What Is a Dead Dink? The Gift Shot You Should Be Attacking Every Time

In the evolving landscape of modern pickleball, recognizing and capitalizing on opportunities separates good players from great ones. One of the most critical yet frequently overlooked opportunities on the court is what teaching professionals call the “dead dink.” This seemingly simple concept represents a fundamental shift in how recreational players should approach their game, moving from passive play to aggressive, opportunity-seeking strategies that win matches.

Kyle Koszuta, one of the most respected teaching pros in the pickleball community, has made it his mission to help players understand this crucial offensive weapon. The dead dink attack isn’t just another technique to add to your repertoire—it’s a mindset shift that transforms how you view every rally. When you start hunting these balls instead of letting them pass by, you’ll notice an immediate change in your win rate and the respect you command on the court.

Think of a dead dink like a gift. Your opponent either made a mistake or gave you an opening. The question is: what are you going to do with it? Too many recreational players let these opportunities slip away, content to keep the rally going rather than seizing the moment to apply pressure and take control of the point.

Understanding the Dead Dink: Breaking Down the Basics

Before you can attack dead dinks, you need to recognize them. A dead dink is simply a dink that sits high, gives you time and space, or basically screams “hit me.” It’s that moment in a dinking rally when the ball floats up slightly higher than usual, lacking the spin, low angle, or aggressive topspin that makes returns challenging.

You’ve felt this moment before, even if you didn’t have a name for it. You’re engaged in a soft game at the kitchen line, patiently working the ball back and forth, when suddenly your opponent’s return comes over with a little extra height. Maybe they misjudged the contact point, or perhaps they’re getting fatigued. Whatever the reason, the ball sits there in what feels like slow motion, practically begging to be attacked.

The characteristics of a dead dink are fairly consistent across skill levels. First, there’s the height factor—the ball crosses the net noticeably higher than a well-executed dink should. Second, there’s a lack of pace or spin that would otherwise make the ball difficult to attack. Third, and perhaps most importantly, you have time. That fraction of a second where you’re not rushed, where you can actually make a conscious decision about your next shot rather than simply reacting on instinct.

Koszuta’s explanation strips away any confusion: if the ball sits high or your opponent gives you time and space to make a decision, you need to do something with it. Either speed it up or take an aggressive dink. This logic seems straightforward, but it’s frequently overlooked by recreational players who have been conditioned to think that dinking rallies are all about patience and outlasting your opponent.

The reality is more nuanced. Yes, patience matters in pickleball. Yes, you need to be able to sustain long rallies. But patience without aggression is just passivity, and passivity doesn’t win matches against skilled opponents. If you don’t capitalize on the opportunities your opponent gives you, you might not get another one like it during the point. The window closes quickly, and hesitation is the enemy of execution.

The Modern Pickleball Mindset: Why Aggression Wins Matches

The game of pickleball has evolved dramatically over the past few years. What once was primarily a game of patience and consistency has transformed into a sport where calculated aggression and pressure play dominate at the highest levels. This shift didn’t happen overnight, but the evidence is clear when you watch professional matches or observe how top recreational players approach their games.

Today’s pickleball landscape is no longer just about keeping the ball in play and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake. Modern pickleball is about applying pressure, exerting your will on the court, and forcing your opponent into uncomfortable positions. The players who consistently win are those who recognize opportunities and attack them without hesitation.

When you get a dead dink, attacking that ball is non-negotiable in this modern framework. Koszuta demonstrates this principle with live court footage in his teaching videos, showing how he positions himself offensively and keeps the pressure mounting throughout rallies. What becomes immediately apparent is that the goal isn’t always to end the point immediately with one spectacular shot.

Sometimes the objective is simply to put your opponent off balance, making them react rather than act. This distinction is crucial. When you’re forcing reactions, you’re controlling the point. Your opponent is responding to your decisions rather than implementing their own game plan. If they pop the ball up in response to your attack, great—you can put it away for a winner. If they manage to block it and keep the ball in play, you’ve still shifted the momentum decisively in your favor.

This aggressive approach creates a compounding effect throughout a match. Each time you successfully attack a dead dink, your opponent becomes more aware of the threat. They start trying to avoid giving you those opportunities, which often leads to either more conservative shots that you can also attack, or riskier attempts to keep the ball low that result in unforced errors. Either way, you’re winning.

The mental aspect of this aggressive mindset cannot be overstated. When you train yourself to hunt for dead dinks and attack them consistently, you develop a predatory awareness on the court. You’re no longer simply participating in rallies—you’re actively searching for weaknesses and exploiting them. This mental shift elevates your entire game because it forces you to be more engaged and intentional with every shot.

