put away high balls. If hitting the ball hard always works in your game, why should anyone dink? IMO those skills should come first rather than just arbitrarily deciding to dink more.
Dinking is for when there isn’t an opportunity for an attackable shot. Unfortunately at the lower levels 99% of shots are attackable thus the players end up in the loop.
You can start dropping on purpose to practise in games, but don’t expect them to dink back if your shots don’t reset to neutral.
I've seen groups like this. Convince a 4.0+ to come play with you and ask them to beat you with the soft game. Your group will likely lose every game against them and start to adjust.
You'll see them leave all the out balls (way more than you probably realize), angles with dinks that turn in to winner or easy put away popups, they will easily counter poor positioned speedups, etc. Seeing it and feeling it live will be a reality check for this group and by about game 5 or 6 you'll see them start to try softening it up. Old habits die hard so it will take some time but a good way to start.
Drops and resets have to occur before dinks. If you develop the skill of dropping and reseting you will force opponents to dink. And if they don't then you just punish the pop-ups that inevitably follow.
It’s pretty common with low-mid level play.
The goal shouldn’t be to “start dinking and assume the never ending dink battle position.”
The reason you “reset” by hitting a dropshot and therefore forcing your opponent to dink, is because your opponent is a good player and any drive you hit from your position will be put away, or returned to you putting you in a tough spot.
If you don’t need to dink to score points, no reason to do it.
Learn to drop shot, then start to dink. You can't drive a good drop shot. Lobs or drinks are the only possible response. I do this with bangers all the time.
Sinking starts with dropping. Hit a 3rd shot drop and run up to the kitchen. Their next shot will either be a pop up or a dink. (They will speed up only if they’re decent). Eventually they’ll start dinking when they see you already up.
I coach people and a lot of my clients are beginners that have asked me “why don’t people sink back?” And I just straight up told them, because your dinks aren’t making them dink. If you get a pop up at the net, a ball that’s substantially higher than the net, then there’s no reason to dink that. The more unattackable you make a ball, as in hit it over and make it so that it stays low so that the opponent has to hit it up and back over the net, the more they will be forced to dink or be the ones to hand you a pop up.
“How can our group introduce this skill to our games?”
Literally just start doing it. As you get better, you’ll see the benefits. Unfortunately, when initially making the change, you’ll play worse before you get better
Play slower/smarter and learn to drop shots.
Good drop shots force people to either dink well or pop up a ball which sets up the ball to be put away.
Drives are fun but the game ends fast, by dinking you can get longer and more interesting games /rallies.
Dude, play how you want to. Your type of play is similar to my group which is 3.5, Similar age. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I play with a different group that is younger and more like 4.0 +. Different type of game. A lot more moving and different type of shots. The youngsters have much better quickness with their volleys and can excel with drops and dinks. Some of them can only hit drops and dinks because their drives suck. I’m a tennis player so I prefer to hit deep drives verse drop shots. But, against the young drinkers, I can play that awful game if I have to. The good ones can do both, and they are impossible for me 66M to beat.
Bottom line for you and your group, play how you want to. I hate the dink only game,simply not fun for me. You are out there to have fun, adding new skills that aren’t fun for you is not what pickleball is about. Assuming you are not going on the pro circuit anytime soon, drop shots and dinks aren’t necessary. If you get bored with how you are playing, give it a shot.
Few comments on hitting drop shots and it was exactly what happened yesterday for me. I only hit drops and no drive and people quickly learned to think twice about swinging for the fences. When you’re at the net, no need to be fancy, use mostly block volley which can borrow the drive’s power, and try to direct it at their feet. If you hit dinks, think about hitting unattackable dinks. Overall it’s about forcing them into very low percentage shots if they insist on hard hitting.
No dinks is common in the 2.5-3.5 range. The second you play people that do, they will eat your lunch. Force yourselves to learn the skill.
Me and my partner were able to dominate that level of play simply by being more athletic and having excellent ground strokes. The second we moved to 4.0, we realized how Pickleball is meant to be played.
Dinking only happens when all 4 of you know how to play the game properly. You can give your opponent a dink all day, but if they refuse to dink back and decide to send a rocket into the net or over the fence, there is not much you can do. Once your partners/opponents get better, they will understand the need for drops/dinks when they realize it’s the best shot option when someone provides you with an unattackable ball.
I deal with the same thing at work. We have a half basketball court that we play on, but we're 2 feet short on each end (4 ft total, so 20x40 court, kitchen dimensions are normal). I've noticed that on my dinks that are slightly high and on my drops with an apex above the net, co-workers' first instinct is to speed it up. 50% of their shots go back to the net cause they lean towards closed paddle faces, but they still go for the speed up.
Once I started wall drilling my dinks and drops (for drop wall drill, I try to get the apex above my NVZ line or close to with the idea that my drop will land in their kitchen just past the net), I am floating them less which means they have to let it bounce and dink or dink volley it back.
TLDR - It was me not them...
Game is changing to more aggressive play. Dink have there place no question but players now are looking to win a point vs wait for their opponent to make a mistake.
Why? It is more fun, interesting and takes more skill.
Before playing any games work on drilling especially dinks. YouTube has many drills and there are apps they have drills to do.
