The vast majority of pickleball is played as doubles. It is relatively easy to cover your side of the court as your area is 10 feet wide and 15 feet up to your NVZ line.

One of the reasons that pickleball is growing so rapidly is the founders of the game wanted players to get out and hit the ball back and forth. You get one serve and it must be hit underhand. There is a 2 bounce rule which means that the ball must bounce once on each side of the net before either team may hit the ball in the air as a volley. These 2 rules start out each point to promote rallies. With the court being fairly small, it is fairly easy to move to your opponent’s shots and keep the ball in play. Rarely does the server hit an ace or the returner hit a winner. It is no wonder that this great game is growing rapidly to involve millions of recreational players who simply want some fun and exercise along with the social aspects of meeting new players.

The positioning of the 4 players is based on the 2 bounce rule. Since the ball must bounce on both sides of the net before it can be hit on the fly, the team hitting the serve positions both players behind the baseline. The team receiving the serve generally positions one player up at their NVZ line while their partner is hitting the return of serve. This is not a rule but taught by most players as the “right” way to play the game. Bear in mind, if you don’t know how to hit a volley or simply want to hit groundstrokes, you can play back. You will be confronted with most players instructing you to position yourself up at the NVZ line, so keep that in mind. I once was a referee of a team in a tournament of two women who played tennis and just started pickleball. They were good intermediate players who could move and hit Drives well. They stayed back and won the tournament but certainly heard many saying that they didn’t know how to play the game.

Traditionally, the returning team places one player up at their NVZ line before the serve is hit. The player hitting the return of serve hits the ball and moves up as well. This makes the formation of the 4 players prior to the third shot of the point with two players up for the returning team and two players back for the serving team. The team up has the advantage because hitting the ball closer to the net results in more balls getting over the net.

The two players of the serving team are now faced with hitting the third shot of the point after the return of serve has bounced. Hitting a drive has a much larger target area than hitting a drop shot. Drives are a much easier shot to hit to keep the ball in play. One player of the serving team will be hitting the ball after it bounces which is called a groundstroke or drive. This drive forces one of the players on the receiving team to hit a volley. The two players of the serving team can stay back and continue to hit drives and keep the ball in play. Hitting an average drive and moving forward is certainly risky and will require good reflexes in order to counter the volley being hit back at you.

It is a better strategy to hit drives until the team up volleys the ball short.

The strategy of staying back will be vulnerable to volleys hit short in the court. To help in this, the server only has to stand behind the baseline before hitting the serve. After the serve has been hit, the serving team wants to best position themselves for the return of serve in order to hit a drive. For example, if the returning team is hitting their return of serve into the wind, anticipate a shorter return. In normal conditions, when you hit a drive to make the opposing team hit a volley, anticipate a short volley because that will happen a high percentage of times. The serving team should move forward on short volleys and hit a drop shot into the kitchen and be ready for the next shot.

For good intermediate players, you can play a solid defense if you have good mobility. The team receiving the serve rarely gets aced. The serving team rarely has a winning return of serve hit against them. Each player only has to guard their side of the court. Don’t fall into the poor strategy of hitting any ball and moving forward. Your opponent’s volley may very well be hit at you forcefully and will present difficult shots.

The safest way to move forward is to place your shots below the level of the net to your opponents. This softer shot is called a drop shot, where the ball lands in the opponent’s non volley zone (NVZ), also called the kitchen. Bear in mind, you have to be a better player to have the control to hit a drop shot and move up to your NVZ line. It is a much more difficult shot. You will need to practice a lot in order to hit the shot consistently. Since the ball from a drop shot bounces lower than the net, drop shots allow the serving team to move up to their NVZ line. These drop shots force the opponents to hit up on the ball to clear the net and high balls can be attacked. Now there will be fast action with volleys as the 4 players will be 14 feet apart. The better players will hit their shots with placement to keep the ball low and in front of their opponent’s feet. Higher balls will generally be hit faster and harder in an attempt to win the point.

With 4 players up, an important shot to have is a dink. When the drop shot lands in your kitchen and your two opponents have moved up to their NVZ line, you have a choice. You can hit the ball at your two opponents to challenge their volley or hit a dink into the opponent’s kitchen which forces them to hit up on the ball. At the best levels of play, all 4 players have good volleys, so long dink rallies take place. A saying that communicates the truth of this aspect of pickleball is, “dink responsibly, don’t get smashed”.

In order to employ different strategies, you have to know how to hit different shots. The beginning player starts with groundstrokes, called drives and progresses to serves, return of serves, third shot drives, third shot drops, volleys, dinks, lobs, and overheads. To be a complete player, you want to learn and develop the different shots. Each shot has a target area and purpose which can be implemented into strategies. A classic analogy would be a golfer. Golfers have a bag with different clubs to be used for different shots on the golf course. Good pickleball players have developed different shots in order to hit the ball accurately in order to achieve ball placement.