7 Simple Pickleball Tips That Will Actually Change Your Game

You know that feeling when you’re stuck at a certain level and can’t seem to break through? Yeah, we’ve all been there. The truth is, sometimes it’s not about mastering the most advanced strategy or hitting the flashiest shots. The real breakthrough comes from understanding the fundamental principles that separate recreational players from those competing at higher levels.

That’s exactly what the team at Cracked Pickleball figured out after more than a decade on the court. In a recent video, they broke down seven game-changing tips they wish they’d known earlier in their pickleball journey. These aren’t complicated techniques that require months of practice. They’re strategic adjustments you can implement immediately to see real results in your game.

Understanding the Fundamentals: What Makes These Tips Different

Before diving into the specific tips, it’s worth understanding why fundamental strategy matters more than flashy shots. Many players who plateau at intermediate levels do so because they focus on adding new shots to their arsenal rather than refining the strategic decisions behind every ball they hit. They learn how to hit an around-the-post shot or a perfect ATP, but they don’t understand when to use it or, more importantly, when not to.

The beauty of these seven tips is that they address the decision-making process that happens before you even swing your paddle. They’re about court positioning, shot selection, and understanding the geometry of the game. For someone new to pickleball or trying to understand what separates good players from great ones, these concepts provide a framework for thinking about every point differently.

Think of pickleball like chess. Beginners learn how the pieces move. Intermediate players learn common opening sequences. But advanced players think several moves ahead, understanding how each decision creates opportunities or closes them off. These tips are your roadmap to thinking like an advanced player, even if your physical skills are still catching up.

Aim for Your Opponent’s Feet, Not the Net

Here’s something that trips up almost every intermediate player: they’re so focused on clearing the net that they forget about what happens after the ball crosses to the other side. You’re either hitting too hard and watching the ball sail long, or you’re hitting too tentatively and dumping it into the net. It becomes this exhausting mental battle between power and precision that makes every shot feel like a gamble.

The solution requires a complete mental shift. Stop thinking about the net as your primary target. Instead, think about where you want your opponent to be when they make contact with the ball. Specifically, aim for their feet. This single adjustment transforms your entire shot selection process because it gives you a clear, consistent target that works in multiple situations.

During dinking rallies at the kitchen line, hitting at your opponent’s feet creates what the Cracked Pickleball team calls the “pressurized zone.” Your opponent faces an uncomfortable decision: do they take the ball out of the air while it’s below the net, which typically results in a weak pop-up? Or do they step back and let it bounce, giving up their position at the line? Either way, they’re reacting to your shot rather than dictating play.

This principle extends beyond dinking. When you’re hitting drop shots from the baseline, aiming for your opponent’s feet as they approach the kitchen makes them reach down awkwardly while moving forward. Most players don’t get low enough in their ready position anyway, so you’re essentially punishing their lazy footwork. The same applies when you’re rolling the ball to a defender at midcourt. Landing it near their feet forces them to adjust their entire body position, often resulting in a defensive lob or a weak return that you can attack.

The real genius of this tip is that it removes overthinking from your game. You don’t need to calculate angles or worry about hitting the perfect spot on the court. Feet become your universal target, and the rest takes care of itself.

The Lob Defense Rule That Changes Everything

Getting lobbed is inevitable in pickleball. It’s going to happen whether you’re playing recreational doubles or competing in a tournament. But here’s where most teams completely fall apart: they waste precious seconds arguing about who should go back to retrieve the lob, or worse, both players go back while the opponents move up and take control of the net.

The Cracked Pickleball team has a brilliantly simple rule that eliminates all that confusion: the player opposite the ball should always be the one who goes back. Not the player the ball is coming toward. The opposite player. This feels counterintuitive at first, which is exactly why most teams get it wrong.

The logic becomes clear when you think about sight lines and momentum. The player opposite the ball can track it through the entire flight path. They can see where it’s going, visualize the landing spot, and move with natural momentum toward their destination. Meanwhile, the player the ball is coming toward has to turn their back to the ball and run blindly, losing sight of it in space. That’s a recipe for a weak return or a complete miss.

But the strategy doesn’t end with retrieving the lob. Once your partner goes back, you need to actively switch sides and move to the opposite side of the court. This positioning covers as much ground as possible and prepares you for what’s almost certainly coming: an overhead or a smash from your opponents. Let’s be honest, after scrambling back to retrieve a lob, your partner probably isn’t hitting a perfect drop shot that lands softly in the kitchen. They’re likely hitting a defensive ball that your opponents can attack, so you need to be ready.

