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Staying Efficient and Effective During A Pickleball Tournament

By Kevin Gress

MINDSET 

Now that the tournament has begun, how can you attempt to gain an advantage over your opponent? Adopting a positive mindset and having the utmost confidence in your abilities will be a great start. Believe in your shots, game plan, and partner and most times positive results will follow. Remember all the time you’ve spent practicing. This will help you to stay relaxed and confident. Focus only on the present, not something that happened to you the day prior or a point you misplayed the previous game. Try to eliminate all distractions by giving full attention to simply playing. You got this, you are ready! 

Like any other sport, putting in the extra time and effort into practicing and drilling will pay off in a tournament. You will possess the skills to execute shots, while also owning the knowledge of seeing many different balls an opponent will hit. As I’ve mentioned before, most people are nervous in tournaments which leads them to play tighter, creating more errors. Conversely, if you can adopt the “positive mindset at all times” approach you will play under control and make fewer errors.  This can make a huge difference when it comes to tournament play.   

TEAMWORK 

In a tournament, you and your partner need to play as one cohesive unit, always communicating and moving together. It is critical to winning pickleball to always talk, saying, “me”, “you”, “I got it” etc. so you are not running into each other. I find teams that don’t communicate well end up out of position leading to easy points. Before you serve, discuss where you want to go with the ball to eliminate confusion. During the point communicate on out balls, lobs, and who will take middle balls.   

Whoever has the forehand in the middle normally takes most middle balls to avoid confusion.  They run the offense, setting up shots and covering maybe 60 to 70 percent of the court. This is the reason most teams put the better or more consistent player on the left.  But what if one of you is a righty and the other a lefty so both forehands are in the middle? In this instance, communication is extremely important as both people by nature want to take middle balls.  More than most teams, this team setup (righty and lefty) needs to constantly talk with “me”, “you” etc or many balls will get by leading to points. One way to help solve this middle ball dilemma may be to allow the more aggressive player to take most middle balls. Most times this person is more active and moving so it feeds into their nature to take more of the balls.   

TEAM MOVEMENT 

An easy part of the game to sometimes overlook is team movement. Two instances in which moving in tandem is critical are at the kitchen line and moving to the non-volley zone, or kitchen line, after hitting a third shot drop or drive.

Let’s first discuss moving together at the kitchen line when dinking. When in a dinking battle with your opponents, always aim to be about 5 to 7 feet apart from your partner and moving laterally along the kitchen line in unison. For instance, if your partner moves left to hit a backhand dink you also need to move left. Keeping this distance from each other allows you both to cover much of the court with a little overlap to hit the middle ball. 

This will obviously change depending on the heights and reaches of each person but is a good approximation for most teams. If you are taller or have a longer reach or vice versa your partner is taller or has a longer reach, then you will be able to cover more of the court and allow one person to shade over and cover more of the line. This is especially advantageous when trying to pin an opponent in a corner with dinks. The taller or longer-reach person can take up most of the court while the other person can basically stand near the sideline. This leaves your opponent with a very small window to return dinks and most times leads to unforced errors or pop-ups for easy put-aways.   

The next instance when you and your partner need to be in unison is moving to the non-volley zone from the baseline. Just about every game I watch or play in, whether it’s rec or tournament play, I see partners not moving in together from the baseline. 

Most times it looks something like this; person 1 attempts a third shot drop and hits it high, person 2 immediately runs in and gets the ball slammed at their feet. The person that hits the high drop doesn’t communicate with their partner telling them to stay, so they are still standing at the baseline ready to play defense while person 2 is standing near the kitchen line. This creates huge holes in the defense and allows for easy put-aways. Always attempt to move up to the kitchen line in unison or back to the baseline in unison such as when having to track down a lob.  When one partner hits what they think is a good third shot drop say something like “go.” This can be the signal for both of you to come running in together in tandem, therefore leading to more winners and fewer unforced errors. 

ADVANCED GAME PLANNING 

In Part II, I discussed setting up a simple game plan of items to be talked about and worked out with your partner before the start of the tournament. Here I will discuss more in-game approaches and what to look for to find weaknesses in your opponents. Everyone has weaknesses and the quicker you are to finding and exploiting them the closer you will be to victory. I realize you already have so much to think about, in addition to the nervousness of playing in your first tournament. These items will give you additional ideas to think about while playing your rec games and can be incorporated into your successive tournaments.   

My personal game plan entering a tournament is to SLOW the pace of play and try to grind out the first few points. I find most teams tend to increase the pace of play speeding up balls to get easy points and save energy. This may work in the lower skill levels but as you advance into 4.0 and above you need to be able to dink extremely well and reset balls. The main reason I play slow to begin a tournament is to try and find my opponents’ weaknesses. Finding them as soon as possible is the key to becoming successful.  

Return serves deep keeping your opponents back as much as possible as this can lead to errors.  If you notice one person struggling to hit 3rd shot drops consistently, return to them every time putting pressure on them. If one person is running in quickly and poaching balls after their partner hits a 3rd shot drop, then return every ball to the person running in. This will make them have to hit the 3rd shot and keep them back on the baseline longer. Observe if one person is tall so it would be hard to lob them or does one struggle moving their feet well so you can dink them wide. Another item to work on is attempting to place balls at your opponents’ feet as they will have trouble hitting the ball out in front of them. This will make it difficult for them to hit powerful, aggressive returns.    

I am more consistent with 3rd shot drops, so I choose to drop most balls crosscourt in the kitchen aiming for the opponent’s backhand (unless I get a short return of serve then I can come in and drive the ball). This effectively “pins” them in a corner, limiting their return shots. If you become good enough at it, many times you can hit winners off the crosscourt drop, cause your opponents to hit unforced errors or set up your partner for an easy ball. 

Unless I receive high balls to put away for winners, I prefer to try and engage in dinking battles.  For example, most people’s backhands are weaker than their forehands, so I immediately start dinking only to backhands. Try one opponent’s backhand and see how they handle it. Do they immediately pop it up or hit it in the net? This can show they are weak on backhand dinks and you and your partner can continually exploit it. If one partner is good at backhand dinks, try the other partner and see how they react. Maybe they show a weak backhand and are not confident dinking several times in a row.   

Above all, I exercise PATIENCE when playing a tournament. Don’t attempt risky shots early in the game, if they miss you can get down quickly adding pressure and leading to more errors.  Try not to speed up unattackable balls (balls lower than the net); instead hit one more dink giving yourself a better chance to win the point. By slowing the pace of play, analyzing weaknesses, and being patient, you can be successful in tournament play. 

Kevin Gress is a Senior Contributing Writer to Pickle Madness. Kevin lives Ponte Vedra, Florida, where he has been playing pickleball for three years. He started playing for exercise and to have fun with friends, but over the past 18 months has been concentrating on raising his level of play and entering tournaments. He has played many APP and PPA events all over Florida along with the US Open in Naples. He also started testing his skills in moneyball events, where you can win money along with medals or trophies.  He’s on a roll, having won the last five moneyball competitions he’s entered. His current Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating is 4.93. Kevin turns 50 next year and has a goal of playing senior pro events.

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