Start Every Point with These 5 CRUCIAL Pickleball Shots

do you want to know why you're constantly losing games it's probably because you're struggling with one of the first five shots of the game the serve the return the third shot the fourth shot or the shot that almost no one talks about the fifth shot most players don't even make it past these first five shots and they wonder why they are struggling to score in this video we're going to dive deep into the first five shots and how to never miss them again let's Jump Right In all right the very first shot super important yes

it starts the point but we want to put as much pressure as we can on your serve we're going to start with the stance that's the first thing now some players serve in an open stance like this but what I suggest especially if you're starting out is more of a close stance kind of like uh when you're hitting a baseball or when you're hitting a golf swing okay so stance is super important I would start a little bit wider than shoulder with and this is going to give you a good strong base next number two

is going to be keeping your back swing simple yes they can be a really big back swing or you know you can have a lot of momentum by doing that but if you're just starting out what I would do is keep it simple I like to start with my back swing with this paddle face that I'm hitting the ball with facing to the ground and I'm just going to start it right here by my right hip all right tip number three on the serve is the hip rotation hip and core rotation when I'm hitting this

ball I am not just using my arm like that right I want to be able to engage my core and rotate my hips through my swing so you don't want to forget about that all right tip number four is contact Point whether you're doing a volley serve or a drop serve we want to make sure we get that contact out in front this is what I see a lot that's what you don't want to do we want to get that contact out in front of us right right here so that we can see it and

we can have a good contact and see the ball out in front and it makes it easier for us to get power and spin so what I recommend if you're doing a volley surf or a drop surf extend your hand out drop it out here or if you're going to do a volley serve you're just going to let it go out in front of you all right Fifth and final tip for the serve which is going to help you get more Spin and help you get more power and with which I also think is going

to help you gain more consistency is having a consistent and full follow through that ends High over your shoulder there are many times I see players using their arm not rotating their hips but also just stopping their follow through and they're ending over here or over here different places but what we want to do is we want to make sure we follow through ending High over our shoulder this is really important because we're starting low ending high and that's what creates that [Music] topsman all right let's talk about the return as we know you are

at the advantage of being the returner so when you return it's very important to make sure that you are hitting a good return so you stay in the driver seat and stay in the offensive so tip number one is your positioning on the court when you are going to return I see a lot of players playing right up here at the line I even see some players in the court and way back at the fence so typically I give myself two steps back or even three steps back based off of the server and how deep

he's serving to me or she serving to me and usually this is a good spot to be if you do need one extra step that's no problem at all but you do need to give yourself at least some room just in case that serve is right at the line tip number two is your forward momentum when you are returning rning your job is to get yourself to that kitchen line after you return so if you hit your return and you find yourself falling back that is way more work for you to get yourself to the

kitchen line than it is to take those steps back and then get your weight going back forward into your shot so once you go to swing your weight should always be moving forward and then bringing you to the kitchen line tip number three and possibly the most common mistake I see when players are returning is running through your return all right do not run through your return when you are here at this line you have to make sure once the return comes your feet are preparing you to get ready for that ball and then you

should be stopped and planted so if I see that return coming my way I set up I plant my feet I'm in my close stance and I hit my shot and then I can move forward towards the kitchen line if you guys are moving through your shot you will get jammed and you will lose power and you will lose control on your return so make sure your feet are set and you keep everything in front of you our fourth tip is our contact Point as much as we want to keep our weight forward we also

need to make sure our ball is in front of us as well so when my weight is going forward and my ball is in front of me this is the cleanest point of contact for myself here to have power and control which means if I'm back here I'm losing a lot of that so once I go to swing I make sure my contact point is in front of my front leg and from there I make my swing our last tip for the returns is making sure you have a long follow through uh typically when players

start to hit shorter returns most of the reason is because they stop their paddle Too Short on their swing so when you need that little bit extra depth you can provide it by swinging through your ball and following through all the way up to your shoulder all right so once you swing it should not be stopping once you make contact you have to send it all the way through and notice it helps me bring my weight all the way forward and into my shot make sure you guys work on these tips let's get into the

third shot drop all right so let's get right into the very famous third shot drop now this first tip is probably the most important if you're not going to take away anything else this is the most important make sure that you create enough space between the bounce and yourself why is this because we do not want to be hitting our third shot right off the bounce we actually want to create enough space allow that ball to come up if we have time and hit our third shot closer to the Apex to the peak of the

Bounce by doing this it's going to buy you more time and it's going to be a lot easier to control the ball so tip number two this is a very very important key thing when you're hitting your third shot drop and that is having your momentum moving forward every time we have our momentum moving backward we can still hit a drop that way but we're going to lose control every time we don't have control of our body moving forward so part of that goes with the first one is creating that space sometimes that return is

closer to this Baseline we might have to create some space between the bounce and ourselves so that we can actually hit that ball and have that momentum moving forward all right so that leads us to our third tip contact point you see a common theme Here we always want to contact that ball out in front and again creating that space will help a lot of players contact their third shot drop really late and I would call late right around here again if we can hit it around our left toe line or a little bit more

out in front of us as a right-handed player if I could hit it right around here this is good contact and this is where I'm going to have the most control so make sure that you keep that in mind so tip number four we're going to talk about the back swing the two things that make the entirety of the stroke is the back swing how far we take it back and the follow through if your third shot tends to go way past the long non volley zone line and really high you might want to consider

shortening up your back swing lots of players are taking their paddle back way too far and that can cause really high third shot drops so I like to start mine right around here and then I'm just going to be lifting up towards my target all right last tip tip number five for the third shot drop we want to make sure that we are swinging from a low to high motion obviously there's a net that we're trying to hit over and it is a game of how much do we give it obviously we're going to have

