Things You Can Practice When You're Alone

Sometimes you may not have anyone to play with. Sometimes you might be the first person on the court because your friends are delayed or because you were early. Rather than twiddling your thumbs, get some hits in. Here are some things you can work on when you find yourself alone on a pickleball court.

Tools

Working by yourself will be easier if you have just a few items.

Balls

Time spent chasing balls is time you are not hitting balls and improving. If you only have a few balls, you will get a less practicing hitting. You will still get exercise and a little practice, but if practice is your priority, get a bucket or a basket of balls. Even a shopping bag or box will work if you're on a budget (balls can be expensive). 

You can order balls through the big retailers, but if you go through an online vendor, I suggest Pickleball Central or direct from the manufacture company. Better yet, find a local vendor.

Joe Dixon at Silver Springs Country Club in Haskell

(501) 607-4038

The Tennis Shoppe in Little Rock

(501) 227-6345

They can both get you bulk deals on balls. Tell them No Fun David sent you.

Ball basket/pick up

I have owned a couple of ball hoppers. Some are better than others.

This one is available on Pickleball Central. It's relatively inexpensive. Some assembly required. I don't think it's the most durable, but I have seen people patch them together and use them for years.

This is the one I am currently using. I don't recall the vendor where I purchased it, but if you search Google for Gamma Pickleball Hopper, you will find vendors. 

It has one flaw (IMHO). At the very bottom of the photo of the hopper, you can see four knobs. Those knobs are on the ends of bars that run under the basket. They are plastic or fiberglass (some material that flexes). The flexibility allows you to push down on balls that are laying on the ground and pick them up. The balls pass through those bars. The knobs hold the bars in the brackets. I have had one of those knobs (the knobs are metal) pop off the bar. I noticed it as soon as it happened and I was able to glue the knob back onto the bar. The bond has held so far. 

If you know of a better ball hopper basket, let me know in the comments.

One last item I really like to have when I'm hitting a lot of balls all over a court. A ball picker-upper.

This is just a tube with a collar on the bottom. You push down on the ball and the collar allows the balls to pass through, but it holds them in. When you fill it up (I believe it holds around 15 balls) you just turn it upside-down into your basket or bucket and the balls come rolling out. It probably costs $2 to make these. If you are a handy person, you could definitely make your own with some PVC and bungy cord. But some way to save your self from picking up 50 balls off the ground is very nice to have. This is not a necessity, but I know I am annoyed when I don't have it with me. Maybe the price will drop or they will go on sale. Keep an eye on it or make your own to save money.

These items not only make solo practice easier and more productive, but drilling with a partner is also more productive if you are not chasing every stray ball. Use your practice time for practice, not for ball retrieval.

Okay. Enough about gear. On to substance!

Serves

Serves are one of the easiest things you can practice when you are all by yourself. Serves are also a great investment in your pickleball skill set. Build your range to keep opponents guessing. I recommend you choose one or two things to work on with your serve. Hit several from the even side and several from the odd side. Change ends of the court (because the wind might be different there) and do the same thing.

Here is a short list of types of things you might work on with your serves:

• Targeting/directional control
• outside corner
• down the center line
• near corners
• Pace
• deep lobbing serves
• driving serves
• Spin
• top spin
• side spin
• back spin (only allowed under 2021 drop serve rules)
• spin toss (if you spin the ball with your toss, you cannot hit it off the bounce)
• Forehand and backhand serves
• Experiment
• e.g. What happens to the angles when you stand near the center line vs near the outside line?

If you have read anything I have written about serves, you know that my recommendation is to hit deep serves, especially for beginners. But if you can hit deep serves consistently, having some shallow serves to the outside corner, or serves that bounce low up the middle can be very difficult for receivers to get to ...unless that is what you are hitting every time and they expect it. Variety of serve types will help you get an early advantage in rallies and keep your opponents guessing. This is practice well spent.

Drives from the baseline

If you, like me, did not come to the sport of pickleball from tennis or another racket sport where you hit drives, your power strokes may not be all they could be. Set yourself near the baseline, drop the ball in front of you, and hit some drives. Just as with serves, I recommend you pick a couple of things to work on and focus on those things. 

