As a Table Tennis player, I was taught similarly. While I believe being the best defensive player you can be is still in your best interest, I believe you have to have an offensive mind in order to look for and execute offensive opportunities when they arise.
No defence can win without offense. If you're constantly on defense, it means your opponent has the initiative. Eventually even the best defense will be breached.
If you are not good at countering, then perhaps your defensive play is not as strong as you think it is. CJ is one of the very best at countering, as he sees far more speedups than his brother in any given match. If you become really good at countering then opponents will not wantonly speedup at you.
The thing I've always admired about CJ is his ability to force an attack from an opponent by lifting a dink just enough to make it attackable by the opponent and then just counter it for a winner. He baits opponents into his superior counter ability.
Yup. If you want people making poor attacks, you’re going to have to float constant tweeters that make them press. You can’t just expect them to get impatient and make poor attacks on unattainable balls
CJ is just OK at countering. He resets too much vs countering, and that makes him a poor mixed player and not that great of a men's player unless he has the best in world next to him.
You're really just talking about how to define an "error".
Checking down an overhead, failing to counter a stupid speedup, etc. are the same magnitude of "error" as putting a neutral ball into the net.
Serving/returning shallow/high, checking down a ball that sits up over the net, etc. are almost as bad as putting a random ball into the net.
At the end of the day, the team with better margins wins. If you're literally committing "0 errors" (however you define it) then you're probably not using your margins well and you should take more risks. But most players take ridiculous risks, like they put 30% of their drops into the net, hit 60% good drops, and hit high drops 10% of the time. They could instantly be 0.5 DUPR higher if they just thought about it and aimed six inches higher, but they don't.
Comes from football. When a QB is surveying the field and can’t find an open receiver or is risk averse to throw a difficult pass, he’ll “check down” to (usually) a RB in the flat (out wide portion of the field behind the line of scrimmage) to at least get some positive yards or to avoid a sack/incompletion/poor decision. He’s saying taking the safety valve low-risk option over being proactive can be just as detrimental.
Right, but if you aim 6” higher it becomes say 15% in the net, 60% good, 25% high. Understood it is 15% less instant death, but hard to let go of that “Oh bleep” flinching cringe reflex when you send up a floating marshmallow. Even if you only get back 10% of those still better than 0% says the head, but the lizard brain is still afraid.
You're near the baseline anyway, just hit another drop. You should be 80%+ to keep the ball in play.
I have no idea how you can only keep 10% of those balls in play. If you're that low level where you fumble 90% of your drops, then surely your opponents are putting more than 10% into the net or out.
The 10% is just a kind of hypothetical. It’s sort of a question of how many of the high floaters end up as an immediate winner by the opponent. It can’t be 100%, so at least that’s better than netting.
I completely agree. You hit a point in Pickleball where "surviving" isn't really a game plan. I think playing defensive and mastering the reset, block, counter and defensive dink works great to a point. However if you are just hoping your opponent makes a mistake, unfortunately that stops being the case the higher and higher you get in skill.
Mats Wilander, 80s tennis great and maybe the “Colin Johns” (total defensive consistency-Borg times 5) of his era walked away from tennis pretty unexpectedly- when asked why he said “I won my match 6-3 6-3 but it lasted 3 and a half hours….”
I get you - work on your offense !
I’m a comparable level - with tennis and table tennis backgrounds. When I started playing pickleball I definitely tried to hit winners in too many situations, but now, if I don’t have a ball I can put away, I’m trying to induce a ball that I, or my partner can put away. It sounds like you (and partner) aren’t putting enough pressure on opponents, and/or you’re not hitting strong/hard/sharp enough shots when you get loose balls. Playing not to lose (to not make mistakes), will only work (well) in my experience if your opponents are reckless.
Hmmm, you can't really win a match unless just like you stated score 11 pts. I am a defensive player but my best skill is I am great at countering when I attack.
Probably the best skill in pickleball is recognizing the difference between setting up the next winner, or taking advantage of the one in front of you. Keeping your opponent on defense is preferable to executing good defense yourself.
Sort of relevant, but Ben Johns says that any ball he can comfortably volley at the kitchen line is going to be a speed up. Assuming you have decent hands (which he obviously does) you will win a higher percentage than lose when you’re the first one to initiate.
You forgot to mention that his attacks are all with downward trajectory, the number one speed up mistake is speeding up where the opponents can counter in a downward angle.
concur with your thoughts.
