Drilling is essential to improving your pickleball skills, especially your ability to consistently hit quality drops. A few drills to master your basic drop skills include:

1. Drop Throws – You can practice your drop by yourself. Take a few pickleballs and stand in No-Man’s Land or the Transition Area facing your opponents’ side of the court. You do not need a paddle for this drill. Prepare your body by rotating your shoulders and upper body, bending your knees, and compressing your body into your paddle-side hip and knee. Prepare your “paddle” by placing a pickleball in your hand and moving your hand out in front of your paddle-side pant pocket with a cocked, firm wrist. Step with your non-paddle-side foot, toss the pickleball underhand into your opponents’ side of the Non-Volley Zone or Kitchen, and lift up and through the pickleball with your palm up toward the sky. Work on your touch when tossing the pickleball underhand.

2. Solo Drops – Similar to the drop throws, this drop drill can be done solo. However, this time you will need your paddle. Take a few pickleballs and stand in No-Man’s Land or the Transition Area facing your opponents’ side of the court. Prepare your body by rotating your shoulders and upper body, bending your knees, and compressing your body into your paddle-side hip and knee. Prepare your paddle by moving your paddle out in front of your paddle-side pant pocket with a cocked, firm wrist. Step with your non-paddle-side foot, toss the pickleball in front of you, and strike the underside of the pickleball with your paddle between your hip and your knee. After you strike the pickleball, lift up and through the pickleball with your paddle face up toward the sky. Work on your drop such that the pickleball lands in your opponents’ side of the Non-Volley Zone or Kitchen in the two-thirds portion closest to the pickleball net. As you improve on this drill, work yourself backwards toward the baseline and even behind the baseline. Remember, as you work backwards, make both your backswing and your follow through a little bit longer.
3. Continuous Drops – Grab your partner and set-up on the pickleball court with you and your partner directly across from one another. Your partner should be at the Non-Volley Zone or Kitchen Line, while you should be somewhere between the Transition Area and the baseline. Work on continuously hitting drops. Challenge yourself to see how many quality drops you can hit in a row or how many quality drops you can hit out of a certain number, such as ten. You could even try a game to see how many shots it takes for you to get to a particular number—for instance, the number eleven, where you add one point for a good drop and you subtract one point for a bad drop.

4. Three Up and Three Back – Set-up on the pickleball court with you and your partner directly across from one another at the Non-Volley Zone or Kitchen Line. Have your partner feed you a pickleball while you are standing at the Non-Volley Zone or Kitchen Line. Strike the pickleball and hit a drop, and then take a couple steps back into the Transition Area. Your partner will return your drop for you to hit another drop from the Transition Area. Strike the pickleball and hit a drop, and then take a couple more steps back to the baseline. Your partner will, again, return your drop for you to hit a third drop from the baseline. Stay at the baseline to hit one more drop, and then work yourself back to the Non-Volley Zone or Kitchen Line in the same manner that you worked yourself to the baseline. You should hit six drops in total. Once you hit six, switch and feed your partner.

5. Alternating Drops – Stand on the middle line at or near the baseline with your partner directly across the net from you. Have your partner hit or toss a pickleball a few feet to your forehand side. Move your feet and hit a forehand drop. Then, reset to the middle line. As you approach the middle line, have your partner hit or toss another pickleball a few feet to your backhand side. Strike the pickleball and hit a backhand drop. Then, reset to the middle line. Continue this pattern alternating both forehand and backhand drops. Try picking up the tempo if you want to increase the cardio! Once you feel that you have the hang of this, have your partner keep you guessing and hit forehand and backhand drops in a random sequence. However, make sure that your partner gives you time to get reset at the middle line in between each shot.

Drill, drill, drill and drop, drop, drop. You should practice these basic drop drills for at least twenty minutes, twice a week. If you do this, you will be on your way to consistently mastering one of the most important shots in pickleball—the drop shot, and, in particular, the third shot drop. If you can master basic drops, you are ready to move on the next lesson.

Key Takeaway:

1. Drill, drill, drill and drop, drop, drop to master your drop shot.