How to Improve at Pickleball: Advice from the Pros

The one mistake 90% of players make

Coach and former world #1 Simone Jardim is direct about the problem: at 4.5 level and below, players should be drilling more than 60% of their court time. Most recreational players do the opposite — they play 90% games and drill 10%, or not at all.

The math is simple. In a 2-hour open-play session, a typical player hits the ball maybe 150 times. In a 2-hour drilling session, they hit it 600–800 times. Better players aren't just practicing longer — they're getting four times as many quality reps.

Jardim's specific recommendation: two hours of court time should split into one hour of drilling and one hour of playing. "Find the balance that works for you, and once you find that balance, attack it with purpose and results will come." Implementing this one change — before changing anything technical — will accelerate improvement faster than any other single adjustment.

What actually separates skill levels

Ben Johns, the longest-reigning #1 player in the world, frames improvement in two distinct phases. For beginners and intermediates: "It's mostly about repetition and very basic stuff — you want to get very good at like three or four basic things." For advanced players: "Once you get to a certain level, it becomes very much a game of isolating very specific things and specific shots that you need to get better at."

The specific thresholds the coaching community agrees on:

The 3.0 to 3.5 unlock is a consistent third shot drop. A 3.5 player should be landing the third shot drop 80% of the time in drill conditions and consistently advancing to the kitchen after it. A 3.0 player either doesn't attempt drops (drives everything) or drops inconsistently.

The 3.5 to 4.0 unlock is making the drop a weapon — with spin, placement disguise, and automatic mechanics. At 4.0, you're no longer thinking about the swing; you're thinking about where you're landing it and where you're positioning after. The other separator is that 4.0 players drill seriously; 3.5 players mostly play.

The 4.0+ game shifts to mental and situational: shot selection becomes automatic, and improvement comes from isolating specific weaknesses in controlled practice.

Ava Ignatowich: wall drills and fast hands

Ava Ignatowich — one of the top women on the PPA Tour — is one of the sport's most vocal advocates for wall practice. Her reasoning is about rep density: "When you play at the wall, you get so many more reps in, so it's just more bang for your buck."

Her specific wall drill protocol: hit a forehand, then a backhand, alternating continuously. Move closer to the wall for reflex training; step back for a slower, more controlled variation. Practice dink-height soft shots against the wall to replicate kitchen rallies.

On fast hands specifically: "You're really forced to hit the ball out in front of you and get a good feel for it, since a lot of the time against the wall, you don't know where the ball is going to come back. Because the ball bounces back so quickly, it ends up making your hands a lot faster." She calls fast-hands wall work the single most valuable thing a player can practice solo.

Her equipment tip: add lead tape to your paddle during wall drills to build forearm and wrist strength as a resistance training element. This is a professional-level habit that most recreational players have never considered.

Her broader advice for aspiring players is refreshingly direct: "Keep drilling, watch a lot of pro pickleball, try to adopt the habits you see the pros have, and give it your all."

The third shot drop: your highest-leverage skill

Every pro and every coach cites the third shot drop as the single skill with the highest return on practice investment. Coach Simone Jardim teaches a progression: get the drop consistent first, then work on 5th and 7th shot drops as you advance toward the kitchen. The entire transition game — baseline to NVZ — is built around repeating this pattern.

Her shot-selection framework is simple: higher bounce = drive. Lower bounce = drop. Read the bounce height before you decide; don't default to one or the other.

Catherine Parenteau recommends a drill to build drop feel before adding a paddle: "Set your paddle aside and grab a pickleball with your dominant hand. Stand on the baseline and toss the pickleball straight ahead or cross-court to land in the kitchen." This hand-toss drill teaches the arc and trajectory that the paddle swing must replicate. Once it feels natural underhand, you've found the right shape for the actual shot.

Mechanics the pros agree on: contact the ball 1–2 feet in front of your body. Use an upward lifting motion from the shoulder — follow through so the paddle finishes at or above your head. Loose grip. More weight on the front foot. Aim for the apex of the net, not just "over it." The goal is a ball that dies in the kitchen, not one that clears the net with margin.

Ben Johns: resets, the soft game, and how to learn

Johns' reset fundamentals — drawn from Pickleball360, JOOLA, and pickleball.com — represent the most widely cited intermediate skill breakdown in the sport:

Loose grip pressure: "The more relaxed your hand, the more pace you absorb. A firm, tense grip sends the ball short into the net or pops it up."

Get low: "Almost every reset in the midcourt and plenty at the kitchen line need bent knees. Sink into the shot before the ball arrives and you are already ahead."

Always be ready: "You usually reset because you are out of time. If you assume the ball is coming hard and it arrives slow, you can always adjust up. The reverse almost never works."

Split step: time the split step exactly before your opponent makes contact. "That little hop stops your momentum so you can react in all directions."

His favourite drill is half-court singles cross-court: one player covers the full singles court, hitting every ball, while the other feeds. This simulates doubles positioning but gives the practising player double the reps of a normal rally. "You have to be good at learning," Johns has said. His own path: "I got good by copying stuff from other people and adapting it." Watching pro matches with the specific intention of adopting a single habit is a technique he recommends explicitly.

Anna Leigh Waters: footwork, serve, and the mental game

Anna Leigh Waters' training structure falls into three types of sessions: element days (one skill only), movement-oriented sessions (footwork, agility, cardio), and situational days (patterns and two-on-one drills). For 18 months, every drilling session started with 30–45 minutes of dinking before anything else.

Her cornerstone footwork habit: the split step. "My feet are always moving and I'm never just standing waiting for somebody to speed it up." She uses the split step before anyone hits the ball, not after, because she needs to already be in motion when the ball leaves the opponent's paddle. Most recreational players are flat-footed when the ball is struck — this single adjustment creates measurable reaction-time improvements.

