Owning the Soft Game

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to Pickleball Cheat Code, the show for competitive pickleball players who want to level up their game. We focus on advanced strategies for experienced players, stuff only the pros really know. I'm Brodie Smith, I'm a 5'5 plus level player and a coach, and I'm here with my co-host Tanner Tomasi. Hey everyone. Tanner is a 6'0 plus rated player and an APP gold medalist. Today we're going to be breaking down the importance of consistency and the soft game of pickleball.

[00:00:30] And how everyone overcomplicates the game. And at the end of the episode, we're going to be discussing the duper reset really quick. If we've done anything to improve your game, share the show with your pickleball community. Pickleball Cheat Code.

[00:00:54] Alright Tanner, I know I came in with a good quote last time we recorded, but I'm going to come in, not with a quote, but I'm coming in with a hot take for you. Ready for this? I'm ready. Hot pickleball take. You can 100% win a 5-0 gold tournament at a PPA without driving or speeding up a single ball. Thoughts? I totally agree. You do. Is speeding up any ball, can you hit a flick or no? You can hit a higher put away kind of ball.

[00:01:24] If it's, yeah, if it's not like something, I'm not talking about some nasty below the net flick. I'm talking about some higher balls, but you can't, you're not allowed to drive, you're not allowed to speed up a single ball off the bounce. Can you win a 5-0 gold? Absolutely, no doubt about it. That's what I'm thinking too. Somebody else asked me this the other day, and I thought it was really interesting, and people were saying like, no, there's no way. You need to be able to have to hit these crazy shots, these speed ups. You need to be able to lob. You need to be able to hit heavy drives. It's like, I don't think you need to at all.

[00:01:54] I think people really overcomplicate this side of pickleball of how important it is to play a soft game and be able to simply counter, put away easy balls, and just be consistent and make shots. Making shots is the most important thing of pickleball.

[00:02:11] It's really obvious, but more often than not, anywhere below the 5-0 level, the team that's making more mistakes, teams when they're losing, they're going to be beating themselves more often than somebody else is hitting these crazy down the line shots, fancy speed ups and angled shots. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I would say that's pretty fair to say. The consistent game definitely prevails over the erotic game. But it's not just like a little bit though. It's like night and day in my opinion. It's not even close.

[00:02:40] And I'm realizing this the more I'm playing in even higher level men's doubles matches. The teams who are just making more consistent shots. And I was going against these really, really good teams, and they're not doing anything crazy. I would always build up in my head that these top players in the world are hitting crazy shots, but it's not really the case. It's just the team that's just making more balls is going to win the match. So with that said, what are some ways that you've really worked on your soft game? You came from tennis.

[00:03:10] You know how to hit some drives. You know how to play with some power. When you first started pickleball, you probably were a little bit of a banger. But your style right now, and this is what you're best at, is defensive counters and making dinks all day long. How did you get to this point in your game? And how did you make that transition early on? I think I just had the realization like when the game is tight, I don't want to leave it up to chance by just driving or speeding up and hoping for the best.

[00:03:36] I'd rather kind of just get really good at doing what I'm going to do in a pressure moment. So I try to almost play my full game like it's a pressure moment where it's just a lot of dinking, moving the ball around, grinding the points, and then try to just earn a pop-up. And then you can put it away because it's much easier to win that game confidently. The other definitely involves some luck or your partner missing or this or that. So I think that's why I kind of developed this game and kind of just find a happy medium between both styles.

[00:04:05] Yeah, I mean if you're really just being controlling in the kitchen just by effectively dinking out of the air, which I think is a very underrated strategy of being able to lean in and move the ball around and hit really consistent shots. Because dinking out of the air is a way to apply pressure offensively and defensively, and you can hit them really shallow. Dinks in general, people don't realize how you can hit dinks pretty high. Even Gabe Tardio hits these really high dinks and it throws people off.

[00:04:36] You just can't have it land deep into the kitchen. So having some dead dinks pretty often is not that big of a deal. You can win a 5-0 tournament by hitting dead dinks all day long as long as you can find a way to be defensive with it and then just not miss. What are some drills that you have, Tanner, to work on this in particular and making sure that you're staying as consistent as possible?