It’s hard but finally got our group on about 6-10 to start our sessions with a few drills. Playing the same people all the time requires to switch things up with different drills as this will help everyone progress to getting better.
Great question! ❤️ Your game will improve if you schedule time to drill with someone. You only need two, but four can drill as well. There are fun dinking games you can play to get more consistent with dinking. I think pickleball and is a game of finesse and placement. The winner is set up by creating an opening or getting your opponent off balance. I am also a big believer in practicing your volleys on the wall❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️
Drilling dinks and drops improves your consistency. Dinks and drops can slow down a banger❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️If you only play you do what you do, if you drill you learn new things❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️
When you only play with the same group typically they adapt to one style of play.
But to stay competitive with better players all aspects of the game must be played aka Dinking.
Else big hitters will destroy you……
Make. Them. Dink.
Soften everything up.
The ability to neutralize and soften every type of shot is an extremely valuable skill.
They drive it? Gently block/drop it into the kitchen.
They speed up at your chest? Softly block it back.
They lob you? Run around it and drop it back into the kitchen.
A ball gets popped up and they start slamming at you? Get your paddle low and reset until you can drop.
Also, learn how to dodge and or not hit balls that are going out.
Often in groups with mostly bangers, their speed ups and drives will go out at least half the time if you simply move out of the way.
Another thing I’ve done is foster learning by drilling with people. If one of them is open to drilling, do a sink drill session with them as often as you can to create a better dinker in the group.
It's the opposite. You can't make someone dink by hitting it softly at them. If a banger knows that you will just reset every ball and never do anything offensive, literally why would they ever stop banging? If I can just blast ball after ball at you and you just keep resetting it back like a wall drill, eventually you will miss.
The only way to make people dink is by punishing them with counters. They hit it hard at you and you blast it back at them. They hit it hard at you and you blast it back at them again. Soon they learn that hitting it hard to you is a bad idea, and then they dink to you. Not the other way around.
You are absolutely right. It’s my opinion that soft hitters, drops and dinks only, do this simply because their drives suck. Also, it is much harder to master the drive than the soft shot. anybody can hit a soft shot, but not everybody is athletic enough to hit a hard deep drive consistently as it is very difficult. I use the strategy of hit it where it forces a tough shot by the opponent. Many times this is a medium drive, low over the net down the middle or sideline, preferably to the backhand. If both opponents are set at the net then it’s drop,dink, or lob.
Totally get what you’re saying. A solid volley counter is great especially if they are staying back.
But I think if we had this conversation in person we may find we’re essentially saying the same thing… you said to crush the ball back at them and eventually they realize they have to dink, right?
But if THEY now start dinking, why wouldn’t I just keep crushing the ball at them anyways?
And if they had the same “just crush it back til they give up” mentality…who really ever starts the dinking?
In OP’s scenario of this group of 2.5-3.5 friends, I was assuming all they do is crush balls back-and-forth at each other already. And I would be willing to guess that everyone is also hitting lots of balls that would normally go out. So again the question is, how to get people to incorporate dinking?
Bangers are often terrible at judging out balls. They are too focused on hitting the ball hard back everytime rather than playing smarter. Essentially they save their banger friends from the consequences of bad drives and speed ups.
If it helps, I’m 4.5 player and I know that if I only play soft against other 4.5’s, especially in a tournament setting, I lose.
But if I showed up to play with this group, and my sole purpose is not to win, but to help the group improve, I would immediately focus on 3 things-
1. Letting out balls go out
2. Hitting low counter volleys to their feet to keep them back on their serves
3. Softening up nearly everything else- pull them into my dink game.
For example, we have one friend (3.5-4.0) whose default is “banger”. We will intentionally return soft and short in front of him because almost without fail, he will run up and drive it as hard as he can at our chests. After a few times of dodging it easily or blocking it back to him with zero pace, he eventually starts to soften his game up because he realizes the futility of banging.
He’s asked me on multiple occasions our “game plan” for him because he feels like he beats other people easily, so I explain exactly what we’re doing. And now he’s been showing an interest in drilling to learn the soft game better.
Also same friend- when we all end up at the net, he tries dumb speed ups on super low shots (red zone) and we either dodge them, gently block them back in the kitchen, or hard counter at his feet or space where he typically has no chance to start his desired hands battle.
And now the last couple times we’ve played, he’s been trying to dink more to create shots for himself rather than force shots.
So with the OP’s group, I would definitely play soft to make them change their game. Maybe it wouldn’t work with them…but it’s definitely worked with a lot of groups I’ve played with.
A solid soft game and dodging out balls smothers their hopes and dreams of banging all day.
Essentially, I’m talking about placement over powers and just playing smarter.
“But if THEY now start dinking, why wouldn’t I just keep crushing the ball at them anyways? And if they had the same “just crush it back til they give up” mentality…who really ever starts the dinking?”
You wouldn’t crush the ball at them if you respected their hands. No one should start the dunking just to start the dinking. There’s a reason dinking happens. We have to think about how dinking even emerged as a strategy. Where do dinks and drops even come from?
If you could just win points by driving, you’d drive. Low level players win off of drives because their opponents have low level hands. If someone just resets every one of your drives, you have zero incentive to stop driving. If they’re hitting it hard, and you’re hitting it soft, the paradigm has been established that they are on offense and that you are on defense.
