Third Shot Drop

Do You Paddle Track? You Should

July 04 2024

What’s the ideal paddle-ready position?

Take a moment.

Do you know?

Maybe you said, “Slightly backhand” or “Paddle straight up and down.”

While these are great answers when standing neutral, the ideal ready position depends on where the ball is on the court.

At least, that is, if you’re paddle tracking. Today’s Up Your Game is a skill that all high-level pickleball players use, yet few ever talk about. It’s a skill that if you master, you’ll become better at pickleball than all your friends (and, more importantly, your enemies).

What is paddle tracking?

Paddle tracking means following the ball with the tip of your paddle. Wherever the ball is on the court, that’s where the top of your paddle, shoulders, and hips should be facing.

This means you’ll sometimes have your paddle straight up (neutral), while other times, it should favor your forehand or backhand.

Why paddle tracking helps you play better

Imagine holding your paddle straight out in front of you, and the opponent on your right hits a speedup crosscourt toward the middle.

To hit this ball, you must:

  1. Turn your paddle back (opening up your forehand)
  2. Accelerate the paddle through the ball

There’s not enough time from when the ball leaves your opponent’s paddle to when it (hopefully) hits yours for you to get this right every time.

Your timing has to be impeccable.

Now, consider that instead of having your paddle straight out in front of you, you learned about paddle tracking (from reading The Dink’s awesome Newsletter).

When your opponent speeds the ball up crosscourt, you don’t have to move your paddle into position because it’s already there.

All that’s left is to accelerate through the ball.

This eliminates unnecessary backswing and improves the timing of your counters tremendously.

Better timing plus less movement equals fewer opportunities to make a mistake.

What if they don’t speed it up?

If your crosscourt opponent hits a dink instead, you’ll have plenty of time to switch to your backhand and hit a good dink in return.

If they hit a poor dink - leaving it up - you’ll be in a great position to attack it out of the air.

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