How to Drive the Ball Harder (and Smarter) in Pickleball

When we started playing pickleball five years ago, it was absolutely essential to have a third shot drop if you ever wanted to play high level pickleball. But in today's game, if you don't have a nice fast dipping drive, your game is going to have some significant holes in it. In this video, we're going to show you five essential tips to improve your third shot drive and stick to the end because we're going to put you through some game-like scenarios and how to implement this shot in the best way. So let's get into it. The first tip that's really going to help your drive is super underrated because it feels maybe even a little boring, but honestly, this makes a huge difference when you're hitting the shot and it's getting to the ball early. Now, one of the biggest mistakes I see when people try to hit even like a third shot drive, they'll have the serving team will serve the ball and they're just immediately flat-footed. Then when the ball comes back, all of a sudden you're scrambling to get in position and get to the ball. So it's really important that you prioritize getting to the ball early because the earlier that you get there, the better the drive is going to be. If your team is hitting the serve to serve the ball and then immediately have active feet, that's going to really help you get to that ball early and not be caught flat-footed and then late to the ball when you're getting the drive. So now we've talked about the importance of early prep with your footwork, but when you approach the ball, it's important to be strategic with your weight transfer and your setup. Now, a lot of people, when they hit the shot, there's some mixed reviews on, do I have an open stance and kind of create coil and power here? Or do I close my stance off to the ball, kind of pointing my shoulder at my target? And while there's different schools of thought on which is better for pickleball, the weight transfer concept is pretty much the same. And that is we want to make sure we load up on our paddle side foot. So if I'm hitting with more of like a 45 degree open stance, my paddle side foot, if I'm right-handed would be my right foot. I want to load my weight up on that foot and this becomes my anchor or my balance point. If I'm more closed, the same is true. I will kind of rock back a little bit, but the danger in doing this is we don't want to make contact on our back foot. We don't want to make contact when we're moving back or our chest is coming up. We want to load on that inside or back foot, and then we want to transfer our weight forward through contact. So again, you're going to load up on that paddle side foot, have a nice unit turn with that upper body, whether you're closed or open. And that weight transfer concept, transferring your weight from your backside or paddle side foot through the ball is going to help you generate power and just time the ball better when driving the ball. Really going to help your drive has to do with spacing. Now for me personally, I didn't have a tennis background. So this was actually something that really messed up my drive. The first couple of years I played pickleball, what would happen is I wouldn't have proper spacing between me and the ball. And oftentimes I would just end up jamming myself and having my elbow really almost come into my body. This would create a ton of unforced errors on my drive. So something that I noticed a lot of players with great drives do is they use this opposite arm as a to create spacing between them and the ball. So what you'll see is when people go to set up for the drive, they'll have this arm kind of out and it's in a strong position. What they're doing is they're able to kind of measure up where to actually have their paddle and the ball so that they're not jamming themselves here. So it's really important when you are hitting a drive, again, whether you're open or closed stance that you utilize this opposite arm to help create spacing, have it strong. That way you know that you're striking the ball in the correct position. And a little bonus tip here for you is you really want to be hitting that ball almost in the same line as where your front knee is if you're closed. And if you're open, you're going to want to strike that ball in front of your body. That way your momentum is always pushing you forward. Now everyone does have a little bit of a different style when it comes to the take back or pulling the paddle back to prep. But there's something that all good players do that they have in common when hitting the shot. And that's that they put their wrist in a laid back position to create wrist lag. So you'll see some people that prep for this shot and they'll kind of have a higher arcing kind of C formation, kind of pushing their hands away from their body. There's other people that will just straight prep lower and they don't really come up to create momentum. Either way they do it, they take this inside thumb and they kind of rotate it to close the face and then they lay this wrist back. When you do that, you kind of swing through the shot with that neutral position. And it's this interesting combination of kind of wanting a firm wrist, but also wanting to kind of keep it loose as you whip through the motion. So again, as you're prepping for the shot, whether you're pulling back to the side, whether you're pulling back straight low, whether you kind of have an arc or a C formation, make sure you take that wrist and kind of lay it back and then slightly rotate that thumb to close the face. So it might look something like this. As you're prepping for the ball, you're going to get there. You might come up and you're turning the paddle away from you instead of having it facing you, or you're pressing it straight down. But either way I'm laying that wrist back and then I'm whipping it through the motion to create extra power. The last tip that's really going to help you have a successful drive is making sure that everything in your swing has forward momentum. One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is they'll kind of have a rotational momentum where they're kind of swinging their body to the side. Okay, that creates a lot of inconsistency and inability to aim. So it's really important that you almost imagine that all of your swing path and momentum is going in this very short line forward. From there, you just kind of release your follow-through wherever it ends