Your Two-Pronged Attack: Speed Up or Go Aggressive

The beauty of the dead dink attack lies in its flexibility. You’re not locked into one predetermined response when you recognize the opportunity. Instead, you have options, and choosing the right one depends on court positioning, your opponent’s weaknesses, and the specific situation within the point.

Your first option is to speed up the ball directly at the player in front of you. This is often the most instinctive choice when you see a high ball, and for good reason—it works. By accelerating the pace and driving the ball at your opponent’s body or toward their weaker side, you force them into a defensive position where their options become extremely limited. They have to react quickly, often while moving backward or adjusting their paddle at an awkward angle.

The speed-up is particularly effective when your opponent is leaning forward, anticipating another soft dink. The sudden change of pace catches them off guard, and even if they manage to block the ball, it frequently pops up for your partner to attack or sets up another attacking opportunity for you on the next shot. The key is committing to the speed-up fully—tentative attacks often result in balls that sit in the middle of the court, giving your opponent an easy counter-attack opportunity.

Your second option is to take a really aggressive dink to a different part of the court to catch your opponent off balance. This approach requires more touch and precision than the speed-up, but it can be equally effective, especially against opponents who are anticipating the faster shot. An aggressive dink maintains the softer pace of the rally but targets a difficult location—perhaps sharply angled to the sideline, or directed at your opponent’s feet as they’re moving.

The aggressive dink works because it punishes your opponent’s positioning without giving them the benefit of a faster ball they can potentially block back. It requires them to move quickly while maintaining soft hands, a combination that many recreational players struggle to execute consistently. When done well, the aggressive dink either wins the point outright or forces a weak return that you can attack even more decisively.

Think of it like this: you’re not just reacting to the dink—you’re making a conscious decision to seize control. That’s the difference between playing pickleball and playing it well. The professionals understand this instinctively. They see a high ball and they’re already processing multiple attack options, selecting the one that best fits the situation based on countless hours of experience and pattern recognition.

Learning to make this choice quickly and correctly takes practice. Start by picking one attack method and using it consistently whenever you recognize a dead dink. Once that becomes automatic, add the second option to your arsenal. Eventually, you’ll develop the court sense to know which attack to deploy in any given situation without conscious thought, the same way the pros do.

The Pressure Principle: Compounding Advantages Throughout a Match

What Koszuta is really teaching when he discusses dead dink attacks is a broader principle about pressure in pickleball. The game consistently rewards players who can identify soft spots in their opponent’s defense and exploit them without mercy. A dead dink is essentially a gift from your opponent—either they made a mistake in execution or they gave you an opening through poor positioning or strategy.

The critical question becomes: what are you going to do with this gift? Will you accept it graciously and capitalize, or will you politely decline by simply keeping the ball in play without applying pressure? Your answer to this question largely determines your ceiling as a player.

By consistently attacking dead dinks throughout a match, you’re sending a clear message to your opponent. You’re telling them that you’re not going to let them off easy, that you’re not content to engage in endless neutral rallies. You’re communicating that they’re going to pay for every mistake, every ball that sits up just a little too high, every moment where their execution falls short of perfection.

Over the course of a match, this mentality compounds in powerful ways. Your opponent begins to feel the pressure mounting. They become hyperaware of keeping their dinks low, which often leads to them hitting more balls into the net. They start second-guessing their shot selection, wondering if they should try something different to avoid giving you attackable balls. They get tighter, more cautious, and inevitably more prone to errors.

This psychological warfare is just as important as the physical execution of attacking dead dinks. When you establish yourself as a player who capitalizes on mistakes, opponents begin making more mistakes simply because they’re trying so hard to avoid giving you opportunities. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that works strongly in your favor.

The pressure principle extends beyond individual points as well. In a tournament setting or league play where you face the same opponents repeatedly, developing a reputation as an aggressive player who attacks every opportunity changes how people approach playing against you. They might be more tentative, more defensive, less willing to take calculated risks because they know you’ll punish any ball that isn’t perfectly executed.

Understanding this principle helps explain why some players seem to win consistently even when they don’t have the hardest serve or the fastest hands. They’ve mastered the art of applying relentless pressure, of making their opponents uncomfortable, of exploiting every small mistake until those mistakes multiply into lost games and matches.

For Beginners: Making Sense of the Dead Dink Concept

If you’re relatively new to pickleball or still developing your understanding of strategy and shot selection, the concept of dead dinks and when to attack them might seem overwhelming. Don’t worry—this is actually one of the more intuitive concepts in pickleball once you experience it on the court a few times.

