Holding Your Dinks: The Deadliest Kitchen Strategy You’re Not Using Enough
The pickleball world moves fast. What worked last year might already be outdated. And if you’re still rushing your dinks at the kitchen line, you’re falling behind. That’s the core message from Richard Livornese Jr., a top APP pro who just dropped a video that cuts straight to the heart of how modern pickleball is changing with a concept you’ve likely heard by now, but may not fully understand: holding your dinks.
The technique itself sounds straightforward, almost too simple to matter. But that’s exactly what makes it so potent. Holding a dink forces your opponent to prepare for a slew of possibilities, and that split-second delay is where you gain the upper hand. It’s not about hitting harder or faster. It’s about creating uncertainty, about making your opponent second-guess their positioning and timing. In a game where milliseconds matter and reactions can determine entire rallies, that psychological edge becomes everything.
What’s particularly interesting about this strategy is how it reflects the broader evolution of pickleball as a competitive sport. We’re moving away from the purely athletic, power-based approach and toward something more cerebral. The players who understand this shift, who can read their opponents and manipulate timing, are the ones dominating at the highest levels. And this isn’t just theory from some armchair analyst. This is coming from players who compete week in and week out on the professional tour, who have tested these concepts against the best in the world.
What ‘Holding the Dink’ Actually Means
Holding your dink isn’t some fancy paddle manipulation or wrist trick. It’s way simpler than that, and honestly, that’s what makes it so effective. As Livornese explains, holding your dinks isn’t actually about doing anything fancy with your paddle. It’s really just about early preparation. The concept works like this: when you get a dead ball at the kitchen line, instead of waiting for it to land and then reacting, you prepare your paddle early. You get into position before the ball even arrives. Then you wait.
And while you’re waiting, your opponent is left guessing. Are you going to dink it? Speed it up? Lob it? That uncertainty is your advantage. The mechanics are straightforward, but the mental game is where things get interesting. Your opponent sees you ready, paddle positioned, and they have to start making decisions before they really need to. They’re committing to a defensive posture before they know what you’re going to do. That premature commitment creates openings.
The best time to practice this is on dead balls, those floaters that hang in the air and give you time to think. If your opponent short hops a ball, you know it’s coming early, so you prepare. Then you have options. You can dink it softly, speed it up aggressively, or even lob it. Your opponent has to react to all of those possibilities, and that split-second delay is where you gain control. The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t require exceptional athleticism or power. It requires patience and awareness, two qualities that any player can develop regardless of their physical capabilities.
What makes this particularly effective is how it changes the rhythm of the rally. In most kitchen exchanges, there’s a predictable back-and-forth pattern. Players hit, react, hit, react. But when you hold your dink, you’re breaking that pattern. You’re introducing a pause, a moment of stillness that disrupts your opponent’s timing. They’re expecting the ball at a certain moment, and when it doesn’t come, even a fraction of a second later than anticipated, their positioning and paddle preparation become compromised.
The Two-Part Formula: Dink, Then Speed Up
Livornese breaks the holding dink strategy into two main patterns, and understanding both is crucial. First, there’s the hold and dink. When you prepare early and then hit an aggressive dink, you’re putting pressure on your opponent in a way that feels different from a normal rally. The key here is location. You want to dink on or just behind the kitchen line, not deep into the court. If you hold your paddle early but then hit a soft dink deep, you’ve wasted the advantage you created.
The real magic happens when you change your location. Livornese points to Ben Johns and Hayden Patriquin as the best in the world at this. They hold the ball, then hit it to different spots, creating gaps and forcing their opponents to move. You don’t need to be as skilled as those pros to benefit. Just changing where you hit the ball from your held position causes problems. Your opponent is preparing for one location, and when the ball goes somewhere else, they’re already a step behind. That’s how you create opportunities for yourself without necessarily hitting the ball any harder.
Second, there’s the hold and speed up. This is where things get interesting. If your opponent starts reaching for the ball after you’ve held it a few times, that’s your signal to speed up. When a player is reaching out of the air, they’re in a vulnerable position. They have to bring their paddle back and up, then hit. That’s a lot of movement. If you speed up the ball at that moment, they’re forced to go from a defensive position to a counter-attacking position in a fraction of a second. Most players can’t do that cleanly.
Livornese calls the first one or two balls “test balls.” You hit them softly to see how your opponent reacts. Once you see them reaching, you know it’s time to speed up and be aggressive. This is pattern recognition at its finest. You’re not just hitting balls randomly. You’re gathering information, observing how your opponent responds, and then exploiting the weaknesses you’ve identified. It’s a deliberate, methodical approach that transforms dinking from a defensive necessity into an offensive weapon.