[00:04:59] I think just like the basic one, straight ahead dinking with speed ups is probably the most effective you can drill you can do in pickleball. To focus on counters, right? Yeah, both. Or speed ups, yeah. Just speed ups, counters, dinks, balls out of the air, deception. Just straight ahead dinking with speed ups is the best. And then of course you can bring that cross court.

[00:05:19] I would say just like doing those three person drills, just focusing on like those two, cross and straight ahead, is definitely just like what you should spend the most time doing. I certainly have and I can guarantee every top player, not even just every pro has spent the most time doing that. I put money on it. Speaking of that, it's crazy to see results for after hours and hours and hours and hours of drilling. It really takes that long to see results in certain areas.

[00:05:48] Like I said, I've been working in my backhand dink and I keep going through different waves of me thinking I have it figured out. And then I realize I'm playing in a tournament in a tight situation and then I realize I don't have it figured out. And I know I still don't have it figured out fully. But another thing that really clicked for me recently on just making consistent all day long two hand backhand rolls. Because I've found situations where I'm grinding against somebody who makes it all day long. And then I'm missing my 10th or my 11th dink in these long rallies.

[00:06:15] A key thing that flipped for me recently was softening my hands completely and having a really, really loose grip with this shot. It's so easy. I see people all the time and I noticed it. I think I learned this when I was coaching somebody when they were hitting pop-ups. I noticed how tight their grip was and people try to like get low, that low roll style and get under the ball. They try to muscle through it so much.

[00:06:38] But what I've realized for myself is just really, really softening your hands allows you to go take that motion where you're brushing up all the way above your head. Because instead I used to just kind of shovel it like I was telling you a couple months ago when we were chatting. I'd shovel a lot forward because that was my way to avoid popping it up. But that really soft grip helps so much. It's night and day for me for being able to make more balls. Yeah, I would say that definitely probably helps with consistency.

[00:07:07] And then if you're nervous, you probably maybe grip a little tighter. I think that's true. I was going to say, I think people when they get in tournament mode, they're gripping the ball way tighter. Resets, even a server or drive, they're gripping it too tight. People need to be more mindful about how they're gripping their paddle. Yeah, so I think the drilling kind of helps alleviate that because you have more confidence in your shots. Like I know for me, when I switch to a new paddle, I might tend to over grip or under grip trying to figure out like the feel for it.

[00:07:35] And then especially with nerves, like it just, I don't have the most control. So I think just trusting and being confident goes such a long way as well. Yeah, I think the confidence thing is so important and I'm finally realizing that too. It's like you can play rec and maybe dominate people and play really well.

[00:07:54] But if you don't have that confidence going into a tight situation in a tournament, you're probably going to lose to the player that's more confident than you in those situations. If you're in these dink rallies and somebody has a little more confidence edge than you, the mental game is really hard. It's a very difficult thing in pickleball to get down. You might think that you're all that and you could dink all day. But when it comes to it and you're in crunch time in a long rally in a tournament, things are going to change.

[00:08:23] The more confident person will prevail. That confidence just comes from reps, reps, reps, and then playing more tournaments, playing more tournaments, playing more tournaments. I think it's a combination of both. But I've noticed the more tournaments that my partner and I have played recently, every single time we've gotten just a little bit sharper and a little bit sharper and a little bit sharper just by getting more reps and getting out on the floor more and getting out on the court more. Yeah, that's it. Absolutely.

[00:08:49] Here's something that I've noticed for player improvement for really owning the soft game recently. And I've noticed this from coaching players and trying to focus on the basics is mastering the short hop on all layers of the court. My students have been really, really leaning into this and really focusing on having a good short hop because I just realized how high level players just kind of have this naturally.

[00:09:16] And I haven't noticed them developing this part of their game. Like you can short hop yourself all day long and work into the kitchen, whether it's like even a third short hop, a mid court short hop. And then when somebody's hitting aggressive dinks at you, like that's your way of playing defense and just getting to the kitchen. And the reason why that's so important to develop is it forces you to not make big movements. It forces you to have good footwork.

[00:09:43] It forces you to get behind your paddle and behind the ball when you're hitting these shots in order to hit an effective short hop. So yeah, no big swings. Nothing's coming behind your body. Everything's really, really compact. You're not using any wrist. But when I've been implementing this for my coaching lately and really focusing in on this for myself, my students have been improving like crazy when they've been really, really being mindful of trying to short hop these shots.

