From Tennisdink
The dink: the shot tennis never taught you
Every tennis convert hits this wall: you can drive, you can volley, you're winning rec games on power alone, and then you meet a team that simply refuses to give you a ball you can hit hard. The soft game has no tennis equivalent, and it's the entire gap between intermediate and advanced. Close it on purpose.
12 minKey takeaways
- Power loses to patience at the kitchen line: experienced players absorb your pace and feed you unattackable dinks until you crack. Learn their game; don't keep feeding theirs.
- The dink is all touch: a soft, low arc into the kitchen that can't be attacked. It will feel wrong for weeks. That's normal; hit thousands of them anyway.
- Your topspin is still an asset: hit topspin volleys and rolls instead of the tennis slice volley, which floats and gives opponents time.
- Move as a wall, not a ladder: in pickleball doubles both partners advance to the kitchen line together and hold it, not the staggered one-up-one-back of tennis.
- Retrain your movement sideways: rallies at the line are lateral, so practice shuffling along the kitchen with a semi-backhand ready position: paddle at 10 o'clock, in front of your chest.
Drill to try
Crosscourt dinks with a partner, 50 in a row, continental grip, every ball landing in the kitchen. If either of you can attack a ball, the count resets. Then play 'dink-only' points to 7; first attackable ball loses.