Dinking: the soft game that wins pickleball

How to Play Last reviewed April 6, 2026 6 min read

If you watch high-level pickleball doubles, you’ll notice something strange: the best players spend long stretches of each rally tapping the ball softly back and forth, barely a few feet over the net, landing each shot in their opponents’ Kitchen. That’s dinking, and it’s the single most important skill in the sport. Power players lose to dinkers. It’s just how the game works.

What a dink is

A dink has three defining features:

It’s hit softly. The goal is for the ball to lose almost all its speed by the time it crosses the net. A good dink barely carries.
It lands in the opponent’s Kitchen. Because the ball lands in the Non-Volley Zone, the opponent cannot volley it — they have to let it bounce, then hit from a defensive position.
It arcs just over the net. Too low, it hits the tape. Too high, your opponents get a paddle on it while it’s still above the net, and they smash it.

Done well, a dink is almost impossible to attack. Done badly — too high, too deep, or too short — it’s the easiest ball to put away in the sport.

Why dinking wins

The fundamental logic of pickleball is: the team that controls the Kitchen line wins. If both teams are at the Kitchen line, neither team can volley aggressively (because of the Non-Volley Zone rule), and whoever holds position longer will eventually get a ball they can attack. Dinking is the tool you use to hold the Kitchen line without giving your opponents an attackable ball.

Almost every long rally at a high level ends the same way: one player dinks too high, their opponent volleys the floater hard at their feet, and the point is over. The team that “pops up” first loses. So the entire skill of dinking is about not popping up while waiting for your opponents to do it first.

How to hit a dink

Technique for the dink is different from every other shot in the sport:

Soft grip. Squeeze the paddle lightly — maybe a 3 out of 10. A tight grip adds power you don’t want.
Use your shoulder, not your wrist. The motion is a gentle push from the shoulder, almost like setting something down on a high shelf. Keep the wrist quiet.
Contact out in front of your body. If you let the ball come into your chest, you lose control. Meet it a few inches in front of your lead foot.
Bend your knees, not your back. Lowering your body gives you more control over low balls. Hunching your back leaves you off-balance.
Let the paddle face do the work. The paddle angle at contact controls where the ball goes. Swing is tiny. Face is everything.

Cross-court vs. straight-ahead dinks

Most good dinkers favor the cross-court dink. Three reasons: the net is slightly lower in the middle, the diagonal distance is longer (so you have more room for error), and the angle pulls your opponent off the court. Straight-ahead dinks are perfectly legal and sometimes the right choice, but cross-court is the default for a reason.

The dinking ladder

Here’s a rough skill ladder for beginners learning to dink:

Dink in place. Stand at the Kitchen line with a friend and try to dink ten in a row without popping one up. Most beginners can’t do five.
Dink cross-court. Same drill, but cross-court. Harder.
Dink with movement. One person dinks the ball alternately left and right; the other has to shuffle and return each one.
Reset from the transition zone. Stand a few steps back from the Kitchen line and try to dink from there. This simulates the moment right after a third shot.
Patience drills. Play a game where nobody is allowed to attack (hit hard) — you’re only allowed to dink until your opponent gives you an obvious mistake. This teaches patience and shows you how often “obvious mistakes” really happen.

When to stop dinking and attack

Attack when one of these things happens:

The ball comes above the level of the net — meaning you can hit down on it instead of up.
Your opponents are out of position (one of them is retreating or caught between the baseline and the Kitchen).
You can hit a hard ball into an open gap, usually the middle between two partners.

Until one of those conditions is true, keep dinking. The player who has to attack is the player who is losing.