The timing of when to speed up is critical and comes with experience. Speed up too early, before you’ve established the hold pattern, and your opponent is ready for it. They’re still balanced, still prepared for aggressive shots. But wait until they’ve started to reach, until they’ve committed to defending your held dinks, and suddenly that same speed-up becomes nearly impossible to defend. The ball is already on them before they can reset their position. This sequencing, this understanding of when to employ each element of the strategy, is what separates players who know the technique from players who can actually execute it under pressure.
Forward and Cross-Court: Two Sides of the Same Coin
The forward dink hold is most effective out of the middle of the court, which makes sense. When players get in trouble, they go to the middle. So you’ll see a lot of dead balls there, and being able to create from that area is a skill that’s going to matter more and more as the game continues to evolve. The middle is where rallies often stagnate, where both teams are trying to reset and find their footing. Being able to hold from the middle and then attack gives you a significant advantage in those situations.
The cross-court version adds another layer. The inside-out dink, where you hold the ball and then hit it across your body, is Ben Johns’ specialty. He holds, goes inside out, and gets his opponent off balance. Then, if that player starts to lean or reach, he holds again and snaps it through the middle. It’s a one-two punch that’s hard to defend. The cross-court hold is particularly effective because it opens up angles that wouldn’t otherwise be available. When you hold the ball, your opponent has to guard multiple zones simultaneously. They can’t commit to defending one area without leaving another vulnerable.
What’s especially clever about the cross-court approach is how it exploits court geometry. When you hit inside-out from a held position, you’re using the diagonal length of the court to your advantage. The ball has more space to work with, more room to curve and dip. And because your opponent is already guessing about timing, adding the element of angle makes their defensive task exponentially more difficult. They’re not just trying to figure out when you’ll hit the ball, but also where it’s going to go once you do.
The combination of forward and cross-court holds creates a complete system. You’re not locked into one pattern or predictable in your approach. You can mix them based on court position, opponent tendencies, and rally dynamics. This versatility is what makes the strategy sustainable over the course of a long match. Your opponents can’t simply adjust to one thing and neutralize your advantage. They have to defend against multiple threats, all stemming from the same fundamental concept of holding the ball before you hit it.
Why This Matters Right Now
Holding your dink is about patience, reading your opponent, and creating pressure without necessarily hitting harder. It’s about intelligence over athleticism. In a sport where power and speed have traditionally been valued, this shift toward patience and deception is significant. It means that pickleball is maturing as a sport. The game is becoming more nuanced, more strategic. The players who understand this will thrive. The ones who don’t will find themselves struggling against opponents who do.
We’re seeing this evolution at the professional level, where the margins between players are incredibly thin. Everyone at the top level has power. Everyone has speed. But not everyone has the court sense to know when to hold a dink, when to change location, when to speed up. That’s the differentiator now. And as these professional strategies filter down to recreational play, as they always do, understanding these concepts becomes increasingly important for players at all levels who want to improve.
If you’re serious about improving your game, this is worth watching and practicing. Start on dead balls. Get comfortable with early preparation. Hit a few test balls to see how your opponent reacts. Then speed up when they reach. It’s simple in theory, but it takes practice to execute under pressure. The challenge isn’t understanding the concept intellectually. Most players can grasp the idea quickly. The challenge is implementing it consistently during actual gameplay when your opponent is hitting balls at you and you’re trying to manage positioning, communication with your partner, and all the other variables that come into play.
This isn’t a magic bullet. It won’t fix a weak serve or poor footwork. But it’s a tool that separates good players from great ones. And if Livornese and pretty much every pro on the APP and PPA Tour is right, it’s a tool you’re going to need sooner rather than later. The game is evolving rapidly, and the players who stay ahead of that evolution curve are the ones who will continue to improve and win more consistently. Holding your dinks is one of those fundamental shifts that changes how you think about kitchen play entirely.
Understanding the Kitchen Strategy for Beginners
If you’re relatively new to pickleball or haven’t spent much time thinking about advanced kitchen strategies, the concept of holding your dinks might seem abstract or even confusing at first. Let’s break it down in simpler terms. The kitchen, officially called the non-volley zone, is the seven-foot area on each side of the net. This is where a lot of the game’s action happens, particularly in intermediate to advanced play. Players stand at the kitchen line and hit soft shots called dinks back and forth, trying to create opportunities to attack.
