Why Your Pickleball Shots Keep Going Long: 4 Fixes That Actually Work
If your pickleball shots keep sailing past the baseline, you’re probably blaming your swing speed. That’s the wrong place to look. The real issue is almost always your paddle face angle, your follow-through, or your footwork — and none of those problems get fixed by hitting softer.
According to The Dink, the three root causes behind long shots are an open paddle face at contact, a rushed or incomplete follow-through, and feet that weren’t set before the swing. Fix those three things and a surprising number of your long balls disappear without changing anything else about your game.
What’s Actually Happening When Your Shots Go Long
Most players who hit long shots instinctively try to fix the problem by swinging softer or pulling back their follow-through even more. That approach almost never works, and here’s why: if your paddle face is tilted back at contact — even slightly — adding pace to the shot just sends the ball higher and farther out of bounds. Swinging softer doesn’t close the face. It just makes the same mistake happen with less power behind it.
The real culprit is contact quality, not swing effort. When your paddle face is open — meaning it’s tilted back toward the sky instead of squared to the net — the ball has nowhere to go but up. Even a clean, well-timed swing produces a long shot if the face isn’t vertical at the moment of contact. This is true whether you’re hitting a drive from the baseline, a reset under pressure, or a dink at the kitchen line that you misjudged by a few degrees.
Understanding how backspin works makes this even clearer. An open paddle face combined with backspin is one of the worst combinations for keeping the ball in the court. The spin and the face angle both push the ball upward, and the result tends to sail well past the baseline.
Breaking It Down for Newer Players: What Does “Open Paddle Face” Even Mean?
If you’re newer to pickleball or still building your fundamentals, the concept of paddle face angle can feel abstract. Here’s the simplest way to think about it.
Hold your paddle out in front of you like you’re about to hit a ball. If the face of the paddle is perfectly vertical — straight up and down, like a wall — that’s a square or neutral paddle face. If you tilt the top of the paddle away from you so the face points upward toward the ceiling, that’s an open paddle face. If you tilt the top toward you so the face points downward at the floor, that’s a closed paddle face.
When you make contact with an open face, the ball gets launched upward. The more open the face, the higher the ball goes. On a short shot like a dink, that means it floats past the kitchen line instead of dropping softly. On a drive, it means the ball clears the net with plenty of room but keeps climbing until it lands two feet past the baseline.
The tricky part is that most players don’t realize their paddle face is open when it happens. It often comes from grip pressure — squeezing the paddle too hard locks your wrist and causes the face to tilt back during your backswing without you noticing. A lot of players find out their face is open only when they film their swing from the side and watch the footage back. It’s genuinely surprising how much tilt shows up on camera compared to what it feels like in the moment.
Reviewing drive technique on video is one of the fastest ways to catch this problem, and most players are genuinely shocked by what they see.
The Follow-Through Problem Nobody Talks About Enough
Paddle face angle is the biggest reason shots go long, but a rushed follow-through is a close second — and the two problems often feed each other.
Here’s what a rushed follow-through looks like in practice. You start your swing on a good line, your contact feels clean, and then your arm decelerates right as the paddle moves through the ball. That deceleration causes the paddle face to flip upward at the last moment, right before the ball leaves the strings. The shot looks perfect off the paddle and then keeps climbing until it lands out.
A complete follow-through — one that extends fully toward your target — naturally closes the paddle face through contact. Short, punchy swings that stop early leave the face open. This is counterintuitive for a lot of players because it feels like a longer, more committed swing should produce more errors, not fewer. But the mechanics work in your favor when you finish the swing properly.
Topspin is the tool that makes this work even better. A low-to-high swing path with a full follow-through generates topspin, and topspin pulls the ball downward after it leaves your paddle. That means you can swing with real pace and still have the ball land in, because the spin is doing the work of bringing it down. This is exactly why beginner fundamentals emphasize a full swing path from the start — the habit pays off at every level after that.
There’s also a specific pattern worth watching for on the swing volley. Players who hit swing volleys that feel perfect off the paddle but land two feet deep are almost always cutting their follow-through short. The ball absorbs the energy of the swing and the leftover momentum has to go somewhere — and without a full follow-through to direct it toward the target, it goes upward.
How Footwork Sends Shots Long Without You Realizing It
Footwork is probably the most underappreciated cause of long shots, and it’s also the hardest to notice in the moment because your attention is on the ball and the swing rather than your feet.
The connection is simple. When you’re off balance, stretched out, or hitting while moving backward, your body naturally leans back to compensate for the instability. That backward lean tilts your paddle face open automatically, regardless of what your arm is doing. You can have perfect technique in a controlled drill and still hit long constantly in a real game if your footwork isn’t getting you set before contact.
