Name: 5 Beginner Pickleball Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
Uploaded: 2026-03-03T09:46:52.000Z
Duration: 8 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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The hard truth that you need to realize when it comes to winning more pickleball games is that it's less about learning how to hit fancy shots and more about eliminating common mistakes on court.

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In this video, we're going to talk about five mistakes beginner pickleball players often make and how to fix them so that you win more pickleball games.

The imperative

Eliminating this one mistake can actually create an incredible advantage for you on the pickleball court, and

that's that oftentimes beginners, when they serve the ball, they just try to get the ball in, and

they don't want to make a mistake, so they kind of just hit the ball and just try to get it in.

But what you should do instead is actually go for your serve.

When you go for your serve and try to get it into that back third of the court, you're actually going to create a much easier opportunity for you to have a good third ball because your return is going to be a lot less damaging.

So when you're doing this on the court, you actually want to go for your serve.

Like even that one I hit just a little bit long, but

I would rather you miss a few long than just try to get your serve in, because the return on investment is going to far outweigh just getting the ball in.

The next mistake I see a ton of beginner players make happens at the kitchen line, and

And it's honestly when they split speed up any and every ball.

Now, the problem with hitting a speed up on every ball is I'm gonna get hammered because at some point I'm going to end up speeding up or attacking a ball that I really shouldn't.

So I'm going to give you a cheat code to tell you which balls you actually should speed up strategically and which balls to just simply dink back.

So the speed up traffic light example is going to be like this.

Now, I want you to think of three different zones.

In green is go ahead and speed up the ball.

Now, I want you to think of this in terms of where the ball is going to be when your paddle contacts the ball.

So if your paddle is going to contact the ball really low, that's going to be kind of from your hip down to your feet.

Because the only option for me to speed that ball up is to hit it up, which means my opponent's going to be able to hit down on it.

Now, a yellow ball is going to be a ball that my paddle contacts somewhere around my hip level.

Now, that's going to be a ball that I technically can speed up, but

I'm going to want to use top spin, because again, I don't want to give my opponent a really high ball for them to hit down.

Now, this is going to be a ball that's going to bounce really high above net level, and

that's going to be a ball that I should speed up because I can technically hit down on it.

Restraining yourself from hitting a ton of speed ups is honestly going to save you so many points.

And if you use this traffic light example, it's going to really help you decide which ball to speed up and which ball to just ding back.

Many beginner pickleball players fail to know this about spacing on the court, and

it actually creates a lot of confusion for you and your partner.

Now, the mistake a lot of beginner players make is they think that this is 50, 50, meaning I play my half of the court and she plays her half of the court.

You're not just responsible for your half and she's responsible for her half, but

you actually want to slide depending on where this pickleball is when it's on the other side of the net.

So, for example, if this ball gets pushed out wide and it goes this way, she's going to slide to cover that line, and

I'm going to be covering and squeezing the middle.

But as you can see here, I'm actually cheating even further over this way as opposed to just being right here.

This is going to eliminate places where your opponents can be offensive, and

it's going to force them into the hardest shot on the court, which is cross court.

If they go cross court, I can then lean in here and be offensive.

But the important thing to note is that I'm sliding and I'm active with my feet with my partner.

So if the ball gets pushed to this corner, I'm going to slide.

My responsibility is this line, and she's going to slide.

If this person speeds up to the middle, she's right here to take care of that ball.

So just know when you're playing pickleball, it's not 50, 50 on a split of who has what, but

you're going to slide depending on where the ball is on the opposite side of the court.

If you do this, you will simply win way more pickleball points.

The next mistake I see a lot of beginner pickleball players make at the kitchen line is simply not being ready for a speed up.

Now, a trick here that's going to really help you is always preparing for a fastball.

A simple way to do this is to simply keep your paddle up up on your follow through with your dink and make sure that your paddle ends up somewhere around chest level.

Even if you're in a dinking rally, I want you to always have the mentality that a fast ball is going to come.

That way you're mentally prepared that something fast is going to come at you and you're pleasantly surprised when it's just a date.

But if you're only expecting a dink, then, then when a speed up comes, you're often caught off guard.

So instead of thinking to yourself, oh, I'm only going to prepare for a fastball if I see a hint or if I see their body position change, always think to yourself, a fastball is coming, and

be pleasantly surprised when it's just a dig.

This next mistake is one that I made all the time when I first started playing pickleball, and

that's that I would just go for too much on my shot in relation to where I was on the court.

The first further I am back, the more I can kind of let it go and go for my shot.

But the closer I get to the net, I have to be a lot shorter with my shot, and

I have to be a lot more defensive with my shot.

And quite frankly, it takes a lot more spin to keep the ball in from here than it does from there.

I can't add as much power as I can from back there or else that ball's going to sail.

When I'm back here, I can kind of let it go and go for shots, and

But the mistake a lot of beginners make is that once they kind of get up into transition, they get into this spot here and they're like, oh, I'm going to go for that shot.

So just keep it a rule of thumb that the closer you get to the net, you want to shorten up that backswing, use a little bit more spin and a little less power, and

That's going to win you way more pickleball points.

If you made it this far in the video, I'm going to reward you by giving you a bonus tip here.

And it's understanding that success rate for shots is super important to think about when you're hitting put aways on the pickleball court.

So, for example, when you have your opponents in a really vulnerable position and you're getting overheads at the kitchen line, a huge mistake people do is they want to hit the craziest angle, they want to go for the line, and

that ends up a lot of times with some unforced errors.

So when you're in a position and you're getting really good overheads, especially if you're under the fiber level, it's actually really important to go for the higher percentage shot in the higher percentage success rate.

I always think to myself, if I have an 80% success rate in hitting this shot, that's a good one to go for.

But if I'm going to go for a line or a crazy angle, I'm honestly putting my team at a massive disadvantage.

So if you're in a position where your opponents are really vulnerable and you have overhead over overhead, just keep hammering the shot down the middle or at least a couple feet from the line, and

I promise you, you're going to win way more points than going for the crazy angle or going for the shot that hits the line.

If you like this video, you'll definitely like the next one we have coming up.

So be sure to like subscribe and turn on those bell notifications and we'll see you in the next one.

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5 Beginner Pickleball Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

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