5 Strategy Mistakes Killing Your Pickleball Game

If you’ve ever walked off the pickleball court frustrated with your performance despite feeling like your mechanics were solid, the problem might not be your strokes at all. It could be your strategy. Unforced errors and questionable tactical decisions are precisely what prevent recreational players from breaking through to the next level of play. The gap between intermediate and advanced pickleball often has less to do with athleticism or power and more to do with smart decision-making under pressure.

Pro player Mari Humberg recently broke down five critical strategy mistakes that plague amateur players across the country. What makes her analysis particularly valuable is that these fixes don’t require you to develop a professional-caliber vertical jump or a serve that breaks the sound barrier. Instead, they focus on practical, implementable adjustments that address the mental side of the game. These are the kinds of insights that separate players who plateau from those who continue to improve year after year.

The beauty of strategic improvements is that they can be implemented immediately. Unlike developing better footwork or a more consistent serve, which require hundreds of repetitions to ingrain, you can make smarter decisions starting with your very next game. Let’s dive into the five mistakes that might be holding you back and explore how you can fix them today.

Understanding Strategic Mistakes: A Beginner’s Guide

Before we get into the specific mistakes, it’s worth taking a moment to understand what we mean by “strategy” in pickleball and why it matters so much. If you’re relatively new to the sport, you might think pickleball is mostly about hitting the ball hard and getting it over the net. While ball control is certainly important, the strategic element is what transforms pickleball from simple rally-making into a sophisticated game of chess played at high speed.

Strategy in pickleball refers to the decisions you make about shot selection, court positioning, and risk management. Every time the ball comes to you, you face a choice: should you hit it hard or soft? Cross-court or down the line? Should you attack this ball or play it safe? These micro-decisions happen dozens of times per game, and the cumulative effect of making good choices versus poor ones determines who wins and who loses.

What makes strategic mistakes particularly insidious is that they often feel like the right play in the moment. Attacking a ball that’s sitting up can feel empowering and proactive. Going for a big drive when you’re frustrated can feel like you’re taking control of the point. But if these decisions aren’t based on sound principles, they become liabilities rather than assets. The five mistakes we’re about to explore are common precisely because they feel intuitive, even though they’re actually counterproductive. Recognizing them in your own game is the first step toward playing smarter, more effective pickleball.

Mistake One: Swinging for the Fences on Every Drive

The first major strategy mistake that kills amateur games is the tendency to treat every drive like you’re trying to hit a home run. There’s something deeply satisfying about absolutely crushing a ball, and many recreational players have internalized the belief that a drive is only effective if it’s hit at maximum velocity. This misconception leads to a common scene on recreational courts: players winding up with everything they have and launching balls well beyond the baseline or into the net.

Mari Humberg demonstrates this mistake by intentionally hitting several drives at one hundred percent power. Even as a professional player with exceptional ball control, she shows that maximum effort frequently results in balls sailing toward the back fence. The physics are simple: the harder you swing, the more difficult it becomes to maintain control over the ball’s trajectory and placement. When you’re swinging with everything you have, your margin for error shrinks to almost nothing.

The fix is both simple and counterintuitive: dial back your power to around seventy to seventy-five percent of maximum. This adjustment accomplishes several things simultaneously. First, it dramatically improves your consistency by giving you a larger margin for error. Second, it allows you to focus on what actually matters with drives, which is keeping the ball low and targeting vulnerable areas like your opponent’s hip level. Third, it enables you to maintain better balance and court position after the shot, setting you up for the next ball.

Here’s the critical insight that many players miss: a ball traveling at seventy percent speed that actually lands in the court is infinitely more dangerous than a rocket that hits the fence. Your opponents can’t do anything with a ball that goes out. They can, however, capitalize on your frustration and the momentum shift that comes from repeated unforced errors. Finding that sweet spot where the ball still has enough pace to pressure your opponent without becoming a liability for you is one of the most important adjustments intermediate players can make. It’s about playing the percentages and recognizing that consistency beats power almost every time in pickleball.

Mistake Two: The Hero Speedup From a Terrible Position

We’ve all witnessed this scenario, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all been guilty of it. You get pulled wide by a good dink to the sideline. You’re stretching desperately, barely able to reach the ball, completely off-balance and practically off the court. And yet, in that moment of maximum vulnerability, you decide to go for a speedup, attempting to hit an aggressive shot that will somehow turn your defensive position into offensive dominance. It almost never works.

