How To Hit A 3rd Shot Drop In Pickleball (Technique Explained & More)

hi I'm Nicole hle and this is prime time pickle ball all right let's take a quick moment to define the third shot drop so that we're all on the same page no matter what level you're at the serve is the first shot of the point the return is the second shot the two returning players are now up at the nonv zone line or closing in on it quickly in the case of the returner and then someone on the serving team is now responsible for hitting the third shot an option for that is the third shot

drop and it looks like this the third shot is a classic time to hit a drop which is why the term third shot drop is thrown around so much we'll unpack why that is and everything else about the third shot drop in this Ultimate Guide to the third shot Drop video but first let's cover what the other typical option is for the third shot in modern pickle ball you might opt to drive the third shot like this why might that be well it could be that the return was weak and you have an opportunity to

potentially overpower your opponents at this time or maybe the return is pressing you a bit too much in some way this instance is rarely talked about but if you don't have a great contact point and are jammed or rushed in some way when you're trying to hit that third shot drop and there's a good chance that you could flub it if you attempt it then you're better off hitting a low drive a drop is a precis PR ision shot and not a power shot so you want to be sure that you're well set up to

hit it so that you can have a lot of control knocking back a low Drive can still be relatively easily done even if you're somewhat off balance when you're hitting that shot and just really not in the best position it doesn't require as much precision and control the downside of a drop that's hit a little bit too high is bigger than the downside of a drive that's hit a bit too high your high drop is going to float and therefore be much more easily punished by the opposing team and lastly another thing to keep in

mind is that it's a good idea to mix things up so that you don't become too predictable mixing drops and drives on your third shot will keep them guessing while keeping both your drops and drives more effective because of it you always want to have more than one way to handle any given situation for that very reason in cases where you drive the third shot you might drop on the fifth or the seventh shot or really at any other time you find yourself back back in the cord and the other team has both of their

players up at the non-v zone line and your team doesn't these days it's become a reality that you have to be much more picky about when and how you drop or you're going to get into a lot of trouble fast so necessarily dropping the third shot might not be the way to go depending on the situation we'll get into all of that shortly as well as how to hit the perfect drop and different kinds of drops and much more so that you can become great at dropping but first let's set the stage p and cover

for context why all of this is so important and a strategically advantageous thing to do when your opponents have advanced to the line and you haven't yet because that is as true today as it always was and it will very likely continue to hold true for a long time to come if you're enjoying this video so far it's only getting better so hit that subscribe button so you can be sure to stay in the know about the best tips for your pickle ball game by subscribing you'll get notified of new videos as they come out

and that way you can be sure not to miss out on any opportunity to level up your game all right let's keep breaking things down in this Ultimate Guide to the third shot drop as I touched on earlier a lot has changed about drops while some things still hold true today let's unpack that a bit more you likely know or noticed from the examples earlier that the drop is a type of shot that you deliberately hit softly and short in your opponent's Court when you find yourself further back in the court and your opponents are

or not so why might that be smart it's a great option at that time because it gives you the opportunity to come up to the nonv zone line safely by keeping it short and low in their Court you use the net to protect you the slowness of your shot gives you time to sneak up in the court and the net in their way forces them to hit up protecting you from an attack all of this serves to get the point back to neutral again if they come up and you don't get up there too then

they'll have an advantage in in the ground war and you don't want that anytime they're up you want to be as well and the drop is one of the best ways to get you there your target for the drop is the back portion of their kitchen which gives you more freedom to hit a bit higher and helps you keep the ball out of the net since they're at their nonv zone line a deep in the kitchen Target is very close to their feet so the chances of them having to reach down and contact the shot

low are much higher because they don't have much time or room to get out of the way and create some space something to keep in mind in the modern game is that the player at the nonv zone line will often elect to let your drop bounce and Peak after the bounce if they are Adept at hitting with some Top Spin they will attack if it comes up high enough and they'll be as offensive as they can be with the height that they get this is also the reason your target is deep in the kitchen as

opposed to short if you try to hit it too short you must hit with the higher Arc and that will have a tendency to bounce too high leaving you much more susceptible to an attack after the bounce here's an example where Shawn hits a drop with some Arc to it Ryan opts to let it bounce as he recognizes the more pronounced Arc of the incoming drop will lead to the ball sitting up somewhat should he let it bounce it bounces with a little height to it he attacks but the bounce is not high enough to

be very offensive with the attack Michelle did well here to neut neutralize Ryan's shot with a follow-up drop and then Shawn drops it again and now they've completed their transition to the nonv zone line these days it can and likely will take you more than one drop to get up to that line As you move up in levels you could say that these last two drops by Michelle and Shawn are technically what we call resets which is basically the same concept as a drop just off a faster incoming shot the idea is still to hit

a soft shot short and low and force your opponents into to a low contact regardless of if you're technically hitting a drop or a reset due to the danger of this bounce attack after the drop let's unpack the flight trajectory of your drop a bit more remember the goal is not to hit the ball as tight to the net as we can it's to get them contacting the ball low so if they take it out of the air or let it bounce it's largely irrelevant as long as they have to make it from a low

