Stop Hitting Pop-Up Dinks: 2 Fixes That Actually Work

If your dinks keep floating up and getting put away by your opponents, here is the honest truth: you do not have a technique problem. You have an energy problem. And once you understand that distinction, the fixes become surprisingly straightforward.

Most players who struggle with pop-up dinks spend their time thinking about grip pressure, swing speed, or paddle angle. Those things matter, but they are not the root cause. The real culprits are where you contact the ball and what your paddle does immediately after contact. Fix those two things and the pop-up habit largely disappears.

These fixes come from coach CJ Johnson at Better Pickleball, who has a sharp way of identifying exactly why recreational players keep handing opponents free points at the kitchen line. Let’s break both of them down in detail.

What Even Is a Pop-Up Dink, and Why Should You Care?

Before we get into the fixes, it helps to understand what is actually happening when a dink pops up — especially if you are relatively new to pickleball.

A dink is a soft, controlled shot played from near the kitchen line, which is the non-volley zone line at the front of the court. The goal of a dink is to land the ball in the opponent’s kitchen — that small seven-foot zone closest to the net — in a way that forces them to hit upward. When an opponent has to hit up, they cannot drive the ball hard at you. That keeps you safe and in control of the rally.

A pop-up dink is what happens when the ball travels too high after crossing the net. Instead of skimming low and dropping into the kitchen near the net tape, it rises into a comfortable hitting zone for your opponent. At that point, they can step in and put the ball away aggressively. You have essentially handed them a free point.

Pop-ups happen constantly at the recreational level and even creep into competitive play. Understanding why they happen is the first step to making them rare.

The Core Problem: Energy That You Did Not Account For

Every pop-up dink is the result of too much energy at contact. You are either absorbing energy the ball is still carrying from its bounce, or you are generating a burst of energy through your paddle motion at the moment of impact. Often both are happening at the same time.

Here is the physics in plain terms. When the ball bounces off the court, it carries upward energy. That energy does not vanish immediately. It decreases gradually as the ball rises. At the very top of the bounce — the apex — the ball has shed almost all of that energy and is briefly at rest before gravity pulls it back down.

If you make contact before the ball reaches the apex, you are hitting a ball that still has bounce energy in it. Your dink stroke then adds its own energy on top of that. The result is more force than you intended, and the ball travels deeper or higher than you planned. That puts it in attackable territory.

This is the whole problem in one sentence: you are stacking your energy on top of the ball’s energy, and the combined total is pushing the ball where you do not want it to go.

Fix One: Stop Short Hopping Your Dinks by Default

The apex of the bounce is your ideal contact point for a controlled dink. The ball is at its highest point, nearly all of its bounce energy is gone, and you can apply your normal stroke without worrying about stacking energy on top of anything.

A short hop is any contact you make between the moment the ball hits the ground and when it reaches the apex. Hitting the ball there is not automatically wrong, but doing it as a default habit is one of the most common reasons recreational players struggle with dink control.

Here is what happens in sequence when you short hop by habit. The ball bounces and starts rising. You rush toward it and make contact before it reaches the top. The ball is still carrying upward momentum from the bounce. Your normal dinking stroke fires on top of that momentum. The combined energy sends the ball deeper than you wanted. It lands in a spot where your opponent can step in and attack. You watch them drive it past you and wonder what went wrong.

The fix sounds almost too simple: wait. Let the ball climb to the apex before you commit to contact. This is a timing adjustment, not a mechanical overhaul. You are not changing your swing. You are changing when you swing.

One useful cue is to listen to the contact sound. A short hop produces a sharper, crisper pop because the ball still has bounce energy in it. A ball taken at the apex sounds softer and more muted. That audible difference is genuine feedback you can use during practice.

This principle also applies beyond dinking. If you have ever struggled with third shot drop placement, the same apex concept applies. You are dealing with the same energy variable every time the ball bounces in front of you.

Now, should you never short hop? No. There are situations where waiting for the apex simply is not possible. A ball with heavy topspin that kicks aggressively low, a fast exchange at the kitchen where there is no time to wait, or a ball that dies quickly after the bounce may all force you into a short hop. The rule is not to avoid short hops entirely. The rule is to make the apex your default and short hop only when the ball leaves you no other option.

When you are forced to short hop, you need to compensate. Use a noticeably softer touch, open the paddle face slightly, or consciously take something off the stroke to account for the extra energy the ball is carrying. The players who handle short hops well are not ignoring the energy — they are adjusting for it deliberately.

What kills most players is not the short hop itself. It is short hopping out of habit rather than necessity. They rush to the ball, tap it early, and then blame their stroke mechanics when the real issue is timing. If your forehand dink keeps getting attacked, contact point timing is the first variable to examine before you change anything else about your technique.

Fix Two: Stop Popping the Ball and Start Pushing Through It

The second energy mistake is the popping motion. This is when the paddle snaps or flicks through contact with too much wrist or elbow involvement, generating a burst of force right at the moment of impact. Players do this constantly without realizing it, and it is one of the main reasons dinks sail up instead of staying low.

You have probably seen this in recreational play. A player steps up to the kitchen, takes a reasonable-looking dink stroke, and the ball pops up into the middle of the opponent’s kitchen at shoulder height. Easy attack. The player looks confused because nothing about their setup felt wrong. The problem was entirely in what the paddle did at and after contact.

The correction is to think of your shoulder as the engine of the dink shot. Your arm, wrist, and paddle are the delivery system, not the power source. Coach CJ Johnson uses a helpful mental image here: imagine you are going to gently toss your paddle to a partner across the net. Your shoulder initiates that motion. Your elbow and wrist follow along as passengers. The paddle extends forward through the ball rather than snapping at it.