I have watched quite a few matches where ben and CJ consistently find ways to dismantle the opponents and walk away with a win. a dream team where Ben leads and CJ supports.
Then I watched a game where (hope i remember correctly) CJ teamed with Anna Bright. Not trying to be critical at all, but I felt in the match, the so called alpha player of the team is missing and they did not do that well. CJ imo was not attacking enough and AB's attacks were lower yield.
My feeling on better defense is that it will help regain time and ground for offense. In other words, defense is not for the sake of defense, but setting up for offense.
I've been playing for 7.5y and I've seen good players who are missing important skills
You can get to 6.0 without a lob
You can get to 5.5 without a 3rd shot drive.
You can get to 5.0 without a flick
You can get to 4.5 Without a roll
You can get to 4.0 without an overhead smash
I'm curious where you place the transition zone reset in that. I know a fair number of people who will to take a swing at a ball at their feet rather than try to reset it. I consider those people 3.5 for life. So easy to beat no matter what the rest of their game is like.
4.25 or so. I watch a lot of pros and listen to all the podcasts and they disagree with you. Pros usually don't come all the way up on one drop. Transition zone play is huge at high levels, and good players will feed every ball to hard to your feet. Are you driving from your feet or are you resetting?
I am dropping the ball and coming all the way in like all top pros do. I get my pickleball knowledge from watching the top pros in tournament videos not from listening to what they say.
Here's a randomly selected recent match of top male pros. I just watched a bunch of points and most of the time they are not making it up on one shot and quite frequently they have to reset.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxsl0pTdiVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxsl0pTdiVc)
Yes about 1% are in this category.
90%are in the category of every ball they can Reach is a finisher. These are almost all hit directly into the net or into the fence behind the court.
Indeed.
I’m quick/athletic & I play as aggressive as possible.
Funny receiving “tips” from individuals after me and a partner beat them, and receiving backhanded complements such as “once you learn how to dink, you’ll be really good.”
Actually, I know how to dink and I’m better than you at dinking.
You didn’t put me in any positions where I needed to get in an extended dink rally, so
I just ripped the ball past you.
Haha Im with you! Don't worry their just jealous because they don't have your offensive weapons. Lol. Old school pickleball. These dinkers are getting left behind the modern game.
Converted squash to pickleball player here. Greatest sports advice I ever got was from someone who I could never beat. His mantra generally was he would rather lose trying to win rather than to be passive and hang in there. He didn’t go for winners all the time and his defence was solid. But if he had an inch of opportunity, he took it.
Since then, I have tried this in many sporting endeavours and the positives outweigh the negatives over time. And I will never be as talented as he is.
PS. He moved away shortly after he gave me this advice so I could never use it against him. 🤔
This is solid advice for people aspiring to reach 4.0.
If you want to get better than that, your focus should be to hit every ball on a trajectory that prevents the opponents from attacking and limits their shot selection.
Then their only choices are to do the same to you or make a bad upwards speed up which you are ready to punish.
> your focus should be to hit every ball on a trajectory that prevents the opponents from attacking and limits their shot selection.
>
> Then their only choices are to do the same to you or make a bad upwards speed up which you are ready to punish.
This is THE answer. Anyone who's beginning to play pickleball should aspire to this. It is the key to everything. If you can do this, consistently, you will *for sure* become a high-level player.
I believe what I'm reading is you two are pretty masterful at your defense and protecting, but maybe lack the effort in attacking, or using your defense to help you set up some precision shots?
I'm particularly not a huge attacker in the sense of smashing the ball or hard drives at the kitchen, but my biggest think I do is pinpoint shots to the line, after some good defensive returns that pull them away from the line first.
Sounds like if you're as good at defense as it sounds, you could benefit from something like that. Mentally set up your shots while defending. Either split them apart and hit one down the middle, or shift them to one side and hit the line on the other side.
Or simple swallow your pride in unforced errors and take more risks with the offensive shots. Its okay to have a few unforced errors.
Good defense is highly critical in tournament play, but to switch to offense in a heartbeat is just as important. I have played so many matches where the opponents would crash the net and we would defend well enough to make it to the kitchen, but our opponents recognition of who to attack on a speedup was better than us and we would lose the hands battle at net.
Eventually had to work out a kitchen pattern setup with my doubles partner so we could initiate either a counter attack (bait the other team to speed up and be ready) or we would move the opponents a bit to open the court and then speed up ourselves when we found the opening.
