This is by far the most useful pickleball channel there is. Thank you.

1. You were complimenting the targeted womans skills-but she really waasnt very good and perhaps her partner knew something. 2. The only halfway decent counter strategy is for the better player to take over 75% of the court. 25% of the court for the weak player makes for a smaller target. The problem is the weaker player seldom aquieses.

Yes, I do use this strategy if my opponent is a banger/ power or weak player. 90% of pickleball playing is played at the NVZ with dinking. You will have a low DUPR rating if you're a banger because you can't dink. Rory, you're the best with these vids.

I don't mind being the targeted player because I get more practice. And I feel like I should rise to the occasion.

It was a fantastic example of targeting and the reasons to target. I also would agree that for the most part all parties were 3.5 players. Thanks for putting this out there and letting us all see it and learn from it.

Another great pick-apart! Thanks.

Ohh yes! We all do this especially in a tournament. It is normal.😂

There are some things a targeted player can do to help get their partner involved. Cross court dinking vs straight ahead dinking would be a classic example. In this case, the targeted player kept leaving balls up high to attack, so improving their dinking skills would help a lot.

This is why my wife won't play tournaments with me anymore. She got tired of being targeted. Two strategies for playing with a banger. First, don't hit the ball to them. Second, only give a banger a soft shot. The Bangers will try poaching and hit some awkward shots. The best channel to learn how to play better pickleball. P.S. At Nationals you generally see players playing down a level from where they should be playing. This match up did look like 3.5 play.

As has been mentioned, the targeted female WAS the weak link. She had a good baseline game (as you noted), hitting a number of nice drops: but her dinking game was terrible. She was hitting under the ball, resulting in pop-ups. Was she using a two handed backhand? I couldn’t tell, but I have noticed that people who use it often aren’t very skilled at it and leave a LOT of balls high. Personally, I believe that is one of the more difficult shots to master and that most people should develop a one-handed backhand and only use the two handed situationally or when they have mastered it. My other observation is that the guy in blue began the game poaching, but backed off it as the game progressed. As others have said, he probably wasn’t athletic enough to pull it off anyway. It was a good idea, but he didn’t seem to have a good strategy of when/how to use the poach to his advantage. I enjoyed this video.

Thanks Rory great stuff. At the 1:11 rally, the far team did 1 thing very smart but could get better results with any of 2 or 3 things at this skill level. ... Keep: Blue went cross court on the return, and it almost worked out. It is less likely to go long, and frankly even if it's short, your partner (if not unwinding the stack) would be right there to deal with the shallow mess you made. ... NEXT TIME Change 1: Return DEEPER and SLOWER (more loft ... what tennis players call a moon ball) to give your team more time to "unwind" the stack as both players get in position. Change 2: After a meh-shallow return like this (fast/low, no time to come up), it's ok to first unwind the stack THEN worry about moving up in stages instead of racing to the kitchen. And meanwhile, Blue's partner could just shift less drastically (barely going past the centerline at the moment) so as to still put some pressure on the ball side and help their partner. Change 3: Even better, if either of you notice the return's going to be meh-shallow, typically EITHER PLAYER should call off the stack (Partner Communication). "Stay! Stay!". Then depending on whether it's red (low, unattackable) or green (high, attackable), prepare accordingly.

I can feel the big guy's frustration!

Wow, that was rough. Playing with my wife, I already feel it in rec play...

3:46 that was definitely gonna be in, no question.

One strategy I use in Rec play, when my partner is constantly being targeted (my partner is returning their serve), is to have him/her not advance to the NVZ line as quickly as he/she normally would. Our opponents will target my partner's feet, farther back on the court, which sets up the perfect poach. The targeted player in this video needs to learn the art of dinking. Dink with a purpose. After several slow, boring cross-court dinks, the player across from you isn't expecting a speed up to their non-dominant side. Watch the pros play. It's not uncommon to dink 30+ times before a speed up. Dink so as to move your opponents around to set up the next shot. For example, get one player running for a shot near the sideline (short of an ATP). Their partner will maintain the distance from their partner near the sideline which opens up the court in front of you. Don't try to win the rally with every shot.

Lefty's flaws were that she had no speed up game and honestly, it looked more like she lost patience when she popped the balls up. The popups mostly seemed unforced. It looked early on anyway that she was pretty good at playing angles but when she was targeted she became very one dimensional. She could have tried an Ernie but maybe not athletic enough but she definitely could have hit some very sharp angle dinks.