to practice and drill this shot but the biggest key thing here is we can't be swinging laterally like this we have to make sure that we're lifting up on the ball whether you're hitting with Top Spin or you're hitting with a little bit of under spin your swing path is always going to be in a low to high motion all right now let's get to the fourth shot all right let's get into tip number one let's talk about our positioning on the fourth shot I personally need to make sure that I am in a wide

low base I have my feet a little bit wider than shoulder width apart I'm bending my knees and sinking my butt and getting a little bit lower while my upper body stays upright and my paddle is going to be in my ready position in tip number two we are going to talk about how we need to apply pressure to our opponents by trying to take every ball in the air first when you are here at this kitchen line your toes need to be as close to this line as possible but be careful do not Fault

by stepping on the line or in the kitchen but when I'm here I am trying to take as many balls in the air as possible and if I can't hey no sweat tip number three is what kind of voles we use when we are trying to keep our opponents back um based off of the height of your opponent's ball if it's a little bit higher towards your chest you're going to be using what we call a punch volley if it's a little bit lower more towards your waist or below you are going to be using

what we call our Top Spin volley all right now this is completely based off of your opponent's ball that they hit at you so let me show you the punch volley and let me show you the roll volley notice on the punch volley it was a higher ball and I got to punch outward on the lower ball that I had to Top Spin roll I had to project upward but that Top Spin is what C sends that ball up and over the net but then drops down lower towards your opponent use both of these try

both of these try and get comfortable with them remember in tip number two when I told you guys not to sweat if you can't take a ball in the air well this is where tip number four comes in if you guys find yourselves taking very low balls in the air here below your knees this is what we consider our Red Zone all right we should never be trying to be too aggressive in these Red Zone spots so if you find yourself here doing this a lot you need to make sure now that you can take

a step back and allow this ball to bounce up so maybe you can now attack a higher yellow ball so again we shouldn't be making contact down here and I'm going to show you exactly why did you see how low that ball was I couldn't do anything with it I either put it in the net or I had to pop it a little bit higher so instead of taking this ball in such a low zone I'm now going to make sure I can step back and I can look to possibly attack my opponent who is

now moving forward so notice in that last example I had to take a big step back get myself some space for a good contact point which then allowed me to attack that fourth ball if you guys don't have this space you guys need to create it by either taking one big step back or even shuffling back to give yourself the time and the space to make your shot our final tip for the fourth shot we now know how to execute this shot now we need to know where to put it and what to do with

it so once I'm in this position I need to make sure I am trying to keep my opponents back towards the Baseline if they are starting to transition towards the kitchen line I'm going to try and aim for their feet as best as possible so I'll show you exactly where I need to put this fall if they are moving forward if they stay back my goal is to keep them back those are the tips for the fourth shot let's jump right into the fifth shot all right so now let's jump right into the fifth shot

and talking about the fifth shot I just want to set the stage here sometimes you're going to be hitting your third shot drop and you will get up to the non volley zone right away but many times especially in higher level play we are still going to be working our way through this transition so the first tip is the split step what is the split step the split step is putting your feet in a position where we're not moving and we're well balanced okay so it's going to look something like this as soon as I

am coming through this ball I'm going to split step right before my opponent makes contact and this is really important so that I can prepare early and I'm in a good balance stance to prepare for my next shot now to tip number two talking specifically about the split step we want to make sure that we're in a really good low and wide stance why is this well number one one when we're in this transition zone our feet are exposed a lot so what that means is our opponents are usually going to be hitting right at

our feet so what we want to do is actually get in a low stance already because chances are the ball is going to be coming right down at our feet all right so now let's hop into to tip number three which is going to improve your fifth shot and that is your paddle position depending on where you are in this transition zone you might want to adjust your paddle position slightly because of where your feet are so for example if I'm way back here I'm in a good wide stance there's really no need to set

my paddle like I would be at the net like up here right why is that my feet are exposed I only have a couple feet behind me the only possible option for my opponents to hit at is at my feet so I'm going to actually have my paddle super low in this ready position defending here now if I'm closer up to the non volley zone line and let's say I'm here for my fifth shot and they are still attacking me they could still probably attack kind of towards my body and keep the ball in so

maybe my paddle positions a little bit higher depending on how deep you are in the court you want to make sure you drop that paddle position down all right so now let's jump into tip number four for your fifth shot and that is lifting up on the ball okay these balls are going to be coming at you pretty fast and they're going to be most of the time at your feet so when we're taking balls this low we have to have that paddle face open and we want to be lifting we have to lift softly

up on this ball when we're down here we're going to be lifting with our shoulders so whether it's your forehand here you can see here or my back hand whether I use one hand or two I'm always lifting with my shoulders in that wide base that's the easiest way to control the ball tip number five this is the last one super important we want want to make sure that we are not swinging or Ving the ball like a punch volley I see a lot of people in transition they're in a good low stance and they're

swinging at the ball they're taking these shoot swings their back swings way back here or they're actually punching the ball like they're attacking remember when we're trying to reset the ball in the transition this is a defensive shot so we want to make sure like I just said we're lifting from our shoulder and our swing is really very very short all I'm doing is lifting I might use my legs a little bit to control that lift in that ball but for the most part I'm never swinging never punching and that's actually how we pop up

a lot of our fifth shot so if you want to get that ball Landing in that non volley Zone make sure you do all those five things if you struggle with any of these five shots comment below on which of them is actually the hardest for you in the meantime if you'd like to get personalized coaching on your serve third shot drop or reset we just created an App in which you can send in your film so that we can coach you directly from your smartphone if you want to check that out go ahead and

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