The 5 New Shots That’ll Define Pickleball In 2026

Over the last few years, pickleball strategy has changed a lot because paddles and players have both gotten better. The general trend is that things are getting more aggressive and power and spin are taking over. So today we're going to go over the five main shots you'll be seeing a lot more of in 2026. But before we get into the shots, I wanted to announce that today marks the launch of our newest product, the Dink Master 3. The Dink Master 3 has all the same benefits as the Dink Master Pro did, but more. The first thing we added was a detachable mini net that you can remove the board from and do two-person drills at home with a friend, with your spouse, or whoever you want. So it's not just a one-person training tool anymore. You can now use it with another person. We also added a side that has a different material that has a slower rebound speed. So you have this side for slower dinking drills or drills where you want to generate pace off a slower ball. Then you have the fast rebounding side for hand speed drills, reflex training, anything that you want to go quicker with. If you want to grab one, they're available now on our site and they're already on sale for Black Friday. Also as a reminder, we have a brand new paddle called the Duo that's going to be for sale on November 15th. The Duo has a first-of-its-kind blend of EPP and EBA foam, giving you the power and sweet spot of a Gen 3 paddle, but the durability and dwell time of a foam paddle. So if you're looking for an awesome new paddle with a Black Friday deal, keep an eye out for this one too. So the first shot you're going to be seeing a lot more of in 2026 is what we call the defensive drive. But what is a defensive drive? Well, a normal drive is offensive. So what we're doing is we're taking a shorter ball, maybe it's a return, stepping in, and we're driving it with topspin to take time away from our opponents that are going to usually be at the kitchen line. A defensive drive, it's not really a defensive shot, but you're using it in a different situation. So let's say your opponents hit a really hard return and you're deciding on what type of third shot to hit. Maybe it's a drop, maybe it's a drive. Well, hitting a drop off a really deep return can be hard to be accurate. Kennedy made that one, but if you get a hard third shot, you can miss it, right? So what players are deciding to do in this situation is maybe they get a deeper ball like this, but they're going for a drive and then they're trying to move forward and use a drop on the next ball. So you're seeing a ton of pros do this. This is not like a lower level strategy. It's working at all levels. And the reason they're using that drive is because when you drive in this situation, you're almost never going to miss that shot and the drive with the current paddles is doing enough damage to where I can't really attack that. If you can keep that drive low, I'm not going to be able to do much damage off of it. So it's almost a safer bet than going for a drop sometimes because if you can drive it low, I might hit it short and then you can move work forward with drops or however. You can even crash in if you hit it good enough. In terms of your power level on this, you'll probably be hitting this a little bit less aggressively and hard than on a shorter ball that you're going to go for a drive on. So this might be an 8 out of 10 in terms of power on the shot like that where it's bouncing short. On the defensive drive, you might be slowing it down a little bit like Kennedy just did. You're really just trying to keep the ball low because I can't attack that ball. I would have made contact with this ball like right here. You kind of just need to change your mindset from hitting more aggressive drive here. Focusing on keeping this ball a little bit lower, that way you can kind of focus on using this shot as a transition ball rather than an end the point kind of drive. Exactly. You're not going to end the point with this shot. It's literally just a transition shot that's designed to make your next shot easier so you can move forward. So if you're the type of person that would normally use a drop, if you're getting that harder return and you're deeper in the court, I highly recommend trying using a defensive drive and I guarantee it'll increase your consistency if it's something that you struggle with when you use the drop. The next shot that's going to become really popular and you're going to see a lot more of in 2026 is the super aggressive topspin drop. What does that look like? Well, an aggressive topspin drop looks something like what I'm doing here. It's almost like a normal drive motion but I'm going for a drop and you're seeing pros do this a majority of the time now. So if you learned how to do the drop, you probably learned how to do it with a slice drop technique where you're getting backspin on the ball or you learned it with a push drop technique where you're really hitting it out in front. You're kind of hitting it flat with no spin like I was just doing there. The topspin drop is definitely a little bit more advanced but it's where I'm brushing up behind the ball and this is what you're seeing pros using most of the time now. So you'll see them doing it like this on their forehand and a lot of the time on the backhand they're using two hands to hit the drop. So two-handed backhand drops look like this. I'm brushing up behind the ball getting topspin just like I do on my forehand. You can't really hit a good topspin drop with a one-handed backhand. So you're seeing them doing it with the two-hander. I'm actually going to talk more about the two-hander later. If you want to learn about this shot, stay tuned. And the reason why pros are using this shot is because when it bounces it jets off. So as you can see that ball jets off to the side just like my topspin does towards my opponent. So what this means is that it doesn't sit up as much. When I use a slice drop it sits. Let it bounce. When I use a slice drop it kind of sits up and with the new paddles that players have you can attack that because you have enough spin to bend it over the net. So with this topspin drop it's going to jump towards them so it doesn't ever get into their strike zone where they can attack off the bounce. When I say super aggressive topspin drop versus normal topspin drop, a normal topspin drop I'm hitting it a little bit slower and maybe a little bit higher like I would my normal drop. With a super aggressive one I can go harder and lower and it might actually go too far but even if my opponent takes it out of the air they're not going to be able to attack. And with these new paddles you're able to sort of have that higher pace without losing your consistency because they get more spin and they come up a little bit more accurate. In terms of the technique on this drop I'm still making sure I'm making contact. That was good. In terms of technique on this shot I'm still making sure I'm making contact out in front of me low below the ball. I'm using a bit of an eastern grip that way I'm able to angle my paddle down a little bit more which is going to help me be able to brush from low to high over this ball just like that. I'm also going to make sure I'm accelerating a little bit more that's what's going to help make it a little bit more aggressive. It's not like a drive where after you hit the ball you release your wrist you want to make sure that you keep your wrist locked that way you have more control on where that shot goes. If you're feeling really confident in this shot you can try to add a little bit more wrist but if you're