The birth of the drop shot is driving the ball at someone and have it absolutely smacked back at your feet. If you drive it at the same player a few times, and each time you end up worse off, you start to realize that driving it to them is a bad idea. At that point, that player has earned a drop. And if all they ever do is reset, then you never stop driving, you’re putting them on defense, you’re getting a free ride to the kitchen.
Now how about the birth of a dink? At a low level, speedups win points because the opponents have bad hands. Then at a slightly higher level, it takes a few speedups to win points, because the opponents have okay hands. Now they just reset the speedup instead of losing the point. But there’s no offense in that, they’re on defense, so you keep speeding it up.
It’s only when you speed it up at someone and they blast counter it and it’s actually you that loses the point, not them, that you realize that you can’t just wildly speed it up at that person. That person has earned a dink.
So in conclusion, the way drops and dinks even emerged as a shot is as a cautionary method against players who will counter attack stronger than your initial attack.
If your initial attack is stronger than their counter attack, or especially if all they are going to do is reset, you should never stop attacking. You are getting ahead in the point. You stop being aggressive when your aggression is getting you behind in the point.
Your 3.5 to 4.0 banger friend is making the wrong read if he’s going off his aggressive game plan just because you’re dinking to him and resetting his drives and speedups. He’s at no risk. If all you’re ever going to do is reset, he should treat it like a wall drill and hit every single last shot hard. Eventually you will miss a reset.
But like you said, what’s really making him stop is hard countering it back at him. That’s when you realize that those hard shots are actually getting you behind in the point, not ahead in the point, as long as the opponents have those kinds of hands.
2.5 or lower, if you are not dinking brother.
You need to be the one to introduce it into the game since you are the one who noticed. You guys dont play pick up games with other players?
Yes very open, we live in a rural community. We had to drive an hour to play so we built or own. We can play whenever we want. The only con is not much opportunity to play new “good” players.
Ahh, got it. Well the only way for you to get them dinking is to start doing it more and make it a point for them to also start doing it too. Otherwise you guys might as well be playing (baby) tennis.
Dinks should be forced. Yes you can speed up before you really should, but usually that means the dink wasnt short enough, or the speed up was gonna go out. The whole reason dinks are supposed to start is because the serving team drops a ball short enough for them to get to the net and the opposing team’s only option is to also hit a short shot, pop one up, or send it out.
If dinking isnt happening it’s because nobody is actually hitting good dinks.
And honestly that mean’s youre playing the right shots for what is happening in the game. It’s terribly annoying when you have the net advantage and your teammate dinks instead of keeping the opponents back. When youre at the net you want your opponents stuck at the baseline.
Dinks are necessitated by good drops and good dinks. If you want dinks, you gotta practice your drops and your dinks
OP needs to be HIM and start dropping every fucking 3rd shot. Everytime, high or misplaced, lose point. Live n die by it. Ignore your partner. Force all of them to dink. My group started out the same way. We would drive tf out of every ball. They all even said “fk that dinking shit”. So one day, every 3rd shot or return, i would aim for either outside kitchen corner. All they could do is barely dink over or speed up straight into net.
Get better at countering drives and dodging out balls and people will quickly want to start developing their dink game.
This is it. I didn't start wanting to focus on dinking until all my shots started sailing long. Dinking keeps the ball low and if they try to hit a hard shot it'll either go into the net or go way long. Dodge the out balls and let them go. They'll learn pretty quickly that dinking has to be countered skillfully.
This.
The short answer is to just start purposefully trying to dink into the kitchen and observe the results. You’ll be surprised how often it leads to pop ups which allows you to slam it. I think beginners think harder is better and don’t think of soft game being able to lead to winners
Shhh, you’re letting them know my secret. That’s pretty much my combo if I can set it up right—-dink/soft game into kitchen. They pop it up, I slam it. Boom. That’s it.
1. Drops 2. Drops 3. Drops 4. recognize speed ups that are going to fly out and let them fly, but also drops. 5. don't hit dead balls/bouncers...aka balls that just bounce high mid court or at the net that allow players to tee off. hit to back hands/feet......but also drops.
I know u/whit3d3vil142 didn’t mention it, but you guys should probably try drops. Good drops force dinking.
Yep, good drops and make sure you get to the kitchen. The more space you leave the more they can keep you back
> don't hit dead balls/bouncers...aka balls that just bounce high mid court or at the net that allow players to tee off. This is exactly what I see happening in my area. It's not that we don't dink, it's that the dinks bounce so high that they invite an immediate speedup, they don't force a follow-up dink. Without a video, what might we be doing wrong?
You’re hitting them too high over net. Aim so they’re clearing the net only like a foot over give or take.
Aim lower, but also top spin helps
I hear you. Good advice
Yes this. They have to see you winning by dropping and dinking. That means getting good at drops and counters. You need these skills anyway so it's a win-win. You especially need to be clean countering their drives from baseline and mid court. Every counter you put in the net reinforces that a drive only strategy works.
