Coin Tossing

Whilst playing in a number of sessions, I noticed a trend developing in players that came in from a tennis background with less “pickleball seasoning”. By employing unwise shot choices at key early phases in a rally and removing advantages that tip the scales in your favour, they turn the outcomes into at best a 50/50 chance of winning the point. It becomes effectively a coin toss as to who loses the point. Hence how I think of them as “coin toss” players. It’s that some of the most reliable pickleball tactics are the opposite of tennis, squash and badminton instincts so need to be modified. There also seems to be a lack of thought into how to tip the scales in your favour by playing smarter choices.

What are these coin flip things I’m seeing? The serve is the only time you dictate the rally solely. Common win percentage serve strategy is to serve deep, ideally to a weakness or with variation, with pace and spin if possible. This should pin you opponent back or get them off balance so hard to move rapidly forwards. The coin flip is the short dropper just over the NVZ: this immediately advances the returning team even faster to the net. You can’t follow this serve in, just in case the returner gets there and sends deep. Your flip is whether this clears the kitchen, clears the net or stays within the side/centre line. That’s a lot of risk unless your opponents don’t move well. Admittedly, I push my luck on serves at times but almost always deep with hefty side/topspin and trying to hit the lines as closely as possible. Those are within strategic smart intentions and pushing boundaries. A long serve is good “bad serve” as just too deep is within our strategic intention of keeping the opponent back: a ball that goes in the net or doesn’t clear the kitchen is not within percentage smarter play: a bad “bad serve”.

Second shot of a rally: return of serve. What is the “coin tosser” strategy? There’s a few. Hitting a super short return takes away the early advantage of the net position and brings the serving team closer to neutrality at the NVZ. Hitting a powerful return is often another one seen, especially against driving teams. This is a coin flip in a few ways. By hitting hard, you remove the time to move forward and establish at the NVZ. The second issue is that you are not only hitting a ball probably from a decent distance behind the NVZ, but also on the move so will be less consistent. Even if at the NVZ by motoring forwards, you may not be fully balanced and set. By giving a driving team pace to work with, you are feeding into their game style. A slower return makes them generate their own pace which tends to create errors. Hitting this return hard down the line shortens the distance the ball travels so again reduces time to get forward. This is all from the first strike tennis return strategy drilled into tennis players. A high deep ball down the middle ball can ensure you clear the net, establish at the NVZ, starve the opponent of pace and may cause confusion over which player hits the ball.

Third shot issues tend to not be in isolation but combined with the fifth shot choice. It will tend to be a drive rather than a drop with this type of player. The first issue tends to be shot location and driving at the player in front of them rather than the advancing player. This reduces reaction time but is hitting to a set player. If there’s a chance to access a player slower to get to the NVZ, a hybrid drop drive can work. The tantalising options of the sidelines for the drive may come into play: these often allow an established net team to generate the first cross court angle and gain advantage. The second thing is to then drive a fifth from the transition area/ZOO (zone of opportunity), often from shin height with established net players on the other side. This pretty much reduces your win chance to zero unless the other team fluffs the shot. It’s a high level skill to drive these low balls so is a aspirational skill at below 4.5 level. Dropping that fifth will give you a chance to further advance so the option to hit at your feet is lessened. Your third shot drive should enable an easier fifth shot or seventh shot drop to advance to the NVZ. Power can come off and hit enough pace to threaten and maybe get the ball to dip: 60% pace is a good starting place.

If they do play a drop, it is often aimed straight in front of them which has a much smaller margin for error as depth has to be perfect. Where should we be dropping? Cross court gives you a bit more wriggle room, especially if you can pin an aggressive player from poaching middle by aiming to their backhand/outside foot. Middle drops from a wider return also have that nice extra margin of a diagonal shot plus potential team mate confusion of who takes the middle ball.

Fourth ball coin flip? Covered mainly in the return: it’s that on the move shot as you’ve not allowed yourself enough movement time. The other one is attempted dink winner into space with a big directional change. Making a ball move from down the line to cross court is always a little risky and doing so at the kitchen is more so as you need to have a shallow landing and wider angle. The fourth ball should be been as a “build” dink with a degree of intent on it.

“But I’m hitting into the gap?” I then ask them a question “did they get to the ball?” The vast majority of the time they do. So they didn’t hit into a gap but gave the opponent an angle to work against our team. Creating a wide angle widens the court whereas as shrinking the width can allow you to move less and encourage your opponents to try to make a large direction change. It often comes with an attempt at excessive top spin and a closed angled face. The net comes into play far too often and we are back at a lower percentage shot and the odds stack against your team.

Outside of this, the common errors are making big directional changes just like that fourth shot dink, or speeding up cross court, especially left side to left side player so they give a forehand counter through the middle or through their partner!

As you can see, all these decisions substantially shift the odds against your team. Part of the challenge is that they see the error at the end, not the decision many shots back that destined your team to failure. Funky situations happen regularly and you get horribly exposed, as there’s often no way to cover the options they gift to your opponents. It’s a lack of patience, experience and thought that creates most of this, mixed in with a healthy portion of previous sporting instincts kicking in: it’s not their fault but the odds of success are based on luck more than skill or court craft. If there’s one thing to take away from this blog, don’t be a “tosser”. They can’t help it so we need to be kind and gently educate them, accepting that we are going to have a tough time on court until they can start to stack the odds back in our team’s favour.