just getting started I'd recommend keeping that wrist locked that way you have that control. The next shot that's becoming a lot more popular is the mid-court attack which looks like this. So as you can see what Kennedy just did is she attacked from the transition zone. Normally when you're in the transition zone players are going to be aiming the ball right at your feet in which you usually try to use resets so you can move forward after. So resets are generally just aiming them into the kitchen so that you can move forward after and get into a dinking situation so a lot of the time it progresses like it just did there with Kennedy. But now because we have these powerful paddles like this one you have the ability to get so much pace on your drives and to get so much topspin on your drops that a lot of the time the person might pop up their fourth shot in which you can attack. That looks like this if Kennedy uses one of those aggressive topspin drops we just talked about she gets it right at my feet I might mess up and pop the ball up where she can come in and attack that next shot. So at lower levels this is going to happen a lot more but even at the pro level you're seeing this happen too because sometimes it's just hard to keep that ball down. So if the ball is going right at your feet obviously this isn't the best time to attack from the transition zone there you should use a reset but if you get a ball waist height or above they pop it up then you can actually start to go for your aggressive rolls where you can take people's time away because you have a powerful paddle so even if you're further back in the court you can still do some pretty crazy damage in which you can move forward and end the point on that next ball. So to recap the two main times you want to use this shot is one off of a drive that way you're able to keep it low they might pop it up so you're able to attack or you could also use it off of a drop just like that aggressive drop we were talking about earlier they might pop it up and then you're able to what we call crash. And if you guys have any questions about the shots we're going over in this video make sure to drop a comment and I'll respond to everybody myself. The next shot you're going to see increasing in popularity a lot in 2026 is the two-handed backhands. Two-handed backhands look like this there's a few different ways you can use them I think the most important though is when you're dinking so this is the two-handed backhand dink you also see players using the two-hander a lot as a counter attack like that and from the back of the court you're seeing players use the two-hander as a drive which looks like this and as that topspin drop that we were talking about there's really a lot of different use cases for the two-hander and what's starting to happen in pickleball is pros even that had one-handers before are switching to the two-hander because in all these cases the two-hander is just better if you can get the hang of it. The problem is that it can be a little bit tricky to get the technique down if you don't come from a tennis background. The main benefit of using the two-hander though is that it gives you the ability to use aggressive topspin work with a one-hander it's pretty hard to do that as you can see I'm able to dink cross court with topspin with my two-hander like I would off of a forehand so if this isn't something you have in your arsenal it's very hard to get the hang of you need to practice it a lot. Kennedy's about to show you the technique but just know that the reason pros are switching is because you don't want to have a lack of offense off of your backhand. If I just slice every dink there's not really a good way for me to speed up if I can add my second hand but if I do that it's going to be very obvious to my opponents that I'm about to speed up so by using more two-handers you disguise your offense and you give yourself the ability to use more topspin. So in terms of the technique on the two-handed backhand you want to make sure that you're holding the correct grip so with your dominant hand you want to be holding it with the continental and then with your other hand you want to make sure you're holding it eastern. If you have bigger hands you could put your finger up the back of the paddle like that. You want to focus on using your whole body on this shot and you're extending through the ball focusing on swinging more with your left hand rather than your right hand. You don't want to be right arm dominant you almost want to think that you're hitting a lefty forehand and your right hand is just there for support. So if you watch me here I'm taking my paddle all the way back I'm rotating all the way through and I'm really leading the motion through with this left arm and in terms of dinking you're not really using your body you're just making sure you're using that left arm to ride up the back of the ball helping you get a lot of topspin on it. There's a lot of nuance when it comes to the two-hander so if you want us to do a full in-depth video comment down below. The next thing you're going to see a lot more of in 2026 is players being aggressive with their mid-height roll volleys. So roll volleys looks like this so if your opponent ever pops the ball up we have our rolls we have our flicks which are more wristy versions of rolls and they're essentially how we take advantage of balls that are higher but we can't use a smash on. So the first example of where we're going to be seeing this more is from the right side player. So generally in pickleball the left side player is the more dominant one and they use their forehand in the middle to attack from this middle part when they're at the kitchen. But what you're going to be seeing a lot more is players on the right side also attacking from the middle because I have more power now I can get more spin with my paddle so there's no reason for me not to be as aggressive from the middle too. So the game is getting more aggressive the right side player is becoming more aggressive with it. The next time you're going to be seeing more aggressive rolls is on players fourth shots. So if Kennedy is hitting a drop here you're going to be seeing a lot more players going for super aggressive fourth shots because you have the ability to be more accurate and get more spin with these newer paddles so there's no reason you shouldn't hit harder if you have the consistency that spin provides. So I can hit that ball pretty hard and if she pops it up I can put the ball away because I have more power. You're also going to be seeing guys players using the Ernie to take advantage of this too. If your opponent is hitting you a drop that's closer to the sideline you can scale the kitchen you see pros doing this all the time use an even more effective drop that you can put away. So you're going to be seeing essentially players just attacking more from this region and the drop is one of the best times to do it and the last way you're going to see players being more aggressive with the rolls is they're going to be using more angles so what I mean by that is when I get a roll I can go really hard towards the back of the court I can also focus on using more spin and get the ball go off the court so as you can see there I didn't hit it as hard but I got the ball off the court which really made my opponent have to move so that's a great way to set yourself up so that on the next ball you can kill it down the middle. Thank you so much for watching guys if you guys like those tips make sure to subscribe and if you want to see another video where me and Kennedy take you through our best tips watch this.