This systematic approach to lob defense transforms a moment of chaos into a coordinated response. There’s no debate, no hesitation, just immediate action based on a predetermined rule that both partners understand.

Always Aim for the Middle

The net is lower in the middle than on the sides. That’s just basic geometry, and it gives you a larger margin for error on every shot you hit up the middle. But the strategic advantage goes deeper than just net height. When your opponent receives a ball in the middle of the court, their attacking angles shrink dramatically.

Think about the geometry of the court for a moment. If you’re pulled wide and you hit a shot to the sideline, your opponent can attack crosscourt with a sharp angle or drive it down the line with plenty of room on either side. They have options, and options give them confidence. But if you hit that same shot to the middle, they’ve got significantly fewer angles to work with. The middle of the court is where angles go to die.

There’s also a psychological component that makes hitting to the middle even more effective. In doubles, a ball hit to the middle creates confusion about who should take it. Even teams with good communication sometimes hesitate or both reach for the ball simultaneously, leading to either a weak return or a complete miss. You’re essentially creating a seam between your opponents, exploiting the natural gap in responsibility that exists in the middle of the court.

The Cracked Pickleball team emphasizes that if you don’t see a clear opening or have a specific tactical reason to go somewhere else, default to the middle. It’s not flashy, it doesn’t make highlight reels, but it wins points through consistency and smart positioning. Plus, it gives you time to reset and get back into an optimal court position while your opponents deal with a shot that offers them minimal attacking opportunities.

This tip is especially valuable for players who tend to overhit or go for too much on every shot. The middle is your safety valve, your default option that keeps you in points when you don’t have a clear advantage.

Focus on Making Your Return First, Everything Else Second

Here’s a controversial observation that might challenge how you’ve been taught to play: you’re probably rushing your return of serve. You’re so focused on getting to the kitchen line that you’re hitting a mediocre or even poor return just to start moving forward. This approach seems logical because everyone tells you to get to the net as quickly as possible, but it’s costing you points.

The hard truth is that serves and returns lose more points in pickleball than any other shots in the game. These are the shots that initiate every rally, and if you’re starting from a defensive position because of a weak return, you’re fighting an uphill battle for the rest of the point. So if you’re going to prioritize one thing above all else, make it this: hit a solid return first, then worry about getting to the kitchen line.

The Cracked Pickleball team recommends standing back off the baseline to give yourself more time to react and more space to work with. When you face better serves as you improve (and you will), you’ll already be prepared because you’ve built in that buffer zone. Plus, if the serve is short, you can use your forward momentum to attack and still get up to the kitchen line quickly. But if the serve is deep and well-placed, you have the time and space to handle it without feeling rushed.

When you do hit that return, aim deep and toward the middle. Deep returns push your opponents back and prevent them from immediately attacking. Returns aimed at the middle create confusion between opponents about who should take the ball, especially if they’re not communicating well. This combination gives you the biggest margin for error on the court while also creating the most problems for your opponents.

This tip fundamentally changes your mindset about the return. Instead of viewing it as something to get out of the way so you can move forward, you start seeing it as a critical shot that can determine the outcome of the entire point. A great return puts your opponents on defense before they even reach the kitchen line. A poor return gives them an easy attack and puts you on your heels for the rest of the rally.

Master the Split Step and Stay Balanced

Moving forward to the kitchen line is a marathon, not a sprint, yet most players treat it like a race. They sprint up to the line as fast as possible, then find themselves unable to control their shots because they have too much forward momentum. Their body is still moving when the ball arrives, leading to mishits, pop-ups, and frustration.

The solution comes from tennis: the split step. This is a small hop or gathering step where your feet spread out into an athletic position with your knees bent, timed precisely to when your opponent makes contact with the ball. This position allows you to move explosively in any direction without wasting time or losing balance. You’re loaded and ready, like a spring compressed and prepared to release.

The key element that most players miss is timing. You need to start your split step before your opponent makes contact, not after. This preemptive movement means you’re already in motion when you see where the ball is going, giving you a crucial split-second advantage. Watch any professional tennis or pickleball player and you’ll see this split step happening constantly, often so subtly that casual observers don’t even notice it.

Once you’re established at the kitchen line, balance becomes about lateral movement. When you need to move sideways to reach a ball, amateur players typically step directly toward the ball with their near foot, which pulls their entire body off-center. Then they have to gather and reset before they can hit an effective shot. Professional players move differently: they take their outside foot toward their center first to stay balanced, then step out toward the ball. This keeps their body centered and their weight distributed evenly, allowing them to hit powerful, controlled shots even while moving.