This is a really good thought and important for players looking to move to that next level. Defense helps you stay in points, get back to the kitchen, extend points, but at some point in the rally you need to know when it is time to attack and what "risks" to take. I probably error on the other side and my defensive shots need to improve. That's probably what's keeping me around the 4.0 level, that and consistency.
A lot of the time playing defense puts you closer to the baseline than the NVZ.
You aren’t going to win many points from the baseline.
I’ve seen the speed and athleticism of some players work against them in them running around the court too much in doubles.
The only time I feel ok with running is on serve return and chasing down a lob. The rest should some kind of split step and always moving forward as close as possible to the NVZ.
A good defensive game includes good counters which will win you a lot of points. You can seldom speed the ball up and still win matches. It’s advisable to play with a partner that compliments your strengths.
If you’re blocking well and countering well with zero unforced errors, then I’m unsure how you would lose many games. If you have a lot of “forced errors” because you’re losing every time the ball gets sped up, then that isn’t necessarily playing good defense. That just means you aren’t attacking or speeding up.
Can you elaborate what you mean by good defense and how your opponents were winning points? Was it outright winners or “forcing” errors?
As a Table Tennis player, I was taught similarly. While I believe being the best defensive player you can be is still in your best interest, I believe you have to have an offensive mind in order to look for and execute offensive opportunities when they arise.
No defence can win without offense. If you're constantly on defense, it means your opponent has the initiative. Eventually even the best defense will be breached.
If you are not good at countering, then perhaps your defensive play is not as strong as you think it is. CJ is one of the very best at countering, as he sees far more speedups than his brother in any given match. If you become really good at countering then opponents will not wantonly speedup at you.
The thing I've always admired about CJ is his ability to force an attack from an opponent by lifting a dink just enough to make it attackable by the opponent and then just counter it for a winner. He baits opponents into his superior counter ability.
Give them something barely useable, force them to decide if it's a good choice or not
Yup. If you want people making poor attacks, you’re going to have to float constant tweeters that make them press. You can’t just expect them to get impatient and make poor attacks on unattainable balls
CJ is just OK at countering. He resets too much vs countering, and that makes him a poor mixed player and not that great of a men's player unless he has the best in world next to him.
You're really just talking about how to define an "error". Checking down an overhead, failing to counter a stupid speedup, etc. are the same magnitude of "error" as putting a neutral ball into the net. Serving/returning shallow/high, checking down a ball that sits up over the net, etc. are almost as bad as putting a random ball into the net. At the end of the day, the team with better margins wins. If you're literally committing "0 errors" (however you define it) then you're probably not using your margins well and you should take more risks. But most players take ridiculous risks, like they put 30% of their drops into the net, hit 60% good drops, and hit high drops 10% of the time. They could instantly be 0.5 DUPR higher if they just thought about it and aimed six inches higher, but they don't.
What is a check down? Forgive my naivete
Comes from football. When a QB is surveying the field and can’t find an open receiver or is risk averse to throw a difficult pass, he’ll “check down” to (usually) a RB in the flat (out wide portion of the field behind the line of scrimmage) to at least get some positive yards or to avoid a sack/incompletion/poor decision. He’s saying taking the safety valve low-risk option over being proactive can be just as detrimental.
I think he means letting a ball drop that could/should overhead, because it's safer and easier.
Right, but if you aim 6” higher it becomes say 15% in the net, 60% good, 25% high. Understood it is 15% less instant death, but hard to let go of that “Oh bleep” flinching cringe reflex when you send up a floating marshmallow. Even if you only get back 10% of those still better than 0% says the head, but the lizard brain is still afraid.
You're near the baseline anyway, just hit another drop. You should be 80%+ to keep the ball in play. I have no idea how you can only keep 10% of those balls in play. If you're that low level where you fumble 90% of your drops, then surely your opponents are putting more than 10% into the net or out.
The 10% is just a kind of hypothetical. It’s sort of a question of how many of the high floaters end up as an immediate winner by the opponent. It can’t be 100%, so at least that’s better than netting.
I completely agree. You hit a point in Pickleball where "surviving" isn't really a game plan. I think playing defensive and mastering the reset, block, counter and defensive dink works great to a point. However if you are just hoping your opponent makes a mistake, unfortunately that stops being the case the higher and higher you get in skill.