[00:10:13] Because it kind of connects to everything that you should be doing right. Like if you know how to properly hit that short hop, it's really similar to how you'd hit that third by keeping your paddle out front, a compact stroke, and a compact lift. You know what I mean? I don't think people have really realized how much an effective short hop can translate to so many areas of an efficient soft game. Yeah, I would say that's a good way to look at it. I haven't thought of it that way, but that totally makes sense.

[00:10:38] I think if you cannot short hop it, it just gives you more prediction. Like a short hop is pretty variable. But yeah, I totally agree with you with that. You know what I mean, though? No, and I'm not saying for players to rely on that. Yeah, it's a good like last resort. Like I short hop a lot. Yeah. So yeah, again, at the kitchen, and this is a key thing, is you should always have that mental priority list in your head.

[00:11:07] Number one, look to take every ball out of the air and be effective where you're looking for pop-ups. Number two, try to take things off the bounce if you have time where that ball bounces, it hits its apex, then it descends, and then you can work into it and hit with some deception and create some angles. And then the third last resort when you're at the kitchen is to short hop, right?

[00:11:27] But let's say in your dink battle with somebody who's hitting aggressive shot after aggressive shot, and they're coming at you really hard, and you can't take it out of the air, and you don't have time to plant your foot and hit an effective dink back. This is what I was kind of talking about going into a 5-0 tournament. Maybe you're playing against a really, really good dinker.

[00:11:44] If you could sit there and short hop everything back and just play defensive, play the soft game, put the ball back in their court, and hit these shallow, soft ball, short hop resets, you're going to win if you're better at it than they are. If they can't make an 8th, 9th, 10th dink, and they keep trying to go aggressive, and you just keep re-centering the ball, you're going to win. This is what I'm referring to.

[00:12:07] I think that style of being able to use that when needed and be able to shift that style really, really can help players improve their game. Because I realize so many of these shots, it'll come fast for somebody, and they're trying to hit a reset or a third, and they'll take the paddle behind their body, and then they try to swing through it. And it's like, no, that needs to be out front, footwork, behind the ball, and it kind of creates a chain reaction to playing the right way and developing a strong, soft game.

[00:12:37] So I know I went on a rant there, but I hope that makes sense at least. That makes good sense. I think it's good to have all types of shots in your arsenal. So no matter what gets thrown at you, you're kind of always prepared and ready for it. So I would say it definitely doesn't hurt to be good at short hopping as a last-ditch effort or if you're caught off guard, for sure. Yeah. It's meant to be defensive. It's meant to be—you're not supposed to lead with it.

[00:13:03] So that's a very good distinction, and I'm glad you said that, because it's not how you're going to develop any sort of offense and apply any pressure. But there are some players that I play with that will just do it all day long. And if I'm making mistakes, that person will win every single time. Because short hopping, once you get good at it, it's really easy to do. It's really easy to take it off the balance and just recenter it, be a backboard, just shovel forward. And you can get to the kitchen all day long with that strategy if you do it well.

[00:13:31] But yeah, I think it's something that's really worth leaning into in your game, and I'm excited. I want people to go try that and report back in the comments here, because I'm really curious if that's going to make a difference for a lot of people's games. Because I've been noticing that, like I said earlier, with the people that I've been coaching, and it's been a huge, huge, huge piece of improvement. So for you, I know one of your key pieces of your game that you've developed so well is your counters.

[00:13:59] And that's another area of, if you are going to play a soft game, you still have to be able to counter properly for people that do speed up and you need to be defensive. So for you, what are some of the drills that you work on to make sure that you have clean counters? And then what do you do from a positioning aspect for making sure that you have good counters as well? Because if you're out of position, you're not going to be able to counter. So making sure that you're set, I know, is really, really key.

[00:14:25] The main drill that I do is I'll just stand in front of my partner at the kitchen line straight ahead, feed him a dead dink, and then he has to attack it. So that helps me. It's like starts a hands battle, and it helps me read the speed up, the speed, the location of the ball. So I've spent a lot of time doing that. I think that is the best drill you can do. I've done a million videos on that drill.