This difference in footwork might seem minor, but it’s one of the most visible distinctions between recreational players and competitive players. Balance allows you to be aggressive without being reckless, to move quickly without sacrificing control. When you’re balanced, you can extend the point and wait for the right opportunity to attack. When you’re off-balance, you’re simply hoping to keep the ball in play.

Not Every Wide Dink Is an Around-the-Post Opportunity

Around-the-post shots, commonly called ATPs, are among the most exciting and crowd-pleasing shots in pickleball. They’re also really easy to miss if you’re attempting them at the wrong time, which most intermediate players do. The problem is that once you learn how to hit an ATP, every wide dink starts to look like an opportunity, and you start going for shots that have a low percentage of success.

Here’s a knowledge nugget that will save you countless unforced errors: just because you know how to hit an ATP doesn’t mean you should attempt one on every wide dink you receive. Most intermediate players miss far more ATPs than they complete, which means they’re essentially giving away free points to their opponents in pursuit of a flashy shot.

The Cracked Pickleball team identifies three specific conditions that need to be met before you should commit to an ATP attempt. First, the ball needs to be shallow in the kitchen, not deep. When the ball lands deep, your angle shrinks substantially because you’re farther from the net and the ball hasn’t traveled as far outside the court. A deep ball requires you to hit around more of the post, which is a much more difficult shot.

Second, you want topspin on the incoming ball. Topspin makes the ball bounce forward and wider after it hits the ground, increasing the angle available to you. Flat balls or balls with backspin don’t bounce out as dramatically, which means you might reach the ball only to find that you don’t have enough angle to get it around the post and back onto the court.

Third, and this should be obvious but bears repeating, the dink needs to be legitimately out wide. Never attempt an ATP on a middle dink or anything close to the middle. The shot only makes sense when the ball is genuinely outside the court boundaries, creating enough space for you to angle it around the post.

When all three conditions align—shallow depth, topspin, and wide placement—go for the ATP with confidence. You’ve identified a genuine opportunity where the shot has a high percentage of success. When one or more of these conditions aren’t met, hit the ball back to the middle and reset the point. You’ll win far more points by being selective and strategic about your ATPs than by attempting them constantly and missing half the time.

Keep Your Paddle in Front of You

This final tip sounds almost too simple to matter, but it’s one of those fundamental principles that touches every aspect of your game. When your paddle is positioned in front of your body, you can see both the ball and your paddle at the same time. This simultaneous view improves your hand-eye coordination dramatically because your brain can process the relationship between the ball and the paddle without having to guess or estimate.

Keeping your paddle up and out front also prevents you from taking big backswings, which is critical at the kitchen line where reaction time is measured in fractions of a second. Big backswings might feel powerful, but they slow down your reaction time and make you vulnerable to fast exchanges. When your paddle is already in front of you, you can react instantly to whatever comes back across the net, turning defense into offense in a heartbeat.

There’s also a psychological benefit to maintaining this paddle position. It keeps you engaged and present in the rally. It’s surprisingly easy to get lazy during long dinking exchanges, letting your mind wander or your focus drift. Having your paddle out in front forces your entire body into a ready position, keeping you mentally sharp and physically prepared for the next shot.

Perhaps most importantly, keeping your paddle up takes time away from your opponent. If they hit a ball to you and your paddle is already positioned in front, you can take the ball early and in front of your body, rather than having to step back and let it come to you. When you take balls early, your opponents have less time to react to your shot, less time to read where it’s going, and less time to get into optimal defensive position. This time pressure accumulates over the course of a rally, eventually forcing an error or creating an opportunity for you to attack.

For beginners trying to understand this concept, think of your paddle as a shield that’s always protecting you. You wouldn’t lower your shield in the middle of battle, so why would you drop your paddle during a rally? That constant readiness, that perpetual state of preparation, is what separates players who react quickly from those who are always a step behind.

The Bigger Picture: Playing Smarter, Not Flashier

What makes these seven tips so effective is that they’re fundamentally about understanding when to be aggressive and when to reset, about positioning and anticipation rather than power and athleticism. They represent a shift from playing reactively to playing strategically, from hoping to create opportunities to systematically manufacturing them through smart decision-making.

For someone trying to break through a plateau or understand what’s holding them back, these tips provide a framework for analyzing every point. Instead of wondering why you lost a rally, you can trace it back to a specific decision: Did I aim for the feet or did I try to hit too good of a shot