contact point a lower flight path of course will generally help with that but don't force it you have some cushion thanks to your deep in the kitchen Target and this is also why you'll by and large want to take your drop crosscourt or to the middle you have more room in terms of distance to get the ball up over the net and then down in time to land in front of their feet the flight path of your shot can be flatter thanks to that extra distance and you're less likely to give them a shot that

will bounce and Peak high enough for a strong attack because of it you of course want to work your down the line drops as well because it will make sense to take it there at times you'll want to have both in Your Arsenal but by and large you're going to want to use that crosscourt Target for your drop because of the benefits I just mentioned but again you don't want to be limited and predictable you need to have flexibility so you do need to work that down the line drop as well just be cognizant of

the higher level of difficulty but it's still very doable and a shot that can be learned and should be learned if you want to advance to those higher levels one thing to keep in mind that's really going to help you regardless of the target of your drop is to keep the Apex of your shot on your side of the net so that by the time your shot is crossing the net it's descending into your opponent's court that is a key point so remember keep the Apex on your side all that said you want to be

sure to clear the net it's better to miss high be attacked and have a chance to work your way out of it than it is to put it in the net and lose the point right then and there if you're seeking to be an advanced player spend tons of time mastering the drop as well as its closely related sibling the reset shot which as you might recall from earlier is when you have the same goal for the shot and the same Target only in the case of the reset you've been attacked and the speed of

the incoming ball is much faster now here's a pro tip for when you're out there working that shot if you find you're missing into the net think paddle down TI tip down and push up I find that when I'm missing to the net it's because I don't get my paddle under the ball enough and it generally starts with my paddle set up for the shot being too high so if I'm sure to send my paddle down as step one of my preparation for the shot and think push up through the shot I soon end up

watching it float perfectly over the net and right where I want now we'll dive into the technique of hitting a rock solid classic drop and later we'll cover some addition drop types as well as how to hit them that you can progressively build into your game and be an even bigger threat out there the classic drop is not that much different than a dink look at these two shots on the left we have a classic Dink and on the right we have a classic drop classic meaning hit flat and with relatively little or no spin

you're just sending it to the target with a pushing motion focusing primarily on the Target and trajectory of the shot what differences do we see not really a whole lot other than on the drop we have a more extended follow through which makes sense because we need more energy on the shot since we're sending it a longer ways aside from that we're stepping into the drop whereas on the dink we have an open stance that also makes sense since on the drop we want to step in and that helps us give a little more energy

to the shot as well and furthermore it acts as your first step as you proceed to that nonv zone line behind your drop in general at a solid classic drop get that back leg planted in such a way that leaves you good spacing so you can make a nice and infront contact even when you're stepping into it step in with your other leg and have a knee bent in both knees and a stance that is at least shoulder width apart preferably a bit wider than that and that will give you a solid foundation with your

lower body for the shot notice how there is virtually no back swing the shoulders are turned only slightly and she drops the paddle head no takeback with the arm at all she steps in has a stable paddle face throughout the shot meaning there's no wrist flicking at all and she pushes it in an up and forward motion through the ball with energy generated from her knees and some from the shoulder motion that's it very little to it as far as the complexity of the motion goes now you won't always be able to step into your

drop if their shot was a bit deeper and you just don't have the space no problem you should train for these situations as well and learned to take it with no step in as we see here Michelle hits a backhand drop with her weight on her back foot she hits and is relatively dynamically balanced and only then shifts her weight forward she covers some ground but knows she is unlikely to get all the way to the nonv zone line because she was not able to cover any ground while she was hitting the shot so she

opts to cover just some it is wise to cover as much ground as you can after you've hit your drop but you're going to have to stop and hit your split step when they're hitting that next shot she hits her split and drops again though this time out of an open stance because again the incoming shot had a bit more Pace on it and stepping in wouldn't make sense since she needs to take some speed off rather than add some speed as Katie needed to do on this classic one where the ball didn't have as

much energy on it so she could add to it you have to calibrate how much of your own forward momentum you want to assist you with the shot if there's a reasonable amount of speed on the incoming shot you won't want much help or any even from your own forward momentum into the shot these are the nuances you're going to have to feel out as you drill but now you should at least know to factor that in you might be stepping in you might be hitting open stance you might be leaning back somewhat as much

as you can step in but keep in mind that there's going to be some variety depending on what incoming shot you get as soon as you develop reasonable control on the classic drop then you'd be wise to add some slice you might already have some natural Slice on your classic drop so work on being able to control the degree of slice that you hit sometimes it makes more sense and it's your only option to Simply bunt it meaning just no spin more very classic Drop Like if you're taking it more on the rise Flats really

your only option if you try to add any type of spin it's just not going to go well and at other times like when it's peaked after after the bounce you'll have the opportunity to put some Slice on it to help you keep it low if you wish once you have good control on your flat drops as well as your slic drops I'd look into adding Top Spin drops to Your Arsenal now I know we've been looking mostly at forand drops up until this point I'll cover backhand shortly so stay tuned for that the reason