Traditionally, when a ball comes to you at the kitchen line, you might wait for it to bounce, then immediately hit it back. This is reactive play. You’re responding to what your opponent does with minimal thought about what happens next. The problem with this approach is that it’s predictable. Your opponent knows roughly when you’re going to hit the ball and can prepare accordingly. They’re ready for your shot because they can time their preparation to match your timing.
Holding your dink changes this dynamic completely. Instead of waiting and then reacting, you prepare early. You get your paddle in position while the ball is still in the air. Then, crucially, you don’t hit it immediately. You wait a moment. This waiting period is what creates the advantage. Your opponent sees you ready and thinks the ball is coming right away. They start to prepare, to move, to position their paddle. But the ball doesn’t come. And in that brief moment of uncertainty, they become vulnerable.
Think of it like a pump fake in basketball. When a player fakes a shot, defenders often jump or move out of position. They’re reacting to what they think is going to happen, not what actually happens. Holding your dink works the same way. You’re creating a false expectation, and when reality doesn’t match that expectation, your opponent makes mistakes. They reach when they shouldn’t. They commit to defending one area when the ball goes somewhere else. They prepare for a soft shot when you actually speed it up.
The beauty of this strategy for players at all levels is that it doesn’t require exceptional physical skills. You don’t need to be the fastest player on the court or have the hardest shots. You need awareness and patience. You need to watch your opponent and understand how they’re reacting to your held dinks. Are they starting to reach early? That’s when you speed up. Are they staying back and waiting? That’s when you place your dink more aggressively. The strategy adapts based on what you observe, making it incredibly versatile and effective regardless of who you’re playing against.
For beginners looking to incorporate this into their game, start slowly. Pick moments during recreational play when you get an easy, high ball at the kitchen line. Instead of hitting it right away, prepare your paddle early and pause for just a moment before you hit. Watch what your opponent does during that pause. Do they move? Do they tense up? Do they start to reach? This observation is the foundation of the entire strategy. Once you get comfortable with the basic hold, you can start to experiment with hitting to different locations or speeding up when you see your opponent reaching. Over time, this becomes intuitive, a natural part of how you play at the kitchen line rather than something you have to consciously think about.
Practical Implementation and Practice Tips
Understanding a concept and executing it consistently are two different things. If you want to integrate holding your dinks into your actual gameplay, you need a structured approach to practice. Start with drilling. Find a partner and set up a simple dinking drill where you’re both at the kitchen line hitting soft shots back and forth. During this drill, focus exclusively on early preparation. Don’t worry about holding the ball yet or doing anything fancy. Just work on getting your paddle in position early, before the ball arrives. This builds the muscle memory that makes everything else possible.
Once you’re comfortable with early preparation, start introducing the hold. When you get a ball that’s floating or coming in high, prepare early and then pause for a count of one before you hit. It doesn’t need to be a long pause. Even a fraction of a second is enough to create the effect you’re looking for. Pay attention to how your drilling partner reacts. Do they start to adjust their position during your pause? That’s the signal that your hold is working. If they don’t react at all, you might need to make your preparation more obvious or hold for slightly longer.
After you’ve practiced the basic hold, start working on the two main follow-ups: the aggressive dink to a new location and the speed-up. For the aggressive dink, focus on hitting the ball low and on or just behind the kitchen line, but to a different spot than where you’ve been dinking previously. If you’ve been hitting cross-court, hold and then dink down the line. If you’ve been hitting to their backhand, hold and then attack their forehand. The location change is what creates the opportunity, not necessarily how hard you hit the ball.
For the speed-up, wait until your drilling partner starts to reach early in anticipation of your held dink. When you see them extending out of the air to try to catch the ball before it bounces, that’s your moment. Speed up the ball directly at their body or at their paddle-side hip. These are the hardest targets to defend when someone is already reaching. The key is recognizing that moment of vulnerability and capitalizing on it immediately. If you wait too long, they’ll reset and be ready to defend your attack.
As you get more comfortable with these patterns in drilling, start trying them in actual games. Begin with recreational play where the stakes are lower and you can experiment without too much pressure. Look for the dead balls, the high floaters that give you time to prepare. These are your opportunities to practice holding. Hit a few test dinks to see how your opponents react. Are they aggressive? Passive? Do they reach early or wait back? This information tells you which follow-up to use. Against aggressive players who like to speed up themselves, your held dink followed by a location change often works best. Against passive players who just want to keep the ball in play, your held dink followed by a speed-up is usually more effective.
The most important thing is consistency. Don’t expect to master this overnight. Like any advanced technique, it takes time to develop the court awareness and timing to execute it properly under pressure. But if you practice deliberately, focusing on one element at a time, you’ll find that it becomes