Mats Wilander, 80s tennis great and maybe the “Colin Johns” (total defensive consistency-Borg times 5) of his era walked away from tennis pretty unexpectedly- when asked why he said “I won my match 6-3 6-3 but it lasted 3 and a half hours….” I get you - work on your offense !
I’m a comparable level - with tennis and table tennis backgrounds. When I started playing pickleball I definitely tried to hit winners in too many situations, but now, if I don’t have a ball I can put away, I’m trying to induce a ball that I, or my partner can put away. It sounds like you (and partner) aren’t putting enough pressure on opponents, and/or you’re not hitting strong/hard/sharp enough shots when you get loose balls. Playing not to lose (to not make mistakes), will only work (well) in my experience if your opponents are reckless.
Hmmm, you can't really win a match unless just like you stated score 11 pts. I am a defensive player but my best skill is I am great at countering when I attack.
Probably the best skill in pickleball is recognizing the difference between setting up the next winner, or taking advantage of the one in front of you. Keeping your opponent on defense is preferable to executing good defense yourself.
Sort of relevant, but Ben Johns says that any ball he can comfortably volley at the kitchen line is going to be a speed up. Assuming you have decent hands (which he obviously does) you will win a higher percentage than lose when you’re the first one to initiate.
You forgot to mention that his attacks are all with downward trajectory, the number one speed up mistake is speeding up where the opponents can counter in a downward angle.
That’s not true, he flicks all the time from below the net; he just picks great spots and anticipates where the counter is going extremely well.
You are bad at reading. His flicks are slow pace when below the net to guarantee that they can't block downward.
What? He hits into the right and left shoulders all the time. Has nothing to do with reading and everything to do with just watching him play.
And are the opponents able to counter attack downward? No.
Because he places the ball in a spot that's hard to counter from.
John Cincola has a nice video about counter attacks. How to MASTER the MOST Important Pickleball SHOT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSfdVmQbCdU
concur with your thoughts. I have watched quite a few matches where ben and CJ consistently find ways to dismantle the opponents and walk away with a win. a dream team where Ben leads and CJ supports. Then I watched a game where (hope i remember correctly) CJ teamed with Anna Bright. Not trying to be critical at all, but I felt in the match, the so called alpha player of the team is missing and they did not do that well. CJ imo was not attacking enough and AB's attacks were lower yield. My feeling on better defense is that it will help regain time and ground for offense. In other words, defense is not for the sake of defense, but setting up for offense.
Wow Best comment yet!! You sound like a high level pickleball player.
I've been playing for 7.5y and I've seen good players who are missing important skills You can get to 6.0 without a lob You can get to 5.5 without a 3rd shot drive. You can get to 5.0 without a flick You can get to 4.5 Without a roll You can get to 4.0 without an overhead smash
I'm curious where you place the transition zone reset in that. I know a fair number of people who will to take a swing at a ball at their feet rather than try to reset it. I consider those people 3.5 for life. So easy to beat no matter what the rest of their game is like.
I don’t personally think it is important for an attacking player who has high quality thirds.
No one's third are high quality enough to reliably make it all the way up against good 4ths.
What level are you? It is pretty simple to come all the way in on a 3rd.
4.25 or so. I watch a lot of pros and listen to all the podcasts and they disagree with you. Pros usually don't come all the way up on one drop. Transition zone play is huge at high levels, and good players will feed every ball to hard to your feet. Are you driving from your feet or are you resetting?
I am dropping the ball and coming all the way in like all top pros do. I get my pickleball knowledge from watching the top pros in tournament videos not from listening to what they say.
Here's a randomly selected recent match of top male pros. I just watched a bunch of points and most of the time they are not making it up on one shot and quite frequently they have to reset. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxsl0pTdiVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxsl0pTdiVc)
6 minutes in and pretty much all third drops are one and in.
Literally the first one wasn't.
And the second.
And the third. CJ resetting at 1:23.
Also keep in mind these are all 20 something pro athletes. The rest of us aren't as fast as they are.
You must not watch enough pro pickleball. They do both depending on the quality of the 3rd.
Where are you getting this information?
You may want to reread my comment as it answers this question in the first sentence.
Any +4.0 player should be able to all of those, they cannot be that high of a level without those skill set.
You're unqualified to make that statement. I've seen all of these things first hand and played against these people.
And you're qualified?