you want to be adding spin is that the classic drop is at the most risk of getting too high after the bounce and being prone to an attack with a slice drop where you cut the ball a bit it's easier to hit a lower trajectory shot and the added backs spin keeps the ball low after the bounce a Top Spin drop will hit the ground and bounce towards your opponent so it won't sit it will press them in either case if they reach in to take it out of the air or step back to let

it bounce it'll be very difficult to attack well anytime you have the choice I'd go with the Top Spin drop because it puts the most pressure on your opponents while also allowing you to hit with a little more neck clear an as the spin helps it dive down while in Flight let's take a look at the slice and Top Spin compared to the flat drop on the forehand side we've covered the step by step on the classic drop earlier so we'll point out how the slice and Top Spin differ from that let's freeze here before

contact notice how the paddle face on the slice drop doesn't get as low under the ball as on the classic drop it only gets slightly lower than the ball and on the slice it's still a low to high trajectory through contact but less low to high than on the classic drop also on the classic drop we contact flush through the paddle face whereas on the slice there's a bit of high to low cut against the ball with the paddle face despite the still low to high swing motion there's more of a rub against the face

of the ball rather than a clean push through the ball that different type of contact where you're rubbing the surface is what produces the backspin now let's do a similar comparison from the classic drop to the Top Spin you can see here that the paddle face gets lower under the ball than on the classic drop her paddle tip is pointed nearly to the ground or just just shy of that she then rubs up on the back of the ball in a more low to high vertical motion than the classic drop and finishes with her paddle

face much more open than on the other two drops since she is rubbing straight up the back of that ball and coming really quite vertical and not hitting flush at all as far as grips go generally on flat and sliced drops on both the forehand and the backhand side you'll use a continental grip which looks like this on the forehand toss spin you'll generally use an Eastern forehand grip which is this if you're going to add a Top Spin backhand drop then I'd recommend doing that with two hands and your grip will look like this

your dominant hand should be on the bottom in addition to grip position you'll want to have a generally loose grip like a three or a four out of 10 on a drop realize that you're mostly sending the ball back slower than at the pace it came to you you must let your paddle help you with that if you have a loose grip that allows your paddle face to absorb some of the speed off the ball when the ball makes impact with the paddle remember anytime you want to slow the ball down as you do on

the drop looser grip for looser arms and hands and allowed that paddle face to retract somewhat and absorb that pace the two-handed backhand Top Spin drop is by far more flexible than a one-handed Top Spin drop for now we're mostly still seeing classic and sliced drops on the backhand side but I predict that the two-handed tops spin drop will be coming more and more into the game as it is the most offensive of the three drops you'll rarely now and probably ever see a oneand Ed Top Spin drop because you have to hit it well

out in front and there's really no forgiveness there's no option to hit it late it's just biomechanically too restrictive on the two-handed drop you can contact from this range to this range which is why I believe it may become more of a go-to option on that side at a minimum develop a rock solid one-handed classic and slice drop on the backhand side let's do a side by-side comparison of the three drop options on the backhand side from left to right is the classic drop the slice drop and finally the two-handed Top Spin drop lots of

similarities between what makes them different from one another as on the forehand side however you'll notice that the differences are less pronounced this is because on the backhand side we're leading with the knuckles as opposed to the forehand where we're leading with the palm of our hand it's just a stronger position to lead with the palm and we can be more maneuverable in that position which is also why most tend to prefer their forehand side just in general as even though that backhand side can be more stable it's also more restrictive so here we can

see that we get a bit lower before contact on the classic drop as compared to the slice marginally but again it's not as pronounced of a difference as on the forehand side we still hit flush with the ball on the classic and we cut on the slice to add the Back Spin and on the Top Spin we still have to get a bit under it so we can go vertically up the back of the ball rubbing our paddle face against the face of the ball which is what produces that Top Spin and we again finish

with more of an open face straight up above contact and less forward than on the other two drops the paddle head doesn't get quite as low on the top spin on the backhand side as compared to the forehand because again there is those restrict Ive two hands on there as opposed to the one hand maneuvering freely on the forehand side but dropping that paddle head on the two-handed backhand is something that can be worked on so that you can get under it more and therefore produce more spin so definitely try to add maneuverability even though

it's a little bit tougher it is possible all right now you are well versed on how to hit all the different third shot drops that are available to you in the game of pickle ball regardless of if you're dropping on the third or at some later time in the point all of the same Concepts and principles of how to do it still apply and now it all comes down to training we have some great videos on training drills for the third shot drop and I'll link to those in the description below as helpful as we

think the tips we're sharing in today's video are there's more to achieving success on the doubles Court want a complete a toz step-by-step blueprint for playing winning doubles pickle ball check out our dominating doubles system today go to doubl system.com to learn all about it if you enjoyed this video please like comment and share for more Pro Player pickleball tips techniques strategies and more on how to take your game to the next level please visit Primetime pickleball.com you'll find a clickable direct link in the video description below thanks for watching we'll see you in the

next one and until then Happy pickling