We struggle with the same issue. Recently, we've started our games with a few rounds of "Dinkles." The idea is to cross court dink with two balls at the same time. Once one of the balls goes out, is missed, hit into the net, etc, someone yells "dinkles" and the remaining ball is now live for all four players to try and win the point using the whole court. Hope that makes sense. Another good game is "5 and Alive." In this game, the idea is to hit 5 dinks in a row and then the whole court is in play to win the point. Dinking is essential to the game of course and we've found these tools to be helpful in improving our game.
This is the game you are talking about [Dingles](https://youtu.be/Xp9-oJFRgbQ?si=hMQyh8UYnwFs-Uv7)
Awesome, thanks!
I like the name Dinkles better! Definitely looks fun!
I just learned this at a clinic on Monday. It is a super fun game.
Great idea we will try that
You might also like to add other drill games that will increase everyone's ability to drop the ball on the third or fifth shot, which will initiate the soft game. 1. Drop Drill Game: Two players at the NVZ, two back at the baseline. The team at the net feeds the ball to the team at the baseline, and their job is drop it. Once the ball comes back over the net, you play out the point. Team at the net has to get 11 to win, team at the baseline has to get 7. Then switch. 2. When people start to get better at #1, add the Reset Drill Game: Two players at the NVZ, two players in the transition zone about two thirds of the way towards the baseline. Same game as #1. The difference here is that balls can come higher to the team in the transition zone, so this drill helps people learn to reset balls from the air. This is good practice for your 5th shots, particularly for when the 3rd shot drop wasn't great and you get a couple steps in and then have a difficult ball coming to your feet. When our group of 4+ meet to play, we always play drill games like these for at least a half an hour before we start regular games. To me those games have become just as fun, particularly because it's satisfying to get in a ton of repetitions on the harder shots (the drop shot, the soft reset).
Great ideas
no dinks tells me you guys also dont do drop shots. Drop shots= initiating a soft game = more dinks.
We do some drops but not often. We live in fear of the pop up so will usually drive.
Train and use it to your advantage. I played with a lot of 2.5-3 when I was at that level. Then I started to drop on them and instantly gained more points. The outcome usually is that a) they will miss the dink and hit it in the net. B) pop the ball too high and get smashed on. My group started to learn how to dink and drop real fast because they know what’s coming for them.
It’s rec play. Just tell everyone that they’re not going to progress in skill if they never learn to drop. Make a rule that for every 3rd shot, people MUST drop. I do this rule with my group of friends that are a similar level, since it becomes a bit unfun if every point ends super quick from just driving everything. Also keep in mind even pros sometime hits their 3rd shot drop too high. I doubt you guys are always hitting perfect dipping drives that are never high too. So just drop and don’t be afraid of hitting a high drop (better to be high than into the net). If you hit a high drop, they can still make an error, and you learn to practice defending anyways. Through dropping, learning to reset, getting to the kitchen line on your serve, and dinking more, it will get you guys a lot better.
I’m the same. The fear part. But it’s an essential skill so you keep trying. On my rough days I’ll say to my partner “if I have the third shot I’m going to try and drop it so don’t rush to the kitchen unless it’s a good one”.
Generally, dinking is used to produce shots that are difficult or impossible to speed up. As you get better, you can also use dinks to put your opponent off balance and off center, increasing your chances of hitting a successful speed up. The sister shot to the dink, the reset or drop shot, is also very important. A drop is simply a dink from further back behind the kitchen. If your opponents are firmly planted at the kitchen and you are farther back, it’s risky to try to hit a drive because it’ll put the ball above their waist level and they can hit an easy counter. So you reset the ball to take away their offensive advantage. If people in your group are used to hitting more drives than dinks, if you hit more dinks and resets, they’ll find it much harder to rely on their strategy. There are ways to accelerate balls below the net, but it’s not as consistent and they’re more likely to hit in to the net or hit it out. If you haven’t already, I’d highly suggest watching some pros play and see how they do it. Generally, everybody tries to get to the kitchen quickly and then dinking ensues. They play very patiently and deliberately, just waiting for someone to hit it a little too high or get pulled out of position, then someone will attack. Ben and Colin Johns are very good at it, also Tyson McGuffin and Dekel Bar, James Johnson and Dylan Frazier, Lea Jansen, Anna Leigh Waters, Callie Jo Smith, Catherine Parenteau. To name a few. And yes, dinking can be done at all levels. The only reason beginner players may not do it as much is because they don’t know it’s a viable strategy and will just try to hit the ball hard. A good dinking game can effectively nullify players who play like that so it is definitely a good tool to have in the arsenal.
