The Backhand Decision Tree: One Pro’s Real-Time Strategy for Cooking at the Kitchen

In the fast-paced world of competitive pickleball, split-second decisions at the kitchen line can mean the difference between winning and losing a crucial point. The speed at which rallies develop leaves little room for hesitation or overthinking, yet somehow the best players in the world consistently make the right choices under pressure. How do they do it? The answer lies not in superhuman reflexes alone, but in having a systematic framework for shot selection that becomes instinctive through deliberate practice.

Professional player Zane Navratil has developed what he calls the backhand decision tree, a mental framework that helps him navigate the complex landscape of options available when hitting from the backhand side at the kitchen line. Rather than relying on instinct or guesswork, he cycles through five specific questions in real time to determine the optimal shot for each situation. This systematic approach has proven effective at the highest levels of competition and offers recreational players a roadmap to dramatically improve their shot selection and winning percentage.

Understanding the Challenge of Backhand Shot Selection

The kitchen line presents unique challenges that don’t exist elsewhere on the pickleball court. Your reaction time shrinks to milliseconds as balls come at you from just feet away. The margin for error narrows considerably, and poor shot selection gets punished immediately. Add in the complexity of backhand mechanics, which naturally offer less power and range than forehand shots for most players, and you have a recipe for confusion and inconsistent play.

Should you take the ball out of the air or let it bounce? If you’re hitting it in the air, should you attack or reset? If it bounces, do you use a one-handed slice or a two-handed drive? And regardless of which grip you choose, when exactly should you go for the aggressive shot versus playing it safe? These questions cycle through a player’s mind dozens or even hundreds of times during a single match, and the cumulative effect of these decisions determines the outcome far more than any single spectacular shot.

Most recreational players make these decisions based on feel or habit, without a clear framework guiding their choices. This leads to inconsistency, missed opportunities, and frustration when they can’t figure out why their shot selection keeps getting them in trouble. The backhand decision tree changes that by providing a clear, logical sequence of questions to answer before every shot.

Question One: Should I Take the Ball Out of the Air?

The first question in Navratil’s decision tree addresses whether to volley the ball before it bounces. This should be your default instinct when possible, and there are two compelling reasons why taking balls out of the air gives you a significant tactical advantage.

First, volleying allows you to contact the ball at its highest point. This seemingly simple fact has profound implications for your ability to apply pressure. When you take a ball out of the air, you typically make contact several inches or even a foot higher than you would after waiting for the bounce. This elevated contact point makes it exponentially easier to hit down on the ball and create a sharper angle toward your opponent’s feet or the sideline. The geometry works in your favor, giving you access to angles and pace that simply don’t exist when you’re forced to lift a ball from below the net after the bounce.

The second reason for prioritizing aerial shots is less obvious but equally important for maintaining tactical dominance: taking balls out of the air helps you hold your position at the kitchen line. When you consistently volley, you send a message to your opponents that they need to hit shorter, more precise dinks to keep you from attacking. This forces them to take more risk with their placement, often leading to errors or balls that pop up into your strike zone.

Conversely, when you routinely let balls bounce that you could have volleyed, you invite your opponents to push you back off the line. They’ll start hitting slightly deeper and harder, knowing you’re not going to punish them by taking balls early. Before you know it, you’ve been nudged back into the transition zone where you’re far more vulnerable to attacks and have much less offensive capability yourself. Staying aggressive with your volleys keeps you in the power position and puts continuous pressure on the other side of the net.

Question Two: Should I Attack It?

Once you’ve determined you can take the ball out of the air, the next critical question is whether to attack that volley or play it as a controlled reset. This decision depends on multiple variables that you need to assess simultaneously, and getting it right consistently separates good players from great ones.

The height of your contact point is the primary factor to consider. Generally speaking, the higher the ball when you make contact, the better your chances for a successful attack. Balls that come to you above the net give you the ability to hit sharply downward, making it extremely difficult for opponents to counter even if they anticipate the attack. As the contact point drops closer to net height or below, your attack options become more limited and the risk of hitting into the net or setting up an easy counter increases dramatically.

Your personal skill set plays a major role in this calculation as well. Some players have developed exceptional hands and can successfully attack from surprisingly low positions. Ben Johns famously hits backhand flicks from his shoelaces that somehow clear the net with pace and still dive down into the court. But for most players, attempting attacks from below net height is a low-percentage play that results in more errors than winners. Be honest with yourself about your capabilities and attack from positions where your success rate exceeds 50 percent.