Let’s break this down in the simplest possible terms. Imagine you’re having a conversation with someone, and they’re speaking quietly and quickly, making you lean in and concentrate hard to understand them. Then suddenly, they speak one sentence much louder and slower. That sentence is easy to hear and understand, right? That’s essentially what a dead dink is—it’s the shot that stands out from the rest of the rally because it’s easier to deal with.

In pickleball, most of the game at the kitchen line involves hitting soft shots called dinks that stay low over the net and land in the opponent’s kitchen (the non-volley zone). The goal is to keep these shots low and difficult to attack, forcing your opponent to hit up on the ball, which puts them at a disadvantage. But sometimes, whether through fatigue, misjudgment, or trying to do too much, a player hits a dink that comes up higher than it should.

This higher ball is the dead dink. It’s called “dead” because it lacks the qualities that make a dink difficult to attack—it doesn’t have tricky spin, it’s not skimming low over the net, and it gives you plenty of time to prepare your shot. In essence, it’s a sitting duck, waiting to be attacked.

When you’re starting out, you might instinctively want to just keep the rally going by hitting another soft dink back. This feels safe and controlled, and there’s nothing wrong with building consistency as a beginner. However, as you progress, you need to train yourself to recognize these high balls and understand that they represent opportunities to take control of the point.

Your attack doesn’t have to be fancy or overly aggressive when you’re learning. Simply hitting the ball with a bit more pace toward your opponent’s feet or body is often enough. The goal is to make them uncomfortable, to force them to react defensively rather than continuing to play offensively. Even a modest increase in pace or a slightly more aggressive angle can accomplish this.

As you practice recognizing and attacking dead dinks, you’ll notice that rallies start going in your favor more often. You’ll win more points, and just as importantly, you’ll feel more in control of what’s happening on the court. That sense of control and intentionality is what separates players who are merely hitting the ball back and forth from players who are actually playing strategic pickleball.

Start by simply increasing your awareness. During your next game, try to notice when balls come over the net higher than usual. You don’t even have to attack them at first—just notice them and mentally note “that was a dead dink.” Once you’re consistently recognizing these opportunities, start attempting to attack a few of them each game. You’ll make mistakes at first, hitting balls out or into the net, but that’s part of the learning process.

With time and repetition, attacking dead dinks will become automatic. You’ll see that high ball and your body will respond without conscious thought, just like the experienced players and professionals do. This single skill can dramatically accelerate your improvement and help you compete with players who might otherwise be out of your league.

Practical Application: Implementing Dead Dink Attacks in Your Game

Understanding the concept of dead dink attacks intellectually is one thing; implementing them consistently in actual gameplay is another challenge entirely. The transition from knowledge to execution requires deliberate practice and a willingness to make mistakes as you develop this new skill.

Start by dedicating a portion of your practice time specifically to recognizing and attacking dead dinks. If you have a regular practice partner, have them intentionally feed you some higher balls during dinking drills. Practice both options: speeding the ball up and hitting aggressive dinks. Get comfortable with the mechanics of each attack so that when you see the opportunity in a real game, your body knows what to do.

During actual games, begin by setting a modest goal. Perhaps you’ll attempt to attack three dead dinks per game, regardless of whether those attacks are successful. This takes the pressure off making every attack perfect and instead focuses on building the habit of recognizing opportunities and being willing to take them. Some attacks will work brilliantly, winning you points outright. Others will result in errors or give your opponent a chance to counter. Both outcomes provide valuable learning experiences.

Pay attention to patterns in your opponents’ play. Some players consistently hit higher dinks when they’re stretched wide or when they’re moving backward. Others tend to give you attackable balls when they’re trying to change the direction of the dink. By identifying these patterns, you can anticipate dead dinks before they happen, positioning yourself optimally to attack them.

One common mistake players make when first implementing dead dink attacks is becoming too predictable. If you speed up every single dead dink, opponents will start anticipating this and positioning themselves to counter it effectively. Mix up your attacks, sometimes speeding up, sometimes hitting the aggressive dink, and occasionally even hitting a reset dink to keep your opponents guessing. This unpredictability makes you much more dangerous.

Another practical consideration is understanding when not to attack. Yes, this article emphasizes the importance of attacking dead dinks, but there are situations where discretion is the better part of valor. If you’re pulled far off the court and a ball sits up, attacking it might leave you badly out of position. If you’re facing opponents with exceptional hands who excel at blocking speed-ups, you might choose to be more selective about when you attack. Pickleball is ultimately a game of percentages and decision-making.

Consider working with a coach or more experienced player who can watch your matches and point