Another useful mental image is to think of pushing through four or five imaginary balls lined up on the other side of the contact point. Your paddle keeps traveling forward through all of them. This changes how the stroke feels entirely. Instead of a quick hit-and-stop motion, you get a continuous forward push that stays on the ball longer and produces a much more controlled result.

The most common dink pop-up fixes all point back to this same follow-through concept. When you do it correctly, your paddle will finish pointing toward your target rather than flicking upward or cutting across your body. The trajectory of your dinks will flatten out noticeably. Instead of a ball that arcs high and lands deep, you will produce a ball that clears the net with less height and drops into the kitchen closer to the net tape.

That low, net-skimming dink is the shot you are after. It forces opponents to bend down and hit up on the ball. When they have to hit up, they cannot attack. That is how you maintain kitchen control and gradually build pressure in a rally.

Watch how top players operate at the kitchen line and you will see this in action on every single dink. The paddle follows through toward the target consistently. There is no pop, no snap, no flick. Just a smooth shoulder-driven push that keeps the ball low. Compare that to recreational play where paddles often stop short or flick upward at contact, and the difference in ball trajectory between those two motions is dramatic.

How to Train Both Fixes Together

The good news is that both of these are trainable skills with a clear progression. You do not need a hitting partner to start, though one helps at later stages.

Begin by drilling the apex concept in isolation. Stand at the kitchen line and drop balls without hitting them. Just watch where the apex is. Get your eyes trained on that highest point of the bounce. Then add contact, focusing only on timing. Hit easy, slow dinks and work to make contact right at the top of the bounce each time. Do not think about your stroke yet. Just find the apex.

Once you are consistently finding the apex, add the shoulder-driven follow-through. Here is a simple progression that builds both habits together:

1. Drop a ball, let it rise to the apex, then push your paddle through the contact point toward your target with a shoulder-initiated motion. Repeat until the timing and motion feel connected.
2. Have a partner feed slow balls from across the net while you focus only on follow-through direction. Do not worry about placement. Just make sure the paddle is finishing toward the target on every rep.
3. Begin cross-court dinking rallies at medium pace. Call out “apex” quietly before each shot as a timing reminder. This keeps your attention on contact point during a live rally rather than defaulting to old habits.
4. Increase rally speed gradually once both the timing and follow-through feel automatic. Do not rush this step. The goal is to make both mechanics unconscious before adding pace.
5. Add game-like pressure by counting consecutive dinks that stay below net height at the midpoint of the court. This gives you an objective measure of whether your energy management is working.

If you want structured drilling that targets the same mechanics from the backhand side, backhand dink drills work the exact same principles from the other side of your body. The mechanics transfer directly. The same shoulder-driven push that fixes your forehand dink also fixes your backhand, and it applies equally to resets when you are caught in transition and need to neutralize a hard ball.

Why Players Keep Making These Mistakes Even After They Understand Them

Here is the frustrating part. Most players who read about the apex concept and the follow-through understand them immediately. They make sense. The physics is clear. The fix is obvious. And then they go out and short hop their next ten dinks anyway.

The reason is psychological as much as mechanical. Rushing the ball feels proactive. Moving forward and making early contact feels aggressive and decisive. Waiting for the apex feels passive, almost timid, even though it produces far more controlled and dangerous results. You have to actively fight the urge to rush, and that fight has to happen point after point in a match environment where pace and pressure make old habits resurface fast.

Treat every dink rally as a patience exercise. The player who waits for clean contact and follows through toward the target will almost always out-dink the player who rushes. Consistent, low, patient dinks create openings that rushed short hops never will. This patience under pressure is one of the habits that separates players who plateau from players who keep improving.

If you are stuck at a certain rating level and your kitchen game is not progressing, look at these two mechanics before you add new shots or new strategies. Before you start working on speed-ups, erne attempts, or more aggressive third shots, fix the energy mistakes that are turning your neutral dinks into opponent opportunities. The players who move up consistently are not hitting harder. They are hitting cleaner.

For a broader look at the unforced errors that cost points beyond just dinking, it is worth understanding the main causes of unforced errors across your whole game. The patterns are often the same — too much energy, too early, with too little follow-through in the right direction.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a pop-up dink in pickleball?

A pop-up dink is a dink shot that travels too high after crossing the net and lands in a spot where the opponent can attack it aggressively. It is almost always caused by excess energy at contact, either from hitting the ball before it reaches the apex of the bounce or from a snapping paddle motion at impact. Both problems add energy to the shot that you did not intend to add.

What is the apex of the bounce?

The apex is the highest point the ball reaches after bouncing off the court, right before gravity pulls it back down. At the apex, the ball has shed nearly all of the energy it carried from the bounce. This makes it the ideal contact point for a controlled dink because you are not fighting any residual upward energy from the bounce when you hit it.

Why does short hopping the ball cause dinks to go long or high?

When you contact the ball before it reaches the apex, it still carries upward energy from the bounce. Your normal dinking stroke then adds its own force on top of that, and the combined result pushes the ball higher or deeper than you planned. Waiting for the apex removes that variable entirely and gives you a much more predictable result from the same swing.

How should my paddle move when I dink?

Your shoulder should initiate the motion, and the paddle should extend forward through the ball toward your target. Think of pushing through several imaginary balls lined up beyond the contact point rather than snapping or flicking at the ball. The paddle should finish pointing at your target, not flicking upward or cutting across your body.

How long does it take to stop hitting pop-up dinks?

Most players notice real improvement within a single focused practice session when they isolate apex timing and follow-through separately before combining them. The bigger challenge is maintaining both habits under match pressure. Expect a few weeks of deliberate repetition before both mechanics become fully automatic in competitive play.