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Hey PICKLEBACKCLUB,

Pickleball has a speed problem.

Everybody wants to hit harder, attack sooner, and turn every ball into a SportsCenter audition.

But some of the most annoying players to face?

They barely give you anything to work with.

Soft reset. Dink. Reset. Wait.

Then the second you get impatient…

💥 Goodbye.

This week, we’re talking about why slowing the game down might actually be the fastest way to start winning more points.

Slow Is the New Fast 🥒

There’s a moment in every pickleball game when you realize:

You’re trying way too hard.

You’re ripping drives. You’re swinging for the fences. You’re convinced the next ball needs to be the ball.

Meanwhile, the other team is standing at the kitchen like:

Cool. We’ll wait.

Welcome to the beautiful, maddening art of playing slow.

And no, we don’t mean walking onto the court at 0.5x speed.

We mean taking pace off the ball, resetting instead of attacking, and making your opponents generate the speed for you.

Slow gives you time.

The slower you play, the more time you have to see what’s actually happening.

Where are your opponents?

Who’s leaning?

Is there a gap?

Are they expecting the speed-up?

Instead of reacting, you start choosing.

And that little extra fraction of a second can be the difference between a highlight-reel winner and a ball sailing six feet past the baseline.

Slow makes your opponents uncomfortable.

Here’s the weird part:

Most pickleball players are perfectly happy when the game gets fast.

Fast ball → fast reaction → big swing → adrenaline → chaos.

But drop a soft reset into the kitchen?

Suddenly everybody has to think.

Now your opponent has to create the pace.

And creating pace is harder than receiving it.

You’re basically saying:

“Go ahead. You swing first.”

Slow keeps you out of trouble.

Not every ball is an invitation.

Sometimes the smartest shot is the one that says:

Not yet.

A reset buys you time.

A dink keeps you in the rally.

A soft third shot can get you to the kitchen instead of getting you benched by your own unforced error.

Good pickleball isn’t about hitting the hardest shot you can.

It’s about hitting the right shot at the right time.

Slow is how you speed up later.

This is the secret.

Playing slow doesn’t mean you’re passive.

It means you’re setting the table.

You dink.

You reset.

You move forward.

You make them uncomfortable.

You wait for the ball you can actually attack.

And then…

BANG.

Speed-up.

Suddenly that slow rally was doing exactly what you wanted.

You weren’t playing scared.

You were loading the spring.

Your challenge this week:

Next time you play, try this:

For one game, stop trying to win every rally early.

No hero drives.

No panic speed-ups.

No “I can definitely fit that ball through a 2-inch gap” nonsense.

Reset.

Dink.

Move.

Wait.

Then attack when the ball earns it.

You might be surprised how often slowing the game down is what lets you take control of it.

The best players don’t just know how to speed the ball up.

They know when not to.

So this week, embrace the soft stuff.

Reset one more ball. Dink one more time. Make somebody else get impatient first.

Then, when the right ball finally shows up…

Let it rip.

Stay patient. Stay dangerous. Stay pickled.

🥒 PICKLEBACKCLUB

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