• Mechanics
• Get your motion set with muscle memory through repetition, but make sure you are executing the right form
• Forehand/backhand
• Targeting
• Aim for one corner, then the middle, then the opposite corner in the back court
• Power
• Start off by hitting it as hard as you can. Send it to the fences. If you can't hit the ball that far, see how far you can hit it.
• When you find your limit, dial it back until you can control your shot.
• Spin
• top spin
• side spin
• backspin is difficult to drive from the baseline. It tends to rise and sail out. See if you can make it work.

Practice is for making mistakes and zeroing in on the power you need to send the ball from baseline to baseline. Don't be afraid of hitting some balls out of bounds when you practice like this. You are choosing to make mistakes in this setting so you make fewer mistakes in your games and matches when it matters.

Drops from the baseline

Using the same method of dropping balls near the baseline (or anywhere else on the court, really) let a ball bounce in front of you and practice sending it into the kitchen. Here are things to work on when you are practicing hitting drops.

• Targets
• corners and center
• Backhand and forehand
• Toss and Run, but hit the drop
• Toss the ball up, but a little distance away from you. see if you can chase it down, but still hit a quality drop that is descending over the net.
• Spin
• Back spin, side spin, and maybe topspin
• topspin is the hardest on drops because your paddle swing is from low to high

Your drops do not need to land shallow in the kitchen as long as they are descending over the net. Remember, the purpose of a drop is to force your opponent to hit up from below the net.

Attacking balls at the NVZ

I want to be clear what I'm talking about here. This is where you are at the NVZ, the ball has bounced, but your opponents are out of position and a gap has opened up. If you have the ability to send a ball over the net, but on a low trajectory with a bit more pace than a dink, you can send it through those gaps sometimes.

This shot can also be used to keep your opponents back when they are hitting drop shots.

This takes some degree of accuracy and control. It's a great shot to practice, and it's something you can practice by dropping balls in the kitchen and trying to hit them deep in the court on the other side of the net.

• Targets
• Corners and middle deep in the opposite court
• You want to target near these points, but not out of the court
• Backhands and forehands
• Spins
• Experimentation
• Learn what you can do with balls that bounce at different heights

Lob retrieval

Stand at the kitchen line, toss a ball up in the air behind you. Turn and run to get it. This does work a little better as a drill if you have a partner, but you can absolutely run down a ball you toss behind you. The higher you throw it, the more time you will have. You definitely want to toss it higher than you could reach with a jump.

When you get to where the ball is bouncing, try to run just past that bounce, turn again, and send it back with a controlled shot. You can work on drop shots, drives, or lobbing back, after a lob. Drives can be dangerous if your opponents are at the net, if they have the ability to drop your drive short into the kitchen, but it can also be effective. It's good to have more than one option in your tool kit. 

Your priority should be hitting controlled shots of different kinds, but as with some of these other drills, you can work on targets and different types of shots.

One benefit of solo practice is that you may feel more free to experiment with different shots. It doesn't have to be pretty to start. Dream up something weird and give it a try. Experimentation with spins, different kinds of angles, etc.

I have worked on every one of the shots I have listed above, and I can tell you they are helpful. Just knowing that you are capable of hitting a certain shot will help boost your confidence and help you execute it in games. In my first year or two playing, I developed my serves and slice drives while I was alone on the courts.

There is also one shot that I experimented with when I was alone that has evolved from the first use I intended for it, but has become a regular feature in my game. A little over a year ago, I started toying with a topspin crosscourt dink. I saw another player use a shallow topspin forehand dink against me and it was annoyingly effective. While I never quite got the shot I wanted out of that stroke, I now have a topspin forehand groundstroke that my opponents often misread. It's fast and deceptive. It would not have happened without time on the court by myself hitting balls in a way that felt weird and awkward at first. You never know what might develop through experimentation.

I hope this was useful to you. I hope this will inspire you to get out and hit some balls by yourself sometime.

Is there a skill you worked on and developed in solo practice? What was it? Let me know in the comments.

Cheers,

No Fun David