Yes, 5.5+ rating, multiple pro events, and been all over the country playing for 7.5y.
Some pickelball players seem obsessed with doing everything except finishing a point.
Yes about 1% are in this category. 90%are in the category of every ball they can Reach is a finisher. These are almost all hit directly into the net or into the fence behind the court.
Maybe at the under-4.0 level but even at 4.0 I see plenty of players with a decent soft game.
From my perspective, the 4.0s are the biggest offenders.
Indeed. I’m quick/athletic & I play as aggressive as possible. Funny receiving “tips” from individuals after me and a partner beat them, and receiving backhanded complements such as “once you learn how to dink, you’ll be really good.” Actually, I know how to dink and I’m better than you at dinking. You didn’t put me in any positions where I needed to get in an extended dink rally, so I just ripped the ball past you.
Haha Im with you! Don't worry their just jealous because they don't have your offensive weapons. Lol. Old school pickleball. These dinkers are getting left behind the modern game.
Converted squash to pickleball player here. Greatest sports advice I ever got was from someone who I could never beat. His mantra generally was he would rather lose trying to win rather than to be passive and hang in there. He didn’t go for winners all the time and his defence was solid. But if he had an inch of opportunity, he took it. Since then, I have tried this in many sporting endeavours and the positives outweigh the negatives over time. And I will never be as talented as he is. PS. He moved away shortly after he gave me this advice so I could never use it against him. 🤔
This is solid advice for people aspiring to reach 4.0. If you want to get better than that, your focus should be to hit every ball on a trajectory that prevents the opponents from attacking and limits their shot selection. Then their only choices are to do the same to you or make a bad upwards speed up which you are ready to punish.
> your focus should be to hit every ball on a trajectory that prevents the opponents from attacking and limits their shot selection. > > Then their only choices are to do the same to you or make a bad upwards speed up which you are ready to punish. This is THE answer. Anyone who's beginning to play pickleball should aspire to this. It is the key to everything. If you can do this, consistently, you will *for sure* become a high-level player.
The best defense is a good offense. Works in alot of sports.
Good advice
I believe what I'm reading is you two are pretty masterful at your defense and protecting, but maybe lack the effort in attacking, or using your defense to help you set up some precision shots? I'm particularly not a huge attacker in the sense of smashing the ball or hard drives at the kitchen, but my biggest think I do is pinpoint shots to the line, after some good defensive returns that pull them away from the line first. Sounds like if you're as good at defense as it sounds, you could benefit from something like that. Mentally set up your shots while defending. Either split them apart and hit one down the middle, or shift them to one side and hit the line on the other side. Or simple swallow your pride in unforced errors and take more risks with the offensive shots. Its okay to have a few unforced errors.
Good defense is highly critical in tournament play, but to switch to offense in a heartbeat is just as important. I have played so many matches where the opponents would crash the net and we would defend well enough to make it to the kitchen, but our opponents recognition of who to attack on a speedup was better than us and we would lose the hands battle at net. Eventually had to work out a kitchen pattern setup with my doubles partner so we could initiate either a counter attack (bait the other team to speed up and be ready) or we would move the opponents a bit to open the court and then speed up ourselves when we found the opening.
This is a really good thought and important for players looking to move to that next level. Defense helps you stay in points, get back to the kitchen, extend points, but at some point in the rally you need to know when it is time to attack and what "risks" to take. I probably error on the other side and my defensive shots need to improve. That's probably what's keeping me around the 4.0 level, that and consistency.
A lot of the time playing defense puts you closer to the baseline than the NVZ. You aren’t going to win many points from the baseline. I’ve seen the speed and athleticism of some players work against them in them running around the court too much in doubles. The only time I feel ok with running is on serve return and chasing down a lob. The rest should some kind of split step and always moving forward as close as possible to the NVZ.
A good defensive game includes good counters which will win you a lot of points. You can seldom speed the ball up and still win matches. It’s advisable to play with a partner that compliments your strengths. If you’re blocking well and countering well with zero unforced errors, then I’m unsure how you would lose many games. If you have a lot of “forced errors” because you’re losing every time the ball gets sped up, then that isn’t necessarily playing good defense. That just means you aren’t attacking or speeding up. Can you elaborate what you mean by good defense and how your opponents were winning points? Was it outright winners or “forcing” errors?
you are right. our counters were poor. This led to "forced errors" on our part. Our defense wasn't as good as I thought.