Mari Humberg identifies this as one of the most damaging mistakes in recreational pickleball because it compounds multiple problems simultaneously. When you’re off-balance and out of position, your chances of executing a quality speedup are minimal. Even if you manage to make solid contact, you’re now completely out of position for the inevitable counter-attack. Your partner is left to defend the entire court while you scramble to recover, creating a massive tactical disadvantage that good opponents will exploit ruthlessly.

The solution that Mari recommends is what she calls the “dead dink” to the middle of the kitchen. Instead of going for the highlight reel winner that has maybe a five percent chance of success, you softly place the ball back into the center of the court. This play might not earn you any style points, but it accomplishes something far more valuable: it buys you the time you need to recover your court position. By hitting a soft, neutralizing shot, you reset the point and prevent your opponents from capitalizing on your temporary instability.

This mistake reveals a deeper issue that plagues many recreational players: the confusion between offense and defense. When you’re pulled out of position and off-balance, you’re in a defensive situation. Trying to play offense from a defensive position is almost always a losing proposition. The key is recognizing when you’re in trouble and making the smart, disciplined play that keeps you in the point rather than the desperate, low-percentage play that usually ends it. Stop making excuses for bad speedups and start prioritizing your recovery and court positioning. This shift in mindset alone can transform your consistency and win rate.

Mistake Three: The Low-to-High Cross-Court Attack

As players watch professional pickleball and try to incorporate elements of the modern game into their own play, they often pick up patterns without fully understanding the context that makes them effective. One trend that has filtered down from the pro game is the cross-court attack. At the highest levels, we see players attacking across the court with great success. However, Mari Humberg warns that amateur players are frequently applying this tactic at exactly the wrong times, creating easy opportunities for their opponents.

The specific mistake is attempting to attack balls that are low to the ground by hitting from low to high across the court. The problem with this shot selection becomes clear when you consider the geometry and physics involved. When you’re hitting from a low position and directing the ball upward, the ball is rising as it crosses the net. This upward trajectory turns what you intended as an offensive shot into a sitting duck for your opponent. They get a ball that’s climbing right into their strike zone, perfect for a counter-attack.

What makes this mistake particularly costly is that you’re not just giving your opponent an easy ball to attack; you’re giving it to them at an angle where their best response is to hammer it directly at your partner. The cross-court geometry means that when your opponent redirects the ball, your partner becomes the primary target. They’re left to defend against a ball they had no part in creating, which understandably leads to some tense conversations between points.

Mari’s advice for this mistake is refreshingly blunt: just stop doing it. If the ball is low, keep it as a dink. Save your cross-court aggression for situations where the ball is high enough that you can hit down on it, driving through the ball rather than lifting it. This requires patience and discipline, recognizing that not every ball is an attacking opportunity. Understanding shot selection based on ball height and court positioning is fundamental to playing winning pickleball. Your partner’s ribs will thank you for making this adjustment, and your win-loss record will improve as you eliminate these unforced errors from your game.

Mistake Four: Forcing Offense Against a Perfect Third Shot

Sometimes in pickleball, you simply have to tip your cap to your opponent. They hit a great shot, and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that reality and responding appropriately. One of the most common mistakes Mari identifies is players trying to do too much with their fourth shot when responding to a perfectly executed third shot drop. The opponent has hit a ball that’s falling softly into the kitchen with ideal placement, and rather than accepting this small defeat, players try to force an offensive opportunity that doesn’t exist.

When you attempt to flick or attack a ball that’s dropping perfectly into the kitchen, you’re fighting against physics and geometry. The ball is below the level of the net, requiring you to hit upward just to clear the tape. This upward trajectory means you’re giving your opponents exactly what they want: a ball they can step in and put away. The most common results of this forced aggression are balls hit directly into the net or weak pop-ups that result in easy put-aways for the opposing team. Either way, you’ve turned their good shot into a point-winning shot by trying to do something that the situation doesn’t allow.

The fix here requires a fundamental shift in mindset: you need to accept that your opponent won the transition battle on that particular ball. This doesn’t mean you’ve lost the point; it just means you’re not in position to attack. Instead of forcing offense, commit to the reset. Back up slightly if necessary, let the ball bounce, and hit a soft fourth shot that neutralizes their advantage. By playing a disciplined reset, you turn what could have been a quick point for them into a dink rally where anything can happen.

This mistake illuminates a broader truth about pickleball strategy: not every shot is an opportunity to attack. In fact, most shots in a well-played rally are neutral or defensive, with both teams waiting for a genuine opportunity to be aggressive. Learning to recognize when you’re in a defensive position and responding with appropriate shot selection is what separates players who win consistently from those who beat themselves with unforced errors. The ego wants to attack every ball, but the brain knows that patience and discipline win points.

