There is a humorous phrase that communicates an essential truth about dinking that goes: “Dink Responsibly-Don’t Get Smashed”…

Dinks are shots hit from kitchen to kitchen after the ball has bounced.

A regulation pickleball will bounce lower than the net, so balls hit into your kitchen will force you to hit the up on the ball in order to clear the net. If you hit up on the ball with too much pace however, your shot will “pop up” or travel too far, giving your opponent an opportunity to hit a volley. Your main strategy is to be the player hitting down on the ball and have your opponent be the player hitting up.

A dink can be viewed as a drop shot. The starting point of hitting a dink to place your shot into your opponent’s kitchen which forces them to play a ball which is lower than the net, hitting up on the ball up to clear the net. A well placed dink forces you to hit a dink back, creating what is appropriately coined, “A Dink War”. This cat and mouse duel is a fun and challenging part of the game.

In a “Dink War”, you have several choices for your shots.

1. Your first choice should be to play defensively. Your objective is to not make a mistake and keep the ball in play. Statistics support the idea that the majority of points are won from mistakes. Let your opponents try a riskier shot! Your returning dink should clear the net by a safe margin of 6 to 12 inches. If you’ve done that, you’ve achieved the first goal of keeping the ball in play. Your kitchen dink forces your opponent to hit up on the ball. Next, move your dinks around the kitchen to three basic target areas: wide towards both sidelines and then down the middle. Each dink should be aimed to land inside the sideline and/or the opponents’s NVZ line by a safe margin of a foot or more. The strategy is to out-dink your opponents while also trying to get them to move. These dink confrontations require patience. Beginners often define patience as hitting 2 or 3 dinks in a row, while highly skilled players define this as 20 to 30 dinks to win a single point.
   
   

2. A second choice is to hit a more offensive dink - with more accurate placement and generally with more pace. You can hit offensive dinks with both the topspin and underspin techniques. Both take lots of practice to perfect. You hit your dink to place the ball a little deeper and aim for your opponent’s feet. An accurately placed shot will force your opponent into hitting a half volley or low volley. These shots require a better skill set to soften the return so the ball lands back in the kitchen. Less skilled players will “pop” these balls up. When you hit your dink low aiming at your opponent’s feet, they will need to hit a low volley. Low volleys are too low to attack and many players do not know how to hit a drop volley. The risk here is hitting your shot too high…some good players will hit an attacking topspin volley rolling their wrist to hit a fastball at you in order to break down your volley. Bear in mind, the majority of players are thinking about how to attack and end the point rather than how to slow the ball down and extend the point.
   
   

3. A third choice is to hit a Dink with topspin. This is primarily used when you have a slower and softer dink hit to you. To accomplish this, you must have developed a wrist roll to hit your shot cross court so that it will bounce in your opponent’s kitchen and travel off the court. The danger is in using this against quick players who can move laterally and hit a returning shot Around the Post (ATP). However, this shot can be very effective against most players if done correctly.
   
   

4. A fourth choice is to attack your opponents by hitting the ball at them quickly. You feign like you are going to hit another dink, but then you hit up on the ball and turn it into a drive. The topspin dink and volley can be disguised as an underspin shot with an open paddle face. At the point of contact, you roll your wrist which closes your paddle face and creates topspin. Most players hit this attacking ball with topspin because the spin causes the ball to curve back inside the baseline. Aim for their weaker side, which is generally their forehand, because most players hit the majority of their volleys with their backhand. The target area for an attacking drive-dink should be your opponent’s right shoulder. For the minority of players who hit all forehands, hit your drive at their backhand side. You, on the other hand, need to be very aware of your opponents attacking you. Just because you hit a dink into your opponent’s kitchen does not guarantee that they will hit a dink back. It is very important to have your paddle up and ready to hit a volley. Keep in mind, very few players are of the mindset to hit a lot of dinks because the majority of players are thinking about how to end the point rather than extend it. Since most instructions begin with the best players and filter down, the best players tend to have longer dink rallies because their volleys are so good. Most beginner and intermediate players have slower reflexes and weaker volleys, so attacking them sooner is a common tactic.
   
   

5. A fifth choice is to hit a lob. Again, you must use the element of surprise. When you have established a Dink War, you can now pretend that you are just going to hit another dink, then, at the point of contact, you open your paddle face and hit the ball up and over your opponent’s backhand side, aiming for inside the baseline. To understand the window for the lob, picture hitting the ball through a hula hoop that is 9 feet in the air on the backhand side of your opponent. The backhand side is the best angle to hit because if you hit the ball too low, your opponent has to hit a high backhand and can’t use an overhead smash.