Member Training Tips

May 26, 2025

Strategies for Targeting an Opponent’s Backhand

Tip 1: Locate your opponents’ backhands

Locate your opponents’ backhands. Locating where your opponents backhands are is one of the first things that you should do in the beginning of a game. This starts with determining your opponents’ handedness. The backhands will be in different locations on the court depending on if you are playing a righty-righty combo, a lefty-righty combo, or a lefty-lefty combo. If it is the standard righty-righty combo, the backhands will be to the right of each opponent (relative to you), so there will be one on the right wing and one in the middle. A lefty-righty combo will typically have the backhands on the outsides and the forehands in the middle if they are stacking, or backhands in the middle and forehands in the middle if they are not stacking. A lefty-lefty combo will mirror the righty-righty combo, with the backhands on the left of the player from your perspective. Many amateur players do not take note of their opponents’ handedness, and therefore go the entire game without targeting the backhand. This is a huge strategy that you could be missing out on!

Tip 2: Targeting an opponent’s backhand

Targeting your opponents’ backhands is a pickleball strategy as old as time! The vast majority of pickleball players have worse backhands than forehands. It’s natural–the backhand is hit from the non-dominant side of the body, so by nature it will be the weaker shot. At the amateur levels, most players are significantly less consistent, lack power, and are overall less comfortable on their backhands compared to their forehands. Most players also lack the ability to create offense on their backhands, which means that you will be safe if you dink, drop, reset, or hit another defensive shot to their backhand. In order to use this strategy, it’s very important that you locate your opponents’ backhands early on by taking note of their handedness!

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