The fix is one extra shuffle step before you swing. Getting your feet set even slightly — even just one small adjustment step — keeps your body weight moving into the ball instead of away from it. That body weight transfers into the shot and keeps your paddle face square through contact.
Good court positioning matters here too. A lot of long shots trace back not to the swing itself but to the court position that forced a rushed, off-balance contact. If you’re in a bad spot when the ball arrives, clean technique becomes nearly impossible no matter how much you’ve drilled it.
This becomes especially visible on defensive resets. When a hard drive comes at you and you’re scrambling, the natural reaction is to jab at the ball with locked arms and a stiff wrist. That combination almost always produces an open paddle face, and the ball sails long. Resetting effectively under pressure means slowing your hands down and letting the ball come to you, which feels wrong in the moment but consistently produces better results than speeding up and meeting the ball early.
Unforced Errors vs. Forced Errors: Why the Distinction Matters for Fixing Long Shots
An unforced error is any point you lose on a shot where you had enough time and position to execute it cleanly. A forced error is when your opponent’s shot genuinely didn’t give you a realistic chance to respond well.
Most balls going long are unforced errors. That matters because it changes how you should be practicing. If your long shots are happening on comfortable, in-rhythm situations — third shot drives when you’re set, dinks when you’re at the kitchen line, resets when you had time — then the problem is mechanical, not situational. You don’t need to drill under more pressure. You need to fix the habit first, and then the fix will hold up under pressure on its own.
Improving your mid-court positioning and making better decisions between driving and dropping on fifth shots eliminates a significant portion of long balls without touching your mechanics at all, simply because you’re putting yourself in better positions to make clean contact.
It’s also worth tracking how often the problem occurs. During your next session on court, note every time a shot goes long and whether you were set and balanced or rushed and off-balance. The pattern usually becomes obvious within one session, and that information tells you exactly where to focus your practice time.
4 Quick Fixes to Stop Your Pickleball Shots From Going Long
These four adjustments work in order, and you’ll typically notice a difference within a single practice session if you apply them deliberately.
1. Square Your Paddle Face at Contact
Film your swing from the side and check the paddle face angle at the moment of contact. Your target is a vertical face on drives. If you see any backward tilt, that’s your first fix. Loosen your grip pressure — a death grip locks the wrist and forces the face open before you even start your swing, especially on the backhand side.
2. Finish Your Follow-Through Every Single Time
A complete follow-through closes the paddle face naturally. A short, defensive poke leaves it open at the worst possible moment. Commit to a full extension toward your target on every shot, even if it feels like too much swing on softer shots. The habit of finishing the swing is more important than the specific amount of pace you’re generating.
3. Add Real Topspin
A low-to-high swing path generates topspin, and topspin pulls the ball down after contact. This gives you margin to swing with actual pace and still land shots inside the baseline. Working with a topspin trainer builds this swing path into muscle memory faster than drilling without feedback.
4. Set Your Feet Before You Swing
One extra shuffle step before contact keeps your body from leaning back under pressure. A forward lean — or even just a balanced, neutral stance — transfers weight into the shot and keeps the paddle face from opening. If you’re consistently hitting long on defensive shots, footwork is almost always part of the problem. Running through an advanced shot selection drill builds all four of these habits into a repeatable routine that transfers directly to match play.
Putting It Together in Practice
None of these fixes require rebuilding your swing from scratch or buying new equipment. They’re adjustments to existing habits, and adjustments respond well to focused repetition.
A figure-8 drill gives you high-volume reps on paddle control and consistent contact without needing a full-court partner or a specific drill setup. Pairing that with slow-motion follow-through work and some focused attention on your backhand volley covers most of the situations where paddle face problems tend to show up and stay hidden the longest.
If your third shot drive specifically keeps going long, consider trading pace for a cleaner drop when you’re not fully set. A well-executed drop that keeps you in the point is more valuable than a drive that sails long and hands the point to your opponent directly.
The consistent thread across all four fixes is the same: contact quality determines where the ball goes, not swing effort. Fix the face, finish the swing, and get your feet set — and most of your long shots stop being long.
Key Takeaways
- Long shots almost always trace back to an open paddle face at contact, not a lack of touch or the wrong amount of power.
- A rushed follow-through flips the paddle face open right before the ball leaves the strings, turning a shot that looked good into one that sails past the baseline.
- Off-balance footwork and scrambled defensive resets are the two situations where long shots pile up fastest.
- Adding real topspin and finishing your swing gives you margin to hit with actual pace and still land the ball inside the court.
- Most long shots are unforced errors, which means they’re fixable with focused solo practice rather than just more match reps.
