How to Disguise Your Speedups to Create Offensive
Tip 1: Holding Your Dinks
Adding deception to your speedups is a great way to make them as effective as possible. The less time your opponents have to prepare for their counterattack, the better! A technique that advanced players use to disguise their speedups is called holding your dinks.
This is when you prepare the paddle early with a short, compact backswing, and wait until the last second to swing forward toward the ball. This way your opponents won’t be able to tell whether you are going to speed up until the last second. This technique is especially effective on the forehand side.
Here’s how to prepare your paddle to make holding your dinks as easy as possible:
- Point the paddle tip toward the ground. This position is optimal for hitting both speedups or dinks.
- Prepare your paddle early and wait until the last second to swing.
- Keep your paddle out in front at all times. When you take a big backswing you’re more likely to telegraph the speedup to your opponents.
Tip 2: The Triangle Pattern
The reason professional pickleball players look like they have superhuman hand speed actually has very little to do with their reaction time. The pros are able to be successful in super fast hands battles because they have amazing anticipation — they have an idea of where the ball is going to go before it is hit.
One technique that they use to help them win exchanges where they speedup is the triangle pattern. The triangle pattern is a common speedup pattern that helps us predict where our opponents will counter our speedups to. Quick disclaimer: This will not work 100 percent of the time, but we also are not looking to win 100 percent of our speedups. Your goal should be for your speedup attempts to be net positive, i.e. you win more than you lose, and this pattern will work more times than it doesn’t.
Speedup exchanges usually follow a triangle shape. So when you speed up, it will usually be countered to the opposite side that you hit from. I.e. if you speed up your forehand to your opponent's forehand, it will most likely come back to your backhand side and vice versa. This allows you to predict where the ball will be countered to before you hit your speedup. So, as part of your follow through on the speedup, allow the paddle to carry to the other side of your body so you are on top of the counter early, and can finish the rally on the second shot.