Your opponent’s positioning and skill level also factor into the equation. If they’re leaning one direction, caught in poor position, or showing weakness in their hands battle, you might attack a slightly lower ball than you normally would because the tactical situation favors aggression. Conversely, if you’re facing opponents with lightning-fast reflexes and exceptional counter-punching ability, you might need a more perfect setup before pulling the trigger on an attack.

Question Three: Should I Let the Ball Bounce?

Despite the general preference for taking balls out of the air, there are times when letting the ball bounce is the smart play. Knowing when to override your aerial instinct and let the ball drop separates players who understand tactical positioning from those who simply chase every ball without regard for their balance or court position afterward.

The key consideration here is range. Your effective range is the area where you can consistently make contact while staying balanced and recovering quickly to a strong ready position. This range varies by player based on height, wingspan, footwork, and flexibility, but everyone has limits. When a ball travels outside your comfortable range, reaching to take it out of the air often means overextending your body in ways that leave you vulnerable.

An overextended volley typically results in one of several negative outcomes: you miss the shot entirely, you hit a weak reply that sets up your opponent for an easy attack, or you make the shot but end up so off-balance that you can’t defend the next ball effectively. None of these outcomes justify the aggressive attempt to volley everything. Instead, when a ball is beyond your comfortable range, the intelligent play is to let it bounce and use the extra time to move your feet into better position for a controlled reset.

This doesn’t mean giving up on the point or playing passively. It means recognizing that sometimes the path to winning the point runs through patience rather than aggression. Let the ball bounce, get yourself into a strong balanced position, and hit a quality reset that neutralizes your opponent’s advantage and keeps you in the rally. The opportunity to attack will come, but not if you’ve already lost the point by overextending on a low-percentage aerial attempt.

Question Four: One-Handed Backhand or Two-Handed Backhand?

Once you’ve decided to let the ball bounce, you face a new decision point: should you hit a one-handed slice or reset, or should you use a two-handed backhand? Each option has distinct advantages and appropriate use cases, and selecting the right one for each situation is crucial for maintaining offensive capability from the backhand side.

The one-handed backhand slice offers significantly more range than the two-handed option. When you’re stretched wide or pulled off the court, the single hand allows you to reach balls that would be physically impossible to hit with two hands on the paddle. This extended range comes with a tradeoff—the one-handed slice generally provides less power and fewer offensive options than the two-hander. However, it excels at applying heavy backspin that stays low and forces your opponent to hit up on their next shot.

The tactical value of the one-handed slice extends beyond emergency situations. Even when you could technically hit a two-hander, occasionally mixing in a one-handed slice with heavy backspin keeps your opponents guessing and prevents them from timing your rhythm. The different spin and pace disrupts their preparation and can lead to pop-ups or errors as they adjust to the varying ball behavior.

The two-handed backhand, on the other hand, should be your preference whenever the ball bounces within comfortable range in front of you. The two-handed grip provides more stability and power, giving you the ability to drive the ball with pace or hit aggressive dinks that penetrate deeper into your opponent’s court. With two hands on the paddle, you have better control over both pace and placement, and you can more easily disguise whether you’re planning to attack or dink.

The key to this decision is the phrase “within comfortable range in front of you.” If you’re reaching or stretching to hit a two-hander, you’ve probably chosen the wrong shot. When in doubt about whether the ball is within range for a quality two-handed backhand, default to the one-handed slice. It’s better to hit a solid slice from a balanced position than to force a weak two-hander from an overextended position.

Question Five: Should I Attack the Two-Handed Backhand?

The final question in the decision tree applies specifically to situations where you’ve opted for the two-handed backhand off the bounce. Now you need to determine whether to use that two-hander as an attacking shot or as a controlled dink to keep the rally going. This decision requires synthesizing all the same factors we discussed for attacking out of the air: ball height, your skill level, opponent positioning, and their defensive capabilities.

A useful rule of thumb is to attack anytime you assess your chances of winning the point at greater than 50 percent. This sounds simple, but it requires honest self-evaluation and mental tracking of your success rate in various situations. Over time, you’ll develop an intuitive sense of which setups you can capitalize on and which ones require more patience.

Ball height remains the most important factor. A two-handed backhand that you can hit from above net height offers significantly more offensive potential than one you’re forced to lift from below the net. As the ball height increases, so does your margin for error on the attack, allowing you to hit with more pace while still keeping the ball in the court. Conversely, attacking from low positions requires perfect execution and leaves little room for error.

Your opponent’s positioning can tip the scales toward attacking even when the setup isn’t perfect. If they’re caught leaning the wrong direction, trapped in poor court position, or showing signs of fatigue or decreased reaction time, you might take a shot at a ball you’d normally dink. Reading these tactical situations and exploiting momentary weaknesses is part of what separates elite players from merely good ones.

