What to Do When You’re Playing a Much Better Team in Pickleball

Every pickleball player has been there. You step onto the court, warm up a few shots, and then reality sets in: the team across the net is significantly better than you. Maybe they’re a level or two above you. Maybe they’re tournament regulars with partnership chemistry you and your partner simply don’t have yet. Whatever the case, you know you’re facing an uphill battle.

The natural instinct in this situation is to play it safe. Keep the ball in play. Try to extend rallies and hope your opponents make mistakes. But according to professional player Zane Navratil, this conservative approach is actually the worst thing you can do when facing superior competition.

At the PPA Masters, Navratil and his partner Blaine Hovenier found themselves matched against the tournament’s top-seeded duo, Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio, in the round of 16. Johns and Tardio would go on to win the gold medal, but before that outcome was determined, Navratil and Hovenier had to devise a strategy for a match where they were clear underdogs.

What emerged from their preparation was a counterintuitive approach that applies not just to professional pickleball but to recreational players at every level: when you’re outmatched, embrace chaos.

The Mathematics of Aggressive Play Against Better Opponents

Navratil’s strategy was rooted in a simple mathematical reality. As he explained on PicklePod, he and Hovenier weren’t going to beat Johns and Tardio in extended dinking rallies. “We weren’t going to out-dink that team,” Navratil said bluntly. “There’s a zero-percent chance we do that.”

The reasoning here is straightforward but often overlooked by recreational players. When you’re facing opponents with superior touch, better court positioning, more experience reading shots, and tighter communication, trying to engage them in the aspect of the game where they excel is strategic suicide. A team that’s significantly better than you at the kitchen line will beat you there the vast majority of the time.

Navratil broke down the probability calculation that informed their approach. An aggressive strategy of speeding up the ball whenever possible might only work 40% of the time against elite competition. That doesn’t sound particularly encouraging until you consider the alternative. Trying to out-dink a much better team, by his estimation, only works about 20% of the time.

The conclusion? Speed up the ball 100% of the time. Take every reasonable opportunity to attack. Put pace on the ball. Create awkward situations. Force quick reactions. Do anything you can to prevent the point from settling into the controlled, methodical rhythm where your opponents have the advantage.

This isn’t reckless ball-bashing. It’s a calculated risk assessment that recognizes doubling your success rate from 20% to 40% is worth the perceived risk of playing more aggressively. When you’re the underdog, you need to change the nature of the game itself.

Why Chaos Favors the Underdog

There’s a broader principle at work here that extends beyond pickleball to sports in general, and even to competitive situations in business and life. When facing a superior opponent, predictable, controlled exchanges favor the favorite. The better team or player will execute more consistently, make fewer errors, and exploit small advantages over the course of a long match or rally.

Randomness and chaos, by contrast, are the great equalizers. As Navratil put it, “Anything can happen when you speed that ball up… the odds even out in more aggressive points.” A fast-paced point with unexpected speed-ups, awkward body shots, and quick exchanges at the net creates opportunities for lucky bounces, momentary lapses in reaction time, and situations where raw skill matters less than split-second instinct.

Think about it this way: in a controlled dinking rally that lasts twenty shots, the better team’s superior skills are expressed repeatedly. They place their dinks better on shot three, seven, twelve, and sixteen. They read your patterns more effectively. They’re more patient. They capitalize on your slight mis-hits. Their advantage compounds with every exchange.

But in a fast, aggressive point that ends in five shots, there are fewer opportunities for skill to assert itself. Maybe their reaction is a fraction of a second slow. Maybe the ball takes an unexpected bounce off the edge of their paddle. Maybe your aggressive shot happened to go to the one spot they weren’t covering. The shorter the point, the more variance enters the equation, and variance is your friend when you’re the underdog.

This doesn’t mean abandoning all strategy or hitting every ball as hard as you can. The goal is to prevent your opponents from settling into their comfort zone. You want to disrupt rhythm, create awkward situations, and ensure that their superior skills have fewer opportunities to be expressed over the course of the match.