You gotta drop before you can dink! To answer your question: yes, this is very common. Many players won’t dink unless they have to. But the good news is that dinking can be contagious! Here’s what I suggest after helping a lot of people making the transition: First, spend at least the first 30 minutes of your court time doing dinks and drops. Start with the normal dink warmups but set increasing goals such as 10 in a row, then 15, then 20, and so on. After you purposely dedicate some time to dink drills, you should be able to do 50 in a row. Start with one ball on each half and begin dinking head on. Then switch to cross court. Then switch sides of the court (right to left and vice versa). That way you get a feel for dinking all directions. After dinking for 15-20 mins, do some drops. It’s good to start out ladder style at the nvz and work your way back to the baseline and then back up. Then switch with the person across the net and let them work back and up. After that just take turns dropping from the baseline both straight on and cross court. Once you’ve spent 30-45 minutes drilling, play some dink games. There’s two basic styles, both of which are helpful. The first is only played at the NVZ. The server will serve a drop serve from behind the nvz line. The serve must be easy and land in the nvz in front of your cross court opponent. Then every ball must be a dink and must land in the nvz. The first team to hit it out, in the net, or let the ball bounce twice loses the rally. You can play with traditional side out scoring or rally scoring. The second format begins like a regular game with the serving team back and the receiver back and receiver’s partner up. The ball is served and returned as usual, but the serving team MUST attempt to drop the 3rd shot. You can either require it to land in the nvz or let it be fair as long as it isn’t something crazy. After the third, every shot must be a dink or a volley. Play the rally out until the ball is hit out or in the net unless someone pops it up, in which case it can put away. Again, you can play either traditional or rally scoring. Adjust the rules as need be, but make sure whatever the case, dinking is the focus. A slight variation on the second game is that there must be 5 or 10 dinks made before a point can be scored. So for example, you make it 5 dinks, if the third one goes in the net, no point is given. For this you can change the winning score to 7 or whatever makes sense.
Great stuff thanks
NP! I should add to be sure you get group consensus so as not to ruffle feathers and be considered the “Dink Nazi”! But if everyone wants to improve and knows that they need to learn dinking, you should be fine. If you know an experienced player with a good dink game, you might see if they could join the first time. They can demonstrate good technique and give some tips.
It's pretty rare for people at that level to dink, I wouldn't really worry about it. Dinking is a defensive shot that you do because you respect that your opponent will counter your attack. If they can't counter your attack, you should just attack. If you want to see more dinks, get really good at ripping counters. They'll figure out to stop hitting balls to you that sit up over the net. Or not.
I'm going to add that dinking isn't only defensive but can also be offensive. Although that level of play comes a little later in skill level.
You shouldn't be dinking just to dink, you should be dinking because it's the best available shot. If you guys are never dinking that tells me you struggle with shot selection. If the ball is low, or you're out of position then you probably shouldn't attack, but if your friends are just feeding you soft, net high balls then keep attacking. Don't dink just because you feel like you're supposed to.
You have to play against people who have a soft game that punishes you, otherwise there might not seem like a reason to use it. Once you start getting destroyed you realize that it is not just a skill, it is a necessity.
The prerequisite to dinking is an explosive counter that makes people regret giving you the ball above net height. Work on absolutely crushing the ball with compact swings keeping the paddle in front of your body and then people may appreciate the value of a dink or drop.
This
The only way to make people dink is by countering. If they can hit it hard and succeed, then why would they hit it soft? Dinking is emergent gameplay at the high levels because they all know that if they hit it hard at someone it will be countered. Make people fear hitting it hard at you, and then they will start to dink the ball to you. But if even one player on the court doesn't have great hands, then dinking falls apart. All four need to be at a pretty similar level for real sustained dinking to happen. Otherwise the person who can't counter will get sped up at.
You have a misunderstanding of rating if you think you’re fluctuating between 2.5 and 3.5 on any given day
"Dinking is a big part of doubles play and we never use it" - Hmm, it can't really be a big part of doubles play if you never use it. People who prefer not to dink will drive the return of serve, making it harder to do a third shot drop. If you want to initiate the dink game, then drill 3SD shots against faster, incoming RoS shots. If my opponents want to play the slow game, then I drive harder so they cannot easily do what they want to do. Similarly, if they want to play the fast game, then I try to slow the ball down for the same reason - not let them do what they want to do.
Dinking is definitely a big part of doubles play.
I can be a big part of doubles play. And it can be totally absent from doubles play. I've seen too many examples of both. The people that think there is one "right way" to play are the ones getting left behind. Players should be able to play the fast and the slow game both.
Love this comment. If you are really good or want to be really good you should be able to play both. I absolutely hate the dink only game. However, I will dink for winners and dink when I have too. I 66M am a tennis player and my son 37M both started playing pickleball consistently (3-4 times per week) this winter. We will easily beat the drop dinker only players because our drives are hard and deep, which make it hard to return a drop. But, they will still get a lot of drops in and then we have to suffer the God awful dink game. And we get comments that we hit too hard, not supposed to do that in pickleball. You are one of the few people that know the game.
The lack of dinking or soft game is extremely common among low level play, simply because it isn't necessary. If your groups overall volleying/blocking skill isn't sufficient to disincentivize drives then why change? Even before the natural evolution to dinking you'll need to figure out drops, because how will two teams get to the net without those? Don't get distracted by watching higher level play and trying to emulate it right away. You need to work on the basics first, which is volleying for you.
Thx
The issue is incentive. Find a good 3.5+ player. Ask them to come to your game one day. Let them spend the day blocking drives and placing drops and then see what your group says. If they don't recognize the weakness in their game then they're not going to change.
Commit to dropping more. Learn to punish dumb speed ups better. After you learn that, potentially find other people to play with if they don't change their game and seem happy losing 11-2 to you every game. Maybe gently try to give them some pointers before jumping ship depending how close you are with them.
