After several aggressive dinks, you get a perfect popup from your opponent that’s ripe for the attack.
Your eyes get really wide. You load up your swing … annnd hit it right into the net.
This piece of advice comes from the Queen of Pickleball, Simone Jardim. She taught us that the way to avoid overheads going directly into the net is to use your paddle like the hour hand of a clock.
Here’s how you do that:
Step One
Imagine your body being the center of a clock face. Pointing directly up is your 12 o’clock, and extending your arm out to your right is your 9 o’clock.
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Step Two
When the ball comes over the net, match the height of the ball to the hour on the clock face. A ball at waist height would be about 8 o’clock and shoulder height would be 10 o’clock, etc.
Putting it together
When making contact with the ball, your paddle tip should be pointing at the same hour as the ball. If you’re hitting a 12 o’clock ball, your paddle tip should be straight up at 12 o’clock.
A lot of newer players will see a high (but not high enough) ball and assume that hitting down on it is the way to go. That’s not the case. In some scenarios, you may even need to slide your body over to extend your arm to get the paddle tip pointing to the correct position on the clock.
Time’s wasting. Give it a shot!
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