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Tip of the day

Backhand Speed-Ups at the Pickleball Kitchen Line

The best backhand speedup is the one your opponent never sees coming. That disguise starts with your dink.

From the left side, learn the one-handed roll dink: come around the outside of the ball, grab it, and lift. That single stroke opens the whole court, hard crosscourt wide, middle, or down the line.

The key is that every stroke looks identical, whether you are dinking soft or speeding up. If your opponent cannot tell the difference until the ball is on them, your attack lands.

Restraint makes it work. The more often you speed up, the more your opponents sit and wait for it, so stay in the dink rally and let the surprise build.

Vary your targets too: middle, line, and body are all live. It is a chess match, and if they never know whether to sit forehand or backhand, every option gets stronger.

One specific read: most players guard their body with a backhand counter. If you see that, keep attacking down the line, because even a good block there eventually turns into a pop-up.

Out of the air, the roll is small: drop the paddle head slightly and come up on the ball with your shoulder, using only a tiny bit of wrist. Big wrist flicks feel powerful but wreck your control.

The crosscourt speedup has its place too: from the backhand side, when the crosscourt opponent is sitting forehand in the middle, a topspin roll across them wins the exchange. And never treat a speedup as one and done, because pickleball is combos, so hit it and move in looking to finish the next ball.

Key points

Hit your backhand roll dink and your speedup with the identical stroke so opponents cannot read which one is coming.
Come around the outside of the ball and lift with your shoulder, using only a touch of wrist.
Rotate your targets between the line, the middle, and the body so nobody can camp on one spot.
When a player guards their body with a backhand counter, keep going down the line until it produces a pop-up.
Treat every speedup as the start of a combo and move in ready to put away the next ball.

Watch the full tutorial here.