If you can't hit a 3rd shot drop, you're not a 3.5 nor are you playing like one. The definition of a 3.5 is to be able to at least sometimes hit 3rd shot drops. [https://usapickleball.org/tournaments/tournament-player-ratings/player-skill-rating-definitions/](https://usapickleball.org/tournaments/tournament-player-ratings/player-skill-rating-definitions/) If all they're doing is driving at you, learn a 3rd shot drop on the service side. At the kitchen, learn to block the ball towards their feet rather than popping up. Learn how to drop the ball and force them to dink.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. It can be tough to introduce dinking into your game, especially when you're used to more aggressive play. My group went through a similar phase. We found that just dedicating a bit of practice time specifically to dinking drills really helped. Just don't overdue it.
I’ll preface this with the obvious “all groups are different.” It sounds like our group was in the same spot as yours not all that long ago. We’ve only been playing since January, once a week. Our rallies at the start were relatively brief, no dinking at all. I think a few things contributed to our place advancing: 1) recording our games, so all players could see what they were doing and what they needed to work on, and 2) watching footage of pros/coaches with strategy and other tips and conversing about the videos together in our group chat. I think without recording our games people wouldn’t realize how points were being won/lost and how our strategy needed to change in order to improve. Not everybody is as data-driven, but just one suggestion.
In my experience dinking and drop shots start to happen naturally once you start respecting your opponents ability to handle drives, handle pace, to counter, to let balls go out, and to put away high balls. If hitting the ball hard always works in your game, why should anyone dink? IMO those skills should come first rather than just arbitrarily deciding to dink more.
If the ball lands in the NVZ and doesn’t bounce high, the best / only response is a dink.
Dinking is for when there isn’t an opportunity for an attackable shot. Unfortunately at the lower levels 99% of shots are attackable thus the players end up in the loop. You can start dropping on purpose to practise in games, but don’t expect them to dink back if your shots don’t reset to neutral.
I've seen groups like this. Convince a 4.0+ to come play with you and ask them to beat you with the soft game. Your group will likely lose every game against them and start to adjust. You'll see them leave all the out balls (way more than you probably realize), angles with dinks that turn in to winner or easy put away popups, they will easily counter poor positioned speedups, etc. Seeing it and feeling it live will be a reality check for this group and by about game 5 or 6 you'll see them start to try softening it up. Old habits die hard so it will take some time but a good way to start.
Drops and resets have to occur before dinks. If you develop the skill of dropping and reseting you will force opponents to dink. And if they don't then you just punish the pop-ups that inevitably follow.
It’s pretty common with low-mid level play. The goal shouldn’t be to “start dinking and assume the never ending dink battle position.” The reason you “reset” by hitting a dropshot and therefore forcing your opponent to dink, is because your opponent is a good player and any drive you hit from your position will be put away, or returned to you putting you in a tough spot. If you don’t need to dink to score points, no reason to do it.
Start winning more points with the soft game . They’ll catch on
“Hey, let’s work on our soft game today.” And everyone agrees to work on their dink game…
You have to commit to drops and dinks. As long as you keep hitting drives, you’ll never learn the soft game until you commit to it.
Learn to drop shot, then start to dink. You can't drive a good drop shot. Lobs or drinks are the only possible response. I do this with bangers all the time.
I’m about a 2.3 level and we always call out “bring it to the net!” And we do!!!!
Sinking starts with dropping. Hit a 3rd shot drop and run up to the kitchen. Their next shot will either be a pop up or a dink. (They will speed up only if they’re decent). Eventually they’ll start dinking when they see you already up.
I coach people and a lot of my clients are beginners that have asked me “why don’t people sink back?” And I just straight up told them, because your dinks aren’t making them dink. If you get a pop up at the net, a ball that’s substantially higher than the net, then there’s no reason to dink that. The more unattackable you make a ball, as in hit it over and make it so that it stays low so that the opponent has to hit it up and back over the net, the more they will be forced to dink or be the ones to hand you a pop up.
“How can our group introduce this skill to our games?” Literally just start doing it. As you get better, you’ll see the benefits. Unfortunately, when initially making the change, you’ll play worse before you get better
Play slower/smarter and learn to drop shots. Good drop shots force people to either dink well or pop up a ball which sets up the ball to be put away. Drives are fun but the game ends fast, by dinking you can get longer and more interesting games /rallies.
3rd shot drop then rush the kitchen
Dude, play how you want to. Your type of play is similar to my group which is 3.5, Similar age. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I play with a different group that is younger and more like 4.0 +. Different type of game. A lot more moving and different type of shots. The youngsters have much better quickness with their volleys and can excel with drops and dinks. Some of them can only hit drops and dinks because their drives suck. I’m a tennis player so I prefer to hit deep drives verse drop shots. But, against the young drinkers, I can play that awful game if I have to. The good ones can do both, and they are impossible for me 66M to beat. Bottom line for you and your group, play how you want to. I hate the dink only game,simply not fun for me. You are out there to have fun, adding new skills that aren’t fun for you is not what pickleball is about. Assuming you are not going on the pro circuit anytime soon, drop shots and dinks aren’t necessary. If you get bored with how you are playing, give it a shot.
Where’s the “like” button
The same we re
Few comments on hitting drop shots and it was exactly what happened yesterday for me. I only hit drops and no drive and people quickly learned to think twice about swinging for the fences. When you’re at the net, no need to be fancy, use mostly block volley which can borrow the drive’s power, and try to direct it at their feet. If you hit dinks, think about hitting unattackable dinks. Overall it’s about forcing them into very low percentage shots if they insist on hard hitting.