The inverse is also true. Against opponents with exceptional defensive skills and lightning-fast hands, you might need a more pristine setup before attacking. There’s no shame in recognizing that your opponent has great defense and waiting for a better opportunity. Patience often wins more points than forced aggression against skilled defenders.

Learning Through Self-Reflection and Match Analysis

Understanding the backhand decision tree intellectually is only the first step toward implementing it effectively in your game. The real improvement comes through deliberate practice and honest self-reflection after your matches. This analytical process helps you calibrate your decision-making and identify patterns in your shot selection that might be costing you points.

After each match, take a few minutes to ask yourself two critical questions: How was my attack strategy overall, and what points did I truly deserve to win versus which ones did I simply get lucky on? These questions force you to think critically about your decisions rather than just celebrating the wins and forgetting the losses. You might realize that you’re attacking too often from low positions, or conversely, that you’re being too passive when opportunities present themselves.

Navratil emphasizes that this self-reflection is essential for understanding your own game and improving your answer to the fundamental question: should I attack or should I reset? Without this feedback loop, you’re likely to keep making the same mistakes repeatedly without recognizing the pattern. As Anna Bright frequently stresses about her successful partnership with Anna Leigh Waters, the key to improvement lies in reflecting honestly, both individually and collectively, about your performance.

Consider keeping a simple mental tally or even a written log of your attack success rate in different situations. How often do you win the point when attacking from above net height? What about attacks from below the net? What’s your success rate on one-handed slices versus two-handed drives? This data-driven approach to improvement takes the guesswork out of the process and helps you make better decisions under pressure.

Putting the Decision Tree Into Practice

The backhand decision tree provides a systematic framework for navigating the complex tactical landscape at the kitchen line, but it won’t transform your game overnight. Like any framework or system, it requires dedicated practice before it becomes automatic and instinctive. The good news is that with consistent application and the kind of honest self-reflection described above, this decision-making process will gradually speed up until it happens almost unconsciously.

Start by consciously running through the questions during practice sessions or recreational games where the stakes are lower. At first, the process might feel slow and analytical, disrupting your natural rhythm. That’s normal and expected. You’re essentially reprogramming your decision-making patterns, and that takes time and repetition. Stick with it, and you’ll notice the framework becoming more intuitive with each session.

As the decision tree becomes more automatic, you’ll find yourself making smarter choices without consciously thinking through each step. You’ll instinctively know when to take a ball out of the air and when to let it bounce. You’ll develop a better feel for which attacks have a high percentage of success and which ones are forcing the issue. Your shot selection will become more consistent, and your winning percentage will reflect that improvement.

The framework also helps you stay calm under pressure. When the point is on the line and your heart is racing, having a systematic approach to fall back on prevents panic and impulsive decision-making. You can trust the process rather than second-guessing yourself in the moment. This mental clarity is invaluable in competitive situations where confidence and composure separate the winners from everyone else.

Understanding the Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to the Kitchen Line

For players who are newer to pickleball or still developing their understanding of kitchen line strategy, some of the concepts in this article might need additional context. The kitchen, officially called the non-volley zone, is the seven-foot area on each side of the net where players cannot hit volleys. This zone fundamentally shapes pickleball strategy and is where most competitive rallies ultimately take place.

When we talk about playing at the kitchen line, we mean positioning yourself just behind this non-volley zone line, typically with your toes an inch or two back from the line itself. This forward position is generally the most advantageous spot on the court because it allows you to take balls early and hit down on them, creating difficult angles for your opponents. Most of the game at competitive levels involves all four players stationed at their respective kitchen lines, engaged in what’s called the “dinking” battle.

A dink is a soft shot hit from near the kitchen line that arcs gently over the net and lands in the opponent’s kitchen. The purpose of dinking is to keep the ball low and unattackable while looking for an opportunity to either hit an aggressive dink that creates an awkward response or to attack an opponent’s mistake that results in a higher ball. This patient, strategic exchange is where the backhand decision tree becomes most valuable, as you’re constantly evaluating dozens of balls per point to determine which ones merit different responses.

The backhand side specifically refers to the left side of the court for right-handed players and the right side for left-handed players. For most players, the backhand is mechanically more challenging than the forehand, offering less natural power and requiring more technical precision. This is why having a systematic approach to backhand shot selection is so valuable—it helps compensate for the mechanical limitations by ensuring you’re making optimal tactical choices even when the stroke itself might be less