Pickleball Tip of Week #27

Hey All,

I am still up in Maryland and Pickleball less for one month now. I hope to be able to return this coming weekend. 

This weeks tip will be on playing your opponents.

 This is more for competition play rather than rec play, but you can practice it at rec play also. Lets consider the first scenario where one of your opponents is much better than the other opponent. IF YOUR MAIN concern is to win the match, you will want to hit to the weaker player all other things being equal.

IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR GAME, hit to the better player. This is what we locals all decided to do when Tim Nelson comes to play with us each year. What is the sense of being on the court with the best player in the world , if you dont play balls to him? Just a waste of everyones time!!!!! 

Now lets say both your opponents are advanced   players, so fairly equal in overall skill levels. However every player has strengths and weaknesses. I consider myself a very good dinker. But if my opponents are Deb Harrison and player XXXXX , I will probably chose to get into a dink battle with player XXXX as i know that Deb also excels at the dink game. Why would i want to play to my opponents strengths? ( unless again i am just looking to improve my game and not win points). However if i am going to hit a nice high lob and can chose to hit it over Deb's head or her six foot two, 200 pound partners head, i will probably choose Deb's five foot zero  head to try and go over. Again, i am trying NOT to play into my opponents strengths.


Next week we will talk about a strategy of who to hit the ball to that i learned out at Nationals. 

jeff shank