up going. But really keeping your focus, just this very short and whippy forward motion will create a lot of accuracy with your drive. So now that we've walked through some of the basic tips and techniques on how to execute the drive, we're going to walk through some game scenarios of when you might want to drive. Because a mistake a lot of people make is that they pre-decide in their head if they're going to drop or drive it. But high-level players are adapting and reading the depth of the ball that they get. Now this isn't a universal rule, but probably 80% of people prefer to drive their forehand over driving their backhand. So a lot of higher-level players, if they get the right ball to their forehand, basically if they get any ball that's not super low or kind of pulling them forward into the court and not bouncing very high, they're probably going to drive this ball, even a deeper ball to the baseline, they're going to drive it so that they can get an easier ball to come up and drop. Now if they get a deep ball to the backhand, yeah maybe they're going to drop that if they're not as comfortable driving this ball. But it's really important to look for a few things. I always tell people we're reading two things when we're reacting to the return. We're reading the pace of the return and the place of the return. So if I get a feed that's a little deeper and it kind of pushes me back, I might go ahead and drive that ball because you can see the response I got would have let me come up and hit a nice easy drop. So again a deeper ball, this is a lot harder ball to drop because I'm a lot further away from the kitchen line. Another scenario that I might choose to drive the ball is if it kind of sits up and it bounces high in this section. If the ball is shallow or if it's a shallow return and it comes into the midcourt, a pro tip here is that the closer I get to the net, the shorter my swing should be. So I really can't have a big swing when I'm close to the net. Instead it's going to be more of like a short and compact swing that I'm kind of just whipping through and creating topspin so I can keep that ball in. So those are some balls you should look to drive. A ball that sits up that's shallow. We want to avoid the one that doesn't sit up that's shallow. And then a ball that pushes you back into this forehand where you can just hit a nice drive and then get yourself an easy response on the third. The next game strategy I want to talk about is using the drive effectively to get to the kitchen line. Now one of the biggest mistakes I see people make, especially when they like their drive, is they'll hit consecutive drives in a row. I'm going to show you what ends up happening if I do this. If I get this first ball and then I try to drive the next one, I'm just super out of control. And you have remember, if you hit a fast ball, a fast ball is coming back at you. So when you're just hitting drive after drive after drive, oftentimes you're not really giving your team time to get to the kitchen. Because remember, the best place to play pickleball is here at the kitchen line. That's the goal. So instead of trying to get to the kitchen by hitting as many drives as possible, a strategy that a lot of pros and high level players do is they use the drive drop strategy. So I'm going to hit one drive and then I'm going to hit a drop and that gives me and my teammate time to get to the kitchen because the drop is really what gives you the ability to get up to the line and balance. So just remember, it's not a universal rule of thumb that you can't hit multiple drives, but like I said, the goal is to get to the kitchen. So try utilizing the drive drop strategy because the drive will give you that first initial ball and the next ball that's coming is typically going to be a ball that's way easier to drop, allowing you and your teammate to get to the kitchen. The last game-like scenario that may be a little bit more advanced is what we call a shake and bake or a drive and crash with the intent to poach the ball. Now what a poach is, is when my partner steps in front of me, kind of surprising the other team and cutting off that angle and then applying pressure with a counter. So the way that you would set this up is if I get a ball kind of to this section, I'm looking for a ball that kind of sits up a little bit higher, that I really feel confident I can hit a good drive. Then I'm going to tell my partner, I might say go just so she knows she's released to go be a threat at the net. When I hit this ball, I'm hitting it probably straight ahead or to the middle. I really don't want to hit this ball cross-court because then my partner has a lot to cover, right? They could counter it back down the line, they could go middle, they could go cross. But if I hit it straight ahead, them going behind her is going to be a lot more difficult. This is kind of what it would look like. I get a ball that kind of sits up. I tell my partner to go. She runs and she steps in front of me and responds to their response. So again, if I get a ball that's a little deeper and I have time, I'm going to verbally cue my partner, release her, and she's going to step into me. Denae, why don't you just run through real quick. When you're looking for this poach, what is the swing mechanics like? Good question. So first, the first thing I actually look at too is what my opponent's paddle is doing, right? If their paddle tip goes down below the net, I know that ball is going to pop up. So then I'm going to definitely go and get in line to get that response that you're talking about. As far as swing mechanics, when it's coming from this side at least, I just get ready for that two-handed backhand and I really try to pull it cross court. That typically is a great spot because it catches both of those opponents by surprise and that's a very hard ball for them to get and a really easy one because of the angle that I'm running. She's looking for the opponent to kind of drop their paddle below the net, signifying that they might pop it up or give her one she can poach. So that being said, I'm kind of aiming my ball to dip below the net. If I can get that ball, even if I don't hit it super hard, if I can get it dipping below the net, it's going to set my partner up to poach a lot better and we can create offense off that shake and bake. If you learned something new, make sure you like this video and smash that subscribe button and we'll see you on the next one.