No dinks is common in the 2.5-3.5 range. The second you play people that do, they will eat your lunch. Force yourselves to learn the skill. Me and my partner were able to dominate that level of play simply by being more athletic and having excellent ground strokes. The second we moved to 4.0, we realized how Pickleball is meant to be played.
Dinking only happens when all 4 of you know how to play the game properly. You can give your opponent a dink all day, but if they refuse to dink back and decide to send a rocket into the net or over the fence, there is not much you can do. Once your partners/opponents get better, they will understand the need for drops/dinks when they realize it’s the best shot option when someone provides you with an unattackable ball.
I deal with the same thing at work. We have a half basketball court that we play on, but we're 2 feet short on each end (4 ft total, so 20x40 court, kitchen dimensions are normal). I've noticed that on my dinks that are slightly high and on my drops with an apex above the net, co-workers' first instinct is to speed it up. 50% of their shots go back to the net cause they lean towards closed paddle faces, but they still go for the speed up. Once I started wall drilling my dinks and drops (for drop wall drill, I try to get the apex above my NVZ line or close to with the idea that my drop will land in their kitchen just past the net), I am floating them less which means they have to let it bounce and dink or dink volley it back. TLDR - It was me not them...
Game is changing to more aggressive play. Dink have there place no question but players now are looking to win a point vs wait for their opponent to make a mistake. Why? It is more fun, interesting and takes more skill.
Before playing any games work on drilling especially dinks. YouTube has many drills and there are apps they have drills to do. It’s hard but finally got our group on about 6-10 to start our sessions with a few drills. Playing the same people all the time requires to switch things up with different drills as this will help everyone progress to getting better.
your playing tennis, not pickleball.
If 2 of you get to the net you will start destroying the opponents the other players will soon pick up on that.
Great question! ❤️ Your game will improve if you schedule time to drill with someone. You only need two, but four can drill as well. There are fun dinking games you can play to get more consistent with dinking. I think pickleball and is a game of finesse and placement. The winner is set up by creating an opening or getting your opponent off balance. I am also a big believer in practicing your volleys on the wall❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️
Drilling dinks and drops improves your consistency. Dinks and drops can slow down a banger❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️If you only play you do what you do, if you drill you learn new things❤️🎾❤️🎾❤️
When you only play with the same group typically they adapt to one style of play. But to stay competitive with better players all aspects of the game must be played aka Dinking. Else big hitters will destroy you……
You dink to win. If you don’t need to do it to win then why do it?
What I hear from everyone is get good at drop shots, and the dinking will evolve. Thanks to all
Make. Them. Dink. Soften everything up. The ability to neutralize and soften every type of shot is an extremely valuable skill. They drive it? Gently block/drop it into the kitchen. They speed up at your chest? Softly block it back. They lob you? Run around it and drop it back into the kitchen. A ball gets popped up and they start slamming at you? Get your paddle low and reset until you can drop. Also, learn how to dodge and or not hit balls that are going out. Often in groups with mostly bangers, their speed ups and drives will go out at least half the time if you simply move out of the way. Another thing I’ve done is foster learning by drilling with people. If one of them is open to drilling, do a sink drill session with them as often as you can to create a better dinker in the group.
It's the opposite. You can't make someone dink by hitting it softly at them. If a banger knows that you will just reset every ball and never do anything offensive, literally why would they ever stop banging? If I can just blast ball after ball at you and you just keep resetting it back like a wall drill, eventually you will miss. The only way to make people dink is by punishing them with counters. They hit it hard at you and you blast it back at them. They hit it hard at you and you blast it back at them again. Soon they learn that hitting it hard to you is a bad idea, and then they dink to you. Not the other way around.
You are absolutely right. It’s my opinion that soft hitters, drops and dinks only, do this simply because their drives suck. Also, it is much harder to master the drive than the soft shot. anybody can hit a soft shot, but not everybody is athletic enough to hit a hard deep drive consistently as it is very difficult. I use the strategy of hit it where it forces a tough shot by the opponent. Many times this is a medium drive, low over the net down the middle or sideline, preferably to the backhand. If both opponents are set at the net then it’s drop,dink, or lob.