Mistake Five: Attacking Red Light Balls Out of Impatience

The final strategy mistake that kills recreational games is perhaps the most common and the most difficult to fix: a fundamental lack of patience at the kitchen line. Pickleball can feel like it’s on a timer, and many players experience an almost physical need to make something happen after just a few dinks. They feel that if they don’t attack soon, they’re being passive or letting the point drift without purpose. This impatience leads them to attack “red light” balls, which Mari defines as anything below knee level, putting them at an immediate and significant disadvantage.

Mari uses a traffic light system to help players understand when they should and shouldn’t attack, and it’s one of the most useful mental models for shot selection in pickleball. A red light ball is below the knee; attacking these balls requires hitting upward through the ball, which means you’re giving your opponent a ball they can counter-attack. A yellow light ball is between the knee and hip; these are marginal attacking opportunities that might work depending on other factors like court positioning and opponent readiness. A green light ball is anything above hip level; these are the balls you should be attacking, as you can hit down through them and maintain offensive positioning.

The goal, as Mari explains, is to stay patient and keep dinking until you get that genuine green light opportunity. This requires trust in your dinking ability and confidence that you can maintain quality in extended rallies. Many players lack this confidence, which is why they force attacks on red and yellow light balls. They don’t trust that they can win a long dink battle, so they try to shortcut the process by attacking prematurely. The irony is that this impatience is precisely what prevents them from winning points.

Improving your patience at the kitchen line requires both technical and mental development. On the technical side, you need to work on the quality of your dinks so that you’re not just keeping the ball in play but actively working to create that green light opportunity. This means varying your placement, pace, and spin to move your opponents around and force them into making mistakes. On the mental side, you need to embrace the reality that pickleball is a game of chess, not a sprint to the finish. Understanding the traffic light system helps you make better decisions about when to be aggressive and when to stay patient.

The most patient player often comes out on top in pickleball. This doesn’t mean being passive or simply pushing balls back with no purpose. It means playing with discipline, waiting for genuine opportunities, and trusting your ability to win extended rallies through superior shot quality and movement. When you stop forcing attacks on red light balls and start waiting for green lights, you’ll find that your unforced error rate plummets and your winning percentage climbs accordingly.

Implementing These Fixes in Your Game

Understanding these five strategy mistakes is one thing; actually eliminating them from your game is another challenge entirely. The good news is that these are all mental and tactical adjustments rather than technical ones, which means you can start implementing them immediately without needing to rebuild your strokes or spend hours drilling new mechanics. The key is awareness and intentionality in your decision-making during points.

Start by picking one mistake to focus on at a time. Trying to fix all five simultaneously is overwhelming and usually results in paralysis by analysis on the court. Instead, choose the mistake that you recognize most in your own game and make it your focus for your next few sessions. For many players, this will be the patience issue. If that’s you, commit to only attacking balls above your hip level for an entire session and see what happens. You’ll likely find that your consistency improves dramatically and your opponents start making more mistakes because you’re keeping balls in play longer.

Another effective approach is to ask a playing partner or coach to watch for specific mistakes and give you feedback. Sometimes we don’t realize how often we’re committing these errors until someone else points them out. Having an external observer can accelerate your learning curve significantly. They can call out in real-time when you’re attempting a low-to-high cross-court attack or trying to speed up from an off-balance position, helping you build awareness of patterns you might not notice yourself.

Finally, remember that fixing strategic mistakes is a process, not an event. You’ll still find yourself occasionally swinging too hard on drives or getting impatient with dinking. That’s normal and part of the learning process. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s improvement. As you gradually eliminate these five mistakes from your game, you’ll find yourself winning more points, feeling more in control during rallies, and ultimately enjoying pickleball more because you’re playing smarter, more effective tennis.

The Strategic Advantage

What makes these five fixes so powerful is that they represent low-hanging fruit for most recreational players. You don’t need to develop new physical skills or spend months in the gym building strength and conditioning. You simply need to make better decisions with the skills you already have. This is why strategy is often called the great equalizer in pickleball. A less athletic player with superior strategic understanding can consistently beat a more athletic player who makes poor tactical choices.

Professional players like Mari Humberg have distilled their expertise into these actionable insights precisely because they recognize that most recreational players are making the same mistakes repeatedly. These aren’t obscure, advanced tactics that only matter at the highest levels. They’re fundamental strategic principles that apply to everyone from 3.0 players to 5.0 players. The specific execution might look different at different skill levels, but the underlying principles remain constant.

As you work on eliminating these mistakes,