Bad Shots That Work

I had a couple of games against Larry and Kirby the other day.  The game they lost was due to a lot of shots going long.

But one must recognize that there are shots in PB that are technically bad, but will work in the heat of battle.  

The technique is to hit the ball too hard, but keep it barely in reach of the opponent.  Where to hit it, is the topic of the day.

You can win points by hitting the ball where the opp can't get to it.  For example a drive to the feet or a corner, or the dink that gets behind the opp as the net.

You can also do well by hitting a ball that is directly at an opp.  This is useful for serves and at the net.  If you can, the dominate hand hip and shoulder are traditional targets for good reason.

If you hit a ball at an opp that jams him and yet is moving too fast to duck is also effective.  Note that this shot doesn't have to be in to be effective, as it will never get past the baseline.  

There are variations on this too.  Hit it over a shoulder, somewhat hard, but in reach and it's the rare player that will duck it.

In the dinking game, it's easier to hit it hard (maybe at the opponent) than the touch shot.  There are a lot of Downs' players who do this and will hit the dink very flat, sometimes at you and sometimes trying to get it past you, but never intending it to land in or near the kitchen line.  

It is my opinion that a lot of these shots will go out, but ducking is difficult as the ball are typically low over the net and there is little time to decide about returning it and it may be too awkwardly placed to duck.  These kind of shots usually turn the point into a fire fight as the ball will keep speeding up until someone misses.

Now for the moral dilemma, should you deliberately hit balls that are going out?  You can probably get away with it for a while and it might be very good tournament strategy as you will be up against new opponents every game and tournament players are probably more likely not to duck as they are aggressively going after all balls.  

Is it a violation of partnership responsibility to play as well as you can?  Game theory might suggest that you should do it, as long as it succeeds more often then it fails.  

I might suggest that you hit a couple of wild ones early in a game, just to give the  opponents something to worry about.  Also, try a poach that takes you all the way across the court.  Do that early in the game and it may well modify the opponents play and what kind of returns they feel safe making.  I'd suggest that in any tournament game with strangers -- make them think and worry, then settle in to play solid pickleball.  

Lastly, to be a good player you don't want to be predictable, so do some weird things on occasion and have a partner with a sense of humor and advanced strategy.