Win more pickleball games by learning how, when, and why to hit a deceptive speed-up.
What is a pickleball speed-up?
A pickleball speed-up is a shot in which a player hits a high-bouncing ball, or a ball out of the air, with force to make the game move faster.
When you're at the kitchen line and you're dinking, and your opponent hits a ball to you that's more attackable and bounces a little higher, or they pop a ball up that you can be aggressive with, that's the opportunity to speed up the ball in a pickleball game.
When you speed the ball up, especially at a higher level, the speed-up should not be your winning shot — the speed-up should be to set up the winning shot. The speed-up is to change the pace and put your opponent in an uncomfortable spot.
Mistakes beginners make during the pickleball speed-up
There are a lot of mistakes that beginners tend to make with the speed-up, including getting to the kitchen line and being “speed-up happy”: They want to hit a speed-up off of every dink. It becomes a big mistake because you can become predictable and your opponents can counter the ball easily because they're prepared for what's going to happen.
When you want to hit a speed-up in pickleball
It's important to identify when to hit a speed-up in pickleball. Here are teo situations where you will want to hit a speed-up:
- When you are receiving a “dead dink” or “looping dink,” a ball that bounces high over the net.
- This dink is not going to have a lot of spin on it so it's going to be a pretty easy ball to speed up.
- Taking a ball out of the air.
- A ball that's going deeper is the most opportune speed-up, because your opponents have less time to react since you're not letting that ball bounce.
Speed-up technique
When it comes to hitting a speed-up, it's important to disguise the shot, which you can do by
eliminating a big back swing. The initial speed-up is probably not the winner shot — you're trying to set up the ball so that you can put it away on the next shot.
Speed-up using your wrist
Although you should never use your wrist for dinks, using your wrist on a speed-up (especially if it's out of the air) is OK because it's a lot more deceptive.
If you're dinking and get a high ball that comes from using your wrist, it's such a small movement that's going to help keep the ball in and give you just enough to change the pace of the ball. That small motion with your wrist is what's going to be very sneaky and hard for your opponent to identify that a speed-up is coming.
Speed-up volley & your “bubble” zone
The best speed-up shot you can hit is when you speed the ball up out of the air. When you hit a speed-up volley, you take time away from your opponents, and then you can create a lot of angles and can get the ball down at their feet.
But which balls should you take out of the air? A lot of players tend to over-reach into the kitchen: If you hold your paddle straight out in front of you and you draw a bubble around yourself, you do not ever want to try to speed a ball up outside of your bubble.
When you're outside of your bubble, you may have to hit up on the ball. A good player is probably going to recognize this and get their paddle up and be ready to counter. So when it comes to hitting a speed-up out of the air, you will want to pick a ball that you can make contact with with your chest, nice and tall with the contact point zone. You will also want to select a ball that's at net height or higher, if it happens to be below net height you're really going to have to get low, keep that chest up, and add extra spin in order to keep it in.
The last thing you want to remember with the technique of this shot is that this is not necessarily your winner, and you're going to want to make sure that you are ready for the next ball. So when you speed the ball up, especially when you play at a higher level, the ball is going to be coming back and all you're looking to do is make the other team more uncomfortable and wait for the next ball that looks good for you to actually hit your winner.
A lot of time, speed-ups will initiate a counterattack or firefight, or even send your opponents off balance, which is when you can close with a winning shot.
Working with space & "Zero Forward"
There is a pickleball concept called “Zero Forward,” which will affect your ability to create deception on your speed-up. If you were to place the paddle into a neutral position and then pull the paddle back it’s called “negative space.” Anytime you push the paddle forward, it’s called “positive space.”
For Zero Forward, you're going to find “zero” — which is the neutral position. From there you will go from zero, forward. You don't want to pull your paddle back into negative space, and this applies to both a speed-up off the bounce or a speed-up out of the air.
The next time you're dinking, try to find zero, and then if you want to speed the ball up instead of lifting, you're going to flick forward right from zero.
When you implement Zero Forward, it will help you transform your speed-ups and win more points.
3 spots to help you win points during a speed-up (and 1 to avoid)
There are three proven spots to send your speed-up that will help you win points:
- The paddle shoulder: The paddle shoulder is a very hard spot to defend. This is when you see somebody “chicken winged.”
- The paddle side-hip: This is also a very hard spot to defend, because your opponent won't know whether to hit forehand or backhand, which causes a lot of confusion.
- The sideline: If there is a gap down the middle of the court between your opponents, you have a good chance of getting your speed-up between them.
You should avoid speeding up with a crosscourt shot: This ball is typically going to go straight ahead, right to your partner and because they didn't initiate the speed-up they might not be ready for that ball coming fast at them.