Practical Applications for Recreational Players

For most of us who aren’t professional players, the question becomes how to apply this insight to our own games. You’re not facing Ben Johns across the net, but you might be playing against the strongest team at your local rec center or facing opponents a level above you in a tournament.

The first step is honest assessment. Are you genuinely outmatched? If the skill gap is significant, then the Navratil approach makes sense. Don’t try to beat them at what they do best. If they have superior touch and control, don’t engage them in extended soft game rallies. If they’re more consistent from the baseline, don’t trade groundstrokes with them for twenty shots at a time.

Instead, look for opportunities to speed up the ball earlier in the point. This doesn’t mean attacking every single shot, which would be predictable in its own way. Rather, it means having a lower threshold for when you choose to attack. That dink that’s a few inches high? Normally you might just return it as another dink, but against a better team, that’s your signal to attack. The slightly short return of serve? Take a rip at it rather than laying back and playing it safe.

The key is to increase the pace of play and shorten rallies without being reckless. You’re not trying to hit winners on every shot. You’re trying to create situations where the point is decided quickly, whether in your favor or theirs, because those quick-decision points give you a better chance than extended rallies where their skills compound.

Another practical application is to vary your attack points and speeds. Hitting hard all the time becomes predictable. Mix in different speeds of attacks. Sometimes it’s a firm roll to the opponent’s hip. Other times it’s a full-speed drive. Occasionally it’s a disguised speed-up that looks like it might be a dink. The goal is to keep your opponents guessing and prevent them from settling into a defensive rhythm where they’re comfortable handling your attacks.

Understanding the Strategy: A Beginner’s Perspective

If you’re relatively new to pickleball, this strategy might seem counterintuitive. After all, don’t coaches always emphasize consistency, patience, and keeping the ball in play? Isn’t the team that makes fewer mistakes usually the team that wins?

Yes, but here’s the crucial distinction: those principles apply when you’re playing opponents at roughly your skill level. When teams are evenly matched, consistency wins because both teams are capable of maintaining long rallies, and the team that makes the first significant error usually loses the point.

However, when there’s a significant skill gap, the nature of the competition changes. The better team is more consistent than you. They’re going to make fewer errors in long rallies. If you try to play a patient, percentage-based game against them, you’re essentially betting that you can be more consistent than people who are more skilled than you. That’s not a winning bet.

Think of it like a basketball team facing opponents who are taller, stronger, and more skilled. If that underdog team tries to play a slow, half-court game where every possession comes down to execution in a controlled setting, they’re going to lose. Their disadvantages will be exposed repeatedly. But if they speed up the tempo, press full court, launch quick three-pointers, and create a chaotic pace of play, they give themselves a chance. They might miss more shots than normal, but they also create opportunities for their opponents to make mistakes they wouldn’t make in a controlled environment.

The same principle applies in pickleball. When you speed up the ball and play aggressively against better opponents, you’re essentially saying, “I know I’m not as good as you in a controlled rally, so I’m going to make this match less controlled.” You’re deliberately introducing variance and unpredictability because those factors work in your favor as the underdog.

For beginners, this might mean reconsidering the conventional wisdom about patience and consistency. Those remain important skills to develop, and they’ll serve you well in most matches. But when you find yourself clearly outmatched, give yourself permission to take more risks, attack more frequently, and play a style that might feel uncomfortable or overly aggressive. The alternative—trying to slowly and methodically beat opponents who are better than you at playing slowly and methodically—is actually the riskier choice.

The Mental Side of Playing Up

Beyond the tactical considerations, there’s a significant mental component to playing against superior competition. Many players become tentative when they realize they’re outmatched. They’re afraid to make mistakes. They second-guess their shot selection. They become passive and hope their opponents will self-destruct.