On serving: "Pick your target, look at it, and then go" — commit before the motion starts. She warns against a 'hitchy' service motion: "Think of hitting the serve like you hit a forehand — it's one fluid motion." A pause or hesitation in the swing kills pace and consistency.

Her mental game approach is one of the most studied in the sport. After an error, she deliberately slows down: takes a breath, bounces the ball several times, walks slowly to position. This 'post-error slowing' is the opposite of the instinct most players have (rush back to prevent losing momentum). "It's okay to go crazy for a second after you miss a shot, as long as you get back to being yourself right after that." She describes the routine as resetting her state before the next point, not processing the error.

On self-belief: "Even when Simone was better than me and was beating me, I always thought I was better. You have to have that belief." This isn't arrogance — it's a trained internal narrative that prevents self-doubt from compounding errors into losing streaks.

Tyson McGuffin: pressure, the 4th shot, and composure

McGuffin's game is built on applying pressure through pace and position. His philosophy on driving: use it as a means to disrupt rhythm and control court position, not just as a scoring shot.

His specific 4th shot teaching — the receiving team's first real attack opportunity — is tactical: "Make sure you're in control of the court and established at the kitchen line first, and then utilise the fourth ball — but don't invite your opponents up. Make them feel heavy traffic, make them feel pressure as they move forward, and make it difficult for them to move to the kitchen line." Most players treat the 4th shot as a warmup rally ball. McGuffin treats it as the first scoring opportunity.

He also highlights the block volley as the most underrated shot in recreational pickleball — a soft, absorbing volley that neutralises hard drives without popping the ball up. Most players try to match pace on drives; this reaction is exactly what a banger wants. The block volley is its antidote.

On mental composure: McGuffin emphasises "calculated aggression" — staying composed while playing with intent. "Consistency and strategic placement over aggressive power shots." When players are under pressure, they rush. He trains himself to play at the same pace regardless of the score.

Catherine Parenteau and Simone Jardim: the kitchen is where games are won

Parenteau's coaching thesis: "The kitchen game is the hardest part in pickleball." Her core dinking technique tip: "When hitting dinks, you should have a loose grip because that helps absorb the ball on your paddle." She focuses on trajectory and precision, not pace — a dink hit at the right height and angle wins the exchange, not a dink hit hard.

For doubles, she stresses pre-game communication: decide who takes the middle balls, who hits third shot drops. Use paddle taps and high-fives between points to maintain shared energy and stay on the same page. She treats emotional momentum as a tactical tool, not a side effect.

Jardim's 'Dingles' drill for kitchen consistency: four players at the NVZ line with two balls going simultaneously. The cognitive load of tracking two balls while maintaining soft hands builds attention and precision far faster than standard single-ball dink rallies. She has identified moving your opponent around the kitchen — not just keeping the ball in — as the core habit that separates improving players from plateauing ones.

For players drilling solo or in pairs, Jardim's dink-to-100 drill: both players dink cross-court and count consecutive shots without a miss. Any miss resets to zero. The zero-reset constraint introduces pressure, which builds muscle memory under the kind of mental stress you'll face in games.

The drills that pros still use every practice

Cross-court dink rally to 100. The single most universally cited drill across all coaches and levels. Both players dink cross-court, counting consecutive shots without a miss. Any error resets to zero. Simple, scalable, and builds the concentration and consistency that separates 3.0 from 3.5.

Third shot drop from baseline with a partner or ball machine. The partner feeds a soft return, you practice the drop and immediately advance to the kitchen. Run 50–100 reps. Simone Jardim's version with a ball machine removes the partner dependency and allows higher rep volume.

Reset under pressure drill. One player feeds hard, aggressive drives from mid-court; the other practices resetting softly into the kitchen cross-court. The feeder gradually increases pace over several sets. This builds the body's reset response at ball speeds that actually occur in games.

Half-court singles cross-court (Ben Johns' favorite). One player covers one side of the court, receiving all balls — double the reps of a normal rally. Builds positioning, footwork, and shot selection that transfer directly to doubles.

Speed-up / counter exchange at the kitchen. Both players at the NVZ line; one initiates a speed-up and both play out the exchange. Builds fast-hands reaction, teaches when to reset versus counter-attack, and develops comfort under pressure at the net.

Wall fast-hands (Ava Ignatowich's #1 solo drill). Alternating forehand/backhand against a wall, as close as you can comfortably manage. Move in for reflex work. Add lead tape to your paddle for resistance training.

Your 30-day improvement plan

Week 1 — Audit your game. Play two sessions as normal but watch yourself honestly: how often do you reach the kitchen after the third shot? How often do you volley in the kitchen? How often do you stay back and bang? Identify your single weakest area from: third shot drop, reset/reset consistency, dink consistency, footwork/split step, mental composure after errors.

Week 2 — Replace one game session with a drill session. Spend 45 minutes on the single skill you identified. Use the cross-court dink rally to 100 as a warm-up for every session. Add 20 minutes of Ignatowich wall work if you don't have a partner available.

Week 3 — Add the half-court singles drill or reset drill with a partner. Focus on the drills section above that targets your identified weakness. Keep a simple tally: how many third shot drops landed in the kitchen vs. went long/into the net. Track week-over-week.

Week 4 — Bring your drilled skills into a game. Deliberately use your practiced shot even if it costs you a point while you adapt. Pay attention to your post-error routine: are you slowing down or rushing? Start using Waters' deliberate slow-down between points after errors.

The compound effect: players who drill with purpose for 30 days typically move their DUPR by 0.1–0.3 points. That may not sound like much, but a 0.3 improvement in one month is the equivalent of what most casual players achieve in a year of open play.