If you’re not yet at the advanced level then chances are that you need to get to work on getting rock solid on the fundamentals.
Strong dinking, consistent third shots, deep serves & returns, patience and strategy. It’s important to spend 99% of your drilling time on these key shots.
But every now and again it’s fun to mess around with some new and advanced shots like the one we cover here. The forehand misdirection is advanced. It’s also fun and super cool when executed well.
Have a little fun with this crazy shot but don’t spend too much time with it. It’s more like ice cream than the meat and potatoes of pickleball.
It’s a fun shot to have in your arsenal because they will never see the attack coming. If done right, you’ll probably win the point.
In today’s blog we’re going to show you how to surprise your opponents with a forehand that they’ll never see coming – the forehand misdirection.
We are going to initiate this with a forehand cross-court dink rally.
I’m talking about when all four players are up at the net or up at the non-volley zone.
I’m going to be in this cross-court dink rally and sometimes I’m looking for an opportunity to attack. I’m looking for a little bit of a high ball, a little bit above the net, so that I can surprise the person that is right in front of me on the other side of the net.
Because this person in front of me is closer than the person across from me it’s going to be harder for them to react to this shot. It’s hopefully going to catch them off-guard and lead them to pop that ball up or miss it altogether.
Remember, I’m only going to execute this shot if it’s a little high. So, when I’m contacting it I’m coming across my body making it look like I’m hitting cross-court again but what I’m going to do is hit it straight on, down the line.
I want to make sure I’m really up at the non-volley zone leaning in, waiting for the right opportunity.
The success of this good misdirection shot is you want to sell it the best you can. I want to make sure my body language and everything is going to be moving cross-court to try to fool them to make them think that I’m hitting in a cross-court, then I’m going to send it straight down the line to my opponent that’s directly in front of me.
Hopefully this opponent directly across from me is lulled asleep or not paying attention when I’m in this cross-court, forehand to forehand, dink rally.
While I’m in my cross-court dink rally my paddle face will be mostly facing my cross court opponent. Then, all of a sudden, I’m gong to change my paddle face direction and send it down the line. I’m going to open my paddle face a little bit.
At the last second I’m opening my wrist up, kind of break it a bit (as in as in turn and flex), it so that my paddle face is facing down the line.
This is definitely an advance shot but it’s a lot of fun when you get to execute it right and it can win you a lot more points.
Go out there and try it!