[00:14:50] So the second thing is wherever the ball bounces, I like to kind of put my chest in front of the ball at the last second. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that normally will kind of cut off the most likely spot for them to speed up, which is like down the line, kind of like straight ahead. And then if it's like more inset and they speed that ball up, it normally goes out of bounds, and they're forced to dink it.

[00:15:15] So I think kind of understanding that and putting that into action goes a long way in just making you have fast hands and be on the counter, hitting it hard and clean. Tell me more about sliding and getting in front of it at the last second. So you'll wait, see them load, and then right before you shift, is that just to create deception and hoping that they're trying to go for a certain spot, maybe your left shoulder, and then you're taking that away from them per se? Is that the strategy behind it?

[00:15:44] That could be into it. For me, as a lefty, I just know like if my chest, normally like as a lefty, I never need to open forehand. I just need to like protect my body and my line. So depending on where the ball is, if I just get my body in front of it, my best attribute is my backhand counter. So I'm just like taking away like say if the ball is down the line, I'm not standing like inset guessing like, okay, am I going to hit a two-hander if it goes down the line? Or am I going to like have to cover my body with one hand?

[00:16:13] I'd rather just step all the way over, get my body in front of it so I only have to worry about the ball coming to one area. And if not, then my partner gets it or it's his fault. I'm covering my shot. And for cross body, so I know some people, let's say they go inside out in you and they catch you coming across your body. You need to switch to your forehand. Do you catch that forehand behind your shoulders? Some people when they do that, they do that to get more time. Or are you still opening up and closing that counter out in front of your body? What's your thought process there?

[00:16:44] I would say that's an advanced thing to do. I know like Ben Johns is good at that. Will Howes is good at that. The turning and being late on it. I kind of struggle with the forehand. I'll either read it and flip open or I chicken wing it, which isn't good. So I would say I'm still kind of learning and kind of trying to figure that out. It's not easy to be able to flip open, but some people are really good at it. Good left-siders kind of have that. You kind of need that to be good.

[00:17:11] Um, so yeah, I would say I, I don't have that. I am either reading it and on it or kind of getting beat and chicken winging it. It's good to know for when I play you next. So that's my weak spot. That's your weak spot. So when you get behind the ball then and you're loaded up belly button to ball and you're squared up with it and are you, are you sitting there on your backhand flat, like ready for it? Or are you continental and ready just in case you kind of get half? I'll just sit like halfway. Yeah, halfway. Yeah. Not like this. Yeah.

[00:17:41] I would say enough room where it's easy to get to, to your backhand. Yeah. But in the, in the off event that it does come late to your forehand, you still have, you're not fully committed. Yeah. You can still open. You can still open. But then why don't you think continental is good? Just because they're, they're more likely to go to your backhand, right? So you don't want to be 50, 50. I think they're like with me as a lefty, it makes sense to cheat backhand. It doesn't make sense to sit neutral. I'll sit neutral.

[00:18:17] Um, I'll sit neutral if I back up just cause I have more time to react. Or does it depend on the player? I think it depends if it's high or not. Like if it's a high ball, I'll back up. If it's not high, I'll just stay on the line. Cause then you could just go down on it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Or if it's a dead ball, I'll back up anything where basically they can like fool me. I'll, I'll back up. Gotcha. What are some final tips and, um, an advice that you have for players to really develop

[00:18:45] their soft game and ensure that they're being consistent and just making balls? Cause like I said, you can win a five-0 tournament this way. It's not, it's not rocket science. It comes down to, like you said, some good positioning and a lot of other factors, but what would be some, some final takeaways that you'd give out? I would say you'll probably have like the urge to want to speed up early. So if you set like the rule with your partner, like 10 dinks minimum before you even consider a speed up off the ballots. Right. When number 11 comes in, you just start loading up. That's normally how it goes.

[00:19:13] But that I would say that takes away like the, uh, like the, the mental like urge to speed up. So essentially creating a number with your partner saying, Hey, we're not doing, no matter what, we're not speeding it up until it gets to this many, right? Yeah. Out of the air is fine, but off the bounce. Right. Out of the air is fine. Okay. So just be as patient as possible. Mid court thirds, everything just soft, soft, soft. All right. All right. I like it. It's good stuff.