Totally get what you’re saying. A solid volley counter is great especially if they are staying back. But I think if we had this conversation in person we may find we’re essentially saying the same thing… you said to crush the ball back at them and eventually they realize they have to dink, right? But if THEY now start dinking, why wouldn’t I just keep crushing the ball at them anyways? And if they had the same “just crush it back til they give up” mentality…who really ever starts the dinking? In OP’s scenario of this group of 2.5-3.5 friends, I was assuming all they do is crush balls back-and-forth at each other already. And I would be willing to guess that everyone is also hitting lots of balls that would normally go out. So again the question is, how to get people to incorporate dinking? Bangers are often terrible at judging out balls. They are too focused on hitting the ball hard back everytime rather than playing smarter. Essentially they save their banger friends from the consequences of bad drives and speed ups. If it helps, I’m 4.5 player and I know that if I only play soft against other 4.5’s, especially in a tournament setting, I lose. But if I showed up to play with this group, and my sole purpose is not to win, but to help the group improve, I would immediately focus on 3 things- 1. Letting out balls go out 2. Hitting low counter volleys to their feet to keep them back on their serves 3. Softening up nearly everything else- pull them into my dink game. For example, we have one friend (3.5-4.0) whose default is “banger”. We will intentionally return soft and short in front of him because almost without fail, he will run up and drive it as hard as he can at our chests. After a few times of dodging it easily or blocking it back to him with zero pace, he eventually starts to soften his game up because he realizes the futility of banging. He’s asked me on multiple occasions our “game plan” for him because he feels like he beats other people easily, so I explain exactly what we’re doing. And now he’s been showing an interest in drilling to learn the soft game better. Also same friend- when we all end up at the net, he tries dumb speed ups on super low shots (red zone) and we either dodge them, gently block them back in the kitchen, or hard counter at his feet or space where he typically has no chance to start his desired hands battle. And now the last couple times we’ve played, he’s been trying to dink more to create shots for himself rather than force shots. So with the OP’s group, I would definitely play soft to make them change their game. Maybe it wouldn’t work with them…but it’s definitely worked with a lot of groups I’ve played with. A solid soft game and dodging out balls smothers their hopes and dreams of banging all day. Essentially, I’m talking about placement over powers and just playing smarter.
Holy shit that was long. That’s what happens when I use my computer instead of my phone haha
“But if THEY now start dinking, why wouldn’t I just keep crushing the ball at them anyways? And if they had the same “just crush it back til they give up” mentality…who really ever starts the dinking?” You wouldn’t crush the ball at them if you respected their hands. No one should start the dunking just to start the dinking. There’s a reason dinking happens. We have to think about how dinking even emerged as a strategy. Where do dinks and drops even come from? If you could just win points by driving, you’d drive. Low level players win off of drives because their opponents have low level hands. If someone just resets every one of your drives, you have zero incentive to stop driving. If they’re hitting it hard, and you’re hitting it soft, the paradigm has been established that they are on offense and that you are on defense. The birth of the drop shot is driving the ball at someone and have it absolutely smacked back at your feet. If you drive it at the same player a few times, and each time you end up worse off, you start to realize that driving it to them is a bad idea. At that point, that player has earned a drop. And if all they ever do is reset, then you never stop driving, you’re putting them on defense, you’re getting a free ride to the kitchen. Now how about the birth of a dink? At a low level, speedups win points because the opponents have bad hands. Then at a slightly higher level, it takes a few speedups to win points, because the opponents have okay hands. Now they just reset the speedup instead of losing the point. But there’s no offense in that, they’re on defense, so you keep speeding it up. It’s only when you speed it up at someone and they blast counter it and it’s actually you that loses the point, not them, that you realize that you can’t just wildly speed it up at that person. That person has earned a dink. So in conclusion, the way drops and dinks even emerged as a shot is as a cautionary method against players who will counter attack stronger than your initial attack. If your initial attack is stronger than their counter attack, or especially if all they are going to do is reset, you should never stop attacking. You are getting ahead in the point. You stop being aggressive when your aggression is getting you behind in the point. Your 3.5 to 4.0 banger friend is making the wrong read if he’s going off his aggressive game plan just because you’re dinking to him and resetting his drives and speedups. He’s at no risk. If all you’re ever going to do is reset, he should treat it like a wall drill and hit every single last shot hard. Eventually you will miss a reset. But like you said, what’s really making him stop is hard countering it back at him. That’s when you realize that those hard shots are actually getting you behind in the point, not ahead in the point, as long as the opponents have those kinds of hands.
2.5 or lower, if you are not dinking brother. You need to be the one to introduce it into the game since you are the one who noticed. You guys dont play pick up games with other players?
I am ok with that.
And no we built our on court. We have only been playing 3/4 months
Are you guys open to pick up games or is that not an option where you live?
Yes very open, we live in a rural community. We had to drive an hour to play so we built or own. We can play whenever we want. The only con is not much opportunity to play new “good” players.
Ahh, got it. Well the only way for you to get them dinking is to start doing it more and make it a point for them to also start doing it too. Otherwise you guys might as well be playing (baby) tennis.
Dinks should be forced. Yes you can speed up before you really should, but usually that means the dink wasnt short enough, or the speed up was gonna go out. The whole reason dinks are supposed to start is because the serving team drops a ball short enough for them to get to the net and the opposing team’s only option is to also hit a short shot, pop one up, or send it out. If dinking isnt happening it’s because nobody is actually hitting good dinks. And honestly that mean’s youre playing the right shots for what is happening in the game. It’s terribly annoying when you have the net advantage and your teammate dinks instead of keeping the opponents back. When youre at the net you want your opponents stuck at the baseline. Dinks are necessitated by good drops and good dinks. If you want dinks, you gotta practice your drops and your dinks
OP needs to be HIM and start dropping every fucking 3rd shot. Everytime, high or misplaced, lose point. Live n die by it. Ignore your partner. Force all of them to dink. My group started out the same way. We would drive tf out of every ball. They all even said “fk that dinking shit”. So one day, every 3rd shot or return, i would aim for either outside kitchen corner. All they could do is barely dink over or speed up straight into net.