If those shots put your opponent in a bad position— weight shifting, reaching or off-balance— look to take the next ball out of the air. That’ s when an attackable ball is most likely to appear. The pattern creates the opportunity. The patience to run it correctly is what most players are missing.
STRATEGY AND THE MENTAL GAME: HAVE A PLAN BEFORE THE POINT STARTS
Every section of this article comes back to a single idea: The best players are making better decisions earlier than the players they’ re beating. And the place that process starts is before the rally even begins.
Have a pre-point routine.
Before every serve and every point, go through the same physical sequence every time. Bounce the ball. Take a breath. Check your feet— are they active, are they ready. The routine is a signal to your nervous system that this moment is familiar, that you’ ve done this before, that the pressure of the score is just context— not instruction. It won’ t eliminate nerves. It gives you something real to do with them.
Have a strategy.
Know what you’ re going to test or execute before the rally starts. Which side are you targeting? What pattern are you setting up? Where is their weakness and how are you going to get there? A simple intention— I’ m going to serve deep to the backhand and look for a short return I can drive— is enough. The intention shifts you from reactive to deliberate. And deliberate players beat reactive players in close matches.
Read your opponent and build a picture.
This is the layer of the mental game that separates good players from dangerous ones, and it starts before you ever hit a ball. Every serve you receive is information. Do they prefer forehands or backhands? Do they go deep consistently or do they miss short? What causes them to miss short? Do they defend better with their backhand? Where are they attackable?
The more information you gather and the faster you gather it, the less you’ re reacting and the more you’ re anticipating.
This same principle extends into fast exchanges at the kitchen. If you know an opponent likes to attack with a backhand straight ahead, you don’ t have to guess when they do it. You hold your ground, watch the ball come off the paddle, and see the direction before it arrives.
What felt like a dangerous shot becomes manageable— not because you got faster, but because you got smarter. Pattern recognition built from paying attention is one of the highest-leverage skills in the game, and almost no one is actively working on it.
Adjust when the opponent adjusts.
Strategy isn’ t a fixed script. It’ s a living model you update in real time. When your pattern stops working, that’ s new information— not failure. Their adjustment has created a new opening somewhere else. Find it. The team that adapts fastest wins the close ones.
10,000 PLAYERS. THE SAME MISTAKES. THE SAME FIXES.
Five years. Hundreds of camps. Ten thousand players. The footwork problems and the strategy problems and the mental problems are all real— and they are all connected.
Players miss shots because something earlier broke down. The feet weren’ t set. The ball wasn’ t in their strike zone. They took too big of a backswing and generated upward momentum they didn’ t want. They attacked from outside their balance point. They served short and handed over the first advantage of the rally before the point ever developed.
After watching so many players, I don’ t see random mistakes anymore. I see the same patterns repeating at every level, on every court, in every state I’ ve coached. The details change. The root causes don’ t.
The framework that ties it all together: Every moment of every rally exists in one of three states— offense, neutral or defense. Your job is to read which state you’ re in and respond accordingly. Not the shot you wanted to hit. Not the shot you practiced this morning. The shot this situation is asking for— based on your footwork, your balance, your read of the return, the equation your opponents have given you.
That’ s what 10,000 players and hundreds of camps have built in me as a coach— the ability to see it, name it, and help players feel the difference in real time. It starts with the feet. It always starts with the feet. •
Kyle McMakin, aka The Pickleball Cowboy, is a touring pickleball professional, former Division I tennis player( UC Davis) and head pro for LevelUp Pickleball Camps. He is a two-time Triple Crown winner and a 6.0 DUPR-rated player in doubles and singles.
24 TO SUBSCRIBE, CALL 412.914.8294 OR GO TO PICKLEBALLMAGAZINE. COM