[00:19:43] Um, I want people to comment back though on the short hop thing cause I'm very curious what the results will look like there and, and being able to develop that and play soft that way and let the paddle do the work. Um, but yeah, this is, this is interesting stuff. I like it. So last thing that I wanted to chat about before we go was the duper reset. I know we're a little late to this. The window's been open for I think a couple of weeks now. Is this something that you've looked at doing the duper reset? Do you know much about it? No, I don't know anything about it. I heard about it, but I don't know.

[00:20:12] Essentially you pay, it's kind of like a cash grab that duper, that duper's doing, but I think everybody took the bait and I saw so many people that were doing it at a PPA Challenger. You pay 30 bucks, I believe. And I think you have to play a minimum of eight matches and then it's a net new rating. So you start at like whatever, three, five or four or something, or you start at a non-rating and whatever your new duper is after that match, if it's higher than your previous duper,

[00:20:41] that's what your new duper is. And then if it's worse, it doesn't matter. You paid, you risked it, but you don't, you don't go down. You can't go down. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I heard that part of it, yeah. Would you ever do something like this? I know, I mean, is there ever a need for you to want to do this, to get above a certain rating? Like would you do it before you start going to play PPA or could you give two shits about what your duper is in terms of your perception of it?

[00:21:10] Because I know a lot of people care and I get why, but we've talked about this. Yeah, for me, I mean, I'm not too, I think my duper is honestly like a, I think it's actually like a five, six. But this- Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Is my duper higher than yours, Tanner? We're doing this live. I'm doing a live lookup. Go ahead. But I need to know if mine's higher than yours. This whole last year, the APPs, they didn't put any in. I had like my best year. Like I won and then I played like a local tournament that put it into duper and like

[00:21:38] I lost to somebody with like a low rating. It was like mixed doubles and my thing went down like three points. Like I don't care at all. So that's why I'm fine. That's good. I care right now just because I'm competitive with you. But no, it's not. My duper right now is 5.638. Yours is 5.683. Our 3.8 flipped. Damn it. It doesn't really make too sense if like if half of them go in and half of them don't. Like I, that just makes me not care at all.

[00:22:08] Like my best year, I won two events. I had really good wins and none. If your APP results in here, it would be, it would be far above mine. So. I don't know. Like a 5.6 is like pretty. It's not like low by any means, but like I feel like it's like you're not. It's lower than what you are. You're definitely. It's lower. But yeah, I mean it's fine. But like I said, if half of them go in, like I just lost, I don't pay any attention to it at all. The only thing it could be good for is like on videos, like trying to get people's attention. Like, hey, I have a six point. That's the only thing that like.

[00:22:37] I think that, you know, I think those are the, I think in general, I think everybody needs to stop caring about their duper and the resets and stuff and the reset in general. I think people are so attached to these numbers and it's like, look, mine went up by point two this weekend, I think, or this last weekend. So, I mean, it's a pretty good jump and I didn't do the reset and your results will eventually speak for themselves relatively. Like you're, it's going to be pretty accurate with how you're playing. It's always going to ebb and flow.

[00:23:05] So even if you do a reset in a month, it's probably going to go back to where it was before. Like realistically, it probably is. So even if it makes you feel good for a month and maybe you're going to stop playing, like it's going to, it will probably average out to what it should be regardless. I think the only time it makes sense is maybe for like content stuff, like where you want to do it for having a cool number to represent that, even though yours clearly should be above that. Or maybe you're doing a local ladder league and they only allow three, five plus slip players

[00:23:33] in and you're like at a three, three and you want to get in that league and they have a certain cutoff. Sure. Go do the duper reset to get yourself in a certain league or in a certain bucket within your community. That makes total sense. But I think just people need to remove the whole ego side of it and it cracks me up. I don't blame you. I mean, I thought about it. I considered it. But yeah, glad I didn't. I'm glad I didn't. I'm curious what it would be if I did it though, but who cares? Interesting stuff. Interesting stuff, Tanner. All right. It's great having PCC back.

[00:24:03] Much love. Get some more rest. We'll chat soon, my friend. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Bye, Tanner. Bye. Bye. Bye.