The problem started when the male in blue was poaching to the extreme during the beginning of the match. The female player lost her confidence and the other team capitalized on this. This made the guy in blue leave open gaps and was too busy trying to figure out how to poach while eating balls.

All is fair in love and pickleball 😂

There’s so many things you can do if you’re targeted. Play less of the court try to challenge them to go down the line to your partner. You can do called poaches. Hit the ball to the middle Backhand if there is one. But it’s the right strategy why would you ever want to hit to the stronger player? Only if they’re in a bad position

The woman they were targeting might well have been the best defensive player on the court. Key word: defensive. Lots of great gets, nice drops, etc. but relatively few straight kills. Her partner was the opposite: the *most* unforced errors of anyone, but those he hit well rarely came back. Classic kind of imbalance at 3.5 AFAICT.

And of course they’re targeting. That is the only strategy that exists in pickleball.

Wait at 15:00, they are allowed to just switch sides??

Interesting that although the losing team realized (knew) the strategy being used against them, they didn't try the same? They didn't in turn target the female on the other side...of course the winning team probably decided that their female was better than their counterparts, while they would lose the male vs. male matchup. Interesting also that no one tried any lobs. SO...one way to beat a banger is not to hit any balls to him...

what is strange is why the targeted woman hit to the male opponent instead of just hitting the female opponent

Great for tournament play. You got to try and win anyway possible. Female player kept popping it up.

Think the girls were better than the guys. I was watching at the beginning of the game the lady in the for court, she was great, only missing two dinks. I think and making most all her third shot drops. I saw her as the best skill player of the four. Also, she put the ball away two to one over the other three.

Although an excellent play to target the weaker player, picking on the weaker link IMHO eliminates the spectator element, and makes for a very boring game with little value. As to the winning team, I believe the woman was the less talented player. What say You ?

I get the strategy and it makes a ton of sense for competitive play! I feel for the female player. But that's competitive play, and you gotta do what you gotta do to win. In rec play, this is definitely not recommended and is in most cases, poor etiquette. As the team with the female getting targeted, it was probably best to try and shrink the court even further by having the male player creep even more into her space to ensure that he can get a few balls. That would have made it a bit harder for the opposing team to hit to such a narrow section of the court. And as the targeted female, instead of hitting cross court, she could try and hit (and even speed up) more balls down the line. Speeding up more balls down the line would make it more likely that opposing team would hit cross court into the male player's area.

The guy in blue & his lady in black shorts partner were gonna loose whether he was able to take over or not . He is not nearly quick enough afoot , often becoming out of position after he was able to poach a ball . Other than being able to Bang the ball , he has otherwise little skill . And she most often only just wanted to get the ball over the net , but never really did anything to make it difficult for the other team to continually target her or to be able to keep it away from her partner in blue . I mean , at one point , 40 to 1 to her vs. him . Really ??? She needs to dink in a way that causes the other team to become off balanced and/or out of position . Then maybe the other team will pop the ball up before she does . Also , the guy in blue needs to better return serves , as he often returns them short giving himself even less time to advance up to the NVZ line . ( Rememb 5:28 er, he is not particularly quick on his feet . ) He does hit other shots well , but only when he does not have to go far to reach them . Hard to identify what overall strategy of play that would result in better success for this team ?

the targeted player should just hit lobs when possible..especially at this 3.5 level with less mobile players..problem solved

As a woman, I love playing with a leftie guy, EXCEPT if they want to come take ALL of my forehands.

I've often done this exercise (tallying shots received) to see if people were targeting my partner egregiously or it was just in my head. It always bugs the living shit out of me when this happens during rec play. It speaks volumes (not in a good way) about people's character if they value winning in rec over all else. I actually have to remind myself to hit to the weaker player during rec play, because my inclination is to target the stronger player, as it is more challenging and thus more fun and also helps me improve. But that can end up being kind of rude and offending the weaker player if it's super obvious. The guy in blue shirt black shorts was making me cringe. Some of his poaches were just criminal. No reason you should be stepping in front of your partner to take away their forehand so that you can reach to hit an off balance backhand. Gross. Also FYI, while It doesn't really make much a difference, you were often tallying the females received shots when she was receiving serve, but not doing so for the male.

These people are not 3.5 50+. I’ve seen several videos from this tournament and there are 4.5-5.5 players at every single skill level sandbagging like absolute cowards. THIS is what is going to kill pickleball. No legit 3.5 can compete.