This mindset creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tentative play leads to weak shots, which give your opponents easy opportunities to attack. Before long, you’re not just being beaten by their superior skills but also by your own hesitation and negative self-talk.

Embracing an aggressive strategy when facing better opponents has a liberating psychological effect. It gives you permission to go for shots. It removes the pressure of trying to be perfect because you’re already acknowledging that perfect execution isn’t going to be enough anyway. Instead, you’re freed to play loose, take chances, and see what happens.

There’s also something to be said for the confidence that comes from having a plan. When Navratil and Hovenier stepped onto the court against Johns and Tardio, they weren’t walking into the match hoping for the best. They had a clear strategy based on a realistic assessment of the situation. Even though they ultimately lost—and as Navratil noted, it wasn’t particularly close—they could take satisfaction in having executed their game plan.

For recreational players, this same mindset applies. When you’re facing a team that’s clearly better than you, don’t go into the match without a plan. Discuss with your partner how you’re going to approach the game. Agree that you’re going to be more aggressive than normal. Give each other permission to take risks and possibly make more errors than you typically would. Just having that conversation and agreement can reduce anxiety and help both of you play freer.

When Not to Use This Strategy

It’s worth noting that this aggressive, chaos-embracing approach isn’t appropriate for every situation. If you’re playing opponents who are only slightly better than you, the traditional emphasis on consistency and patience might still be your best bet. The skill gap needs to be significant enough that you genuinely don’t think you can beat them playing a controlled, conventional game.

Similarly, if you’re the better team, this is not the strategy to employ. When you have the skill advantage, you want long rallies. You want controlled exchanges. You want the point to extend for as many shots as possible because each additional shot is another opportunity for your superior skills to manifest. If you’re the favorite, embrace patience and consistency.

The aggressive approach is specifically for when you’re clearly outmatched and need to change the fundamental nature of the game to give yourself a chance. It’s about recognizing that the conventional playbook doesn’t apply when there’s a significant skill disparity.

Learning from the Pros

What makes Navratil’s insight valuable isn’t that it’s a secret technique unknown to other players. Many experienced competitors understand this principle intuitively. What’s valuable is hearing a top professional articulate it clearly and explain the reasoning behind it.

Too often, recreational players try to emulate what they see pros doing without understanding the context. They see professionals engaging in long dinking rallies and assume that’s always the right approach. But professionals aren’t in situations where they’re massively outmatched very often. When they are—when a lower-ranked team plays the number one seeds—you often see exactly what Navratil describes: more aggressive play, more attempts to speed up the ball, more risks taken.

By understanding the strategic reasoning behind these choices, recreational players can make better decisions about when to employ different styles of play. Pickleball isn’t a one-size-fits-all game. The best strategy depends on the specific matchup, the skill levels involved, and an honest assessment of your chances playing different styles.

The Takeaway

The core lesson from Navratil’s experience is simple but profound: when you’re facing significantly better opponents, don’t try to beat them at their own game. Instead, change the game itself. Introduce randomness, chaos, and aggression. Shorten points. Speed up the ball. Create situations where quick reactions matter more than refined technique.

Will this guarantee victory? Of course not. Navratil and Hovenier didn’t beat Johns and Tardio, and you probably won’t beat that team that’s two levels above you at your club. But you’ll give yourself a better chance than if you try to methodically out-dink and out-execute players who are simply more skilled than you.

More importantly, you’ll walk off the court knowing you had a plan and gave yourself the best possible chance to compete. You’ll have played proactive rather than reactive pickleball. And you’ll have learned something about strategic thinking that extends beyond any single match.

Pickleball, like any sport, rewards not just skill but also intelligent strategy. Sometimes the smartest strategy is to make the game a little less skillful and a little more chaotic. When you’re the underdog, chaos is your friend. Embrace it, and see what happens. The odds might still be against you, but they’ll be a lot better than if you try to beat a superior team at what they do best.