Pickleball Magazine 2-1 Courtesy of Pickleball Central | Page 25

PRACTICING SOLO
Wall Practice
Just as tennis players do , hitting against a wall can be very good practice . It isn ’ t very hard to find a wall somewhere that you can bang a pickleball against . Just put some tape on the wall at net height and you even have a target area . You can practice serves , dinks , volleys and drives using a wall . I find that practicing full groundstrokes is a good way to also get some conditioning and work on footwork . If you want to get farther from the wall to get more of a feeling of hitting hard but you still want the ball to come all the way back , try using a foam training ball or the light felt training ball that is used for junior tennis . I ’ ve found that using a foam ball works great in my garage . There are also commercial rebounders made just for pickleball that are just starting to hit the market !
Drop Hits If you have access to an actual pickleball court but you have nobody to practice with , this is a great way to work on many of your individual shots . To do this the most efficiently it is best to have a large bucket of balls . With drop hits you just drop a ball onto the ground and practice hitting a groundstroke or even dink from various spots on the court to target areas on the other side of the net . A good practice session might include the following .
• 100 serves using various speeds , heights and placement
• 50 down-the-line forehand drives
• 50 cross-court forehand drives
• 50 down-the-line backhand drives
• 50 cross-court backhand drives
• 100 dinks to various spots inside the kitchen using both forehand and backhand
Ball Machines
It was only a matter of time before pickleball ball machines hit the market . So far there have been two main companies manufacturing ball machines used exclusively for the sport of pickleball . If you have access to an empty pickleball court , you might think about purchasing one of these machines . I ’ m fortunate that my backyard is a pickleball court , so it is very convenient for me to set it up and start hitting . One big problem with these machines is using them outdoors in wet weather . I live in Oregon and most of the winter my court is damp . I ’ ve found that when the balls get wet they will not shoot out of the machines . This is the time of year that I do a lot of drop hitting and wall practice .
These machines can be adjusted for speed , placement and height . You can even purchase a machine that will oscillate . You can basically practice every shot in pickleball by working out with a ball machine . I have found that this is particularly effective for players practicing their singles game . Again this practice will be most effective if you have the machine loaded up with a lot of balls , and also using a ball picker-upper will speed things up . •
You can basically practice every shot in pickleball by working out with a ball machine .
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2017 | MAGAZINE 23