The Kawamoto Magic - and how you can learn from it!

Jackie and Jade… two of the top women in our sport, but yet they still remain underrated, underappreciated, and unrecognized by many for their contributions to our game. The Kawamotos are not only adorable (they’re older than me, but far smaller, so I can say this), but also absolutely fierce competitors- they’re never scared, rarely, if ever tight, and always give 100%.

So… what makes them so special? And how can you (and I) learn from them? Let’s get into it!

I have long been annoyed in discussions of the “best lefty” in pickleball in which people only talked about men. Yes, Jade is our only top female lefty, but in my view, she has long been the best left-handed player by relative level. Here are some of my tweets in which I have praised Jade, I couldn’t choose only one.

Jade is, for me and for a lot of other pro women, perhaps the toughest person to attack off the bounce. Her swings are short, she keeps the ball out in front of her well, and the angles at which she hits the ball are… strange. Her forehand goes more “inside out” than you’d expect, and she also gets the ball down very well. She isn’t the best initiator, but when she does pull, it’s usually to a tricky spot and pretty unexpected just because she does it so infrequently.

Beyond her being tough to attack, Jade is absolutely unbelievable at closing the middle with her forehand. I will get into later why this is so important to her and Jackie’s success. Jade covers so much court, and gets little to no credit for it in my opinion. Not only does she cover a TON of middle, she is also very good at handling when people go behind her.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing that Jade does really, truly, exceptionally well… is move the ball around, particularly with her backhand. It is truly a random number generator and I don’t think anyone can read it. I guess I am insulting her by calling her a random number generator, she’s better than random - she is always right and her opponents are always wrong😂. Her forehand is a bit more predictable, but her dink quality is still so high and if you give her multiple consecutive backhands, it’s easy to get put on a string.

I feel like often siblings have naturally similar movement patterns/technique, but Jackie and Jade’s couldn’t look more different, and I find that super interesting, especially considering they’re identical twins. Jade’s technique isn’t very wristy and doesn’t produce much top spin, and Jackie’s is the COMPLETE, polar opposite.

I think the closest male comparison to Jackie is actually Gabe - he is the only person whose wrist is comparably deceptive at the very last second in such a “snappy” manner, imo. Jackie’s wristiness allows her to do a few things very well: pull forehands to weird spots, lob extremely effectively (the best lob in pickleball), and hit absolutely lethal dinks. Jackie misses more than Jade, but she also hurts you a lot more.

Jackie’s wristiness and more western grip are part of what allows her to get more topspin, but another key reason she can hit the shots she does is because she chokes up on her grip. More men are starting to do this, but to my knowledge Jackie is the only woman that does this to a significant degree.

You might be wondering, why does only Jackie choke up? Are there cons to choking up? Else why wouldn’t everyone do it? There are two main cons to choking up on your paddle:

Most women are not willing to sacrifice power like men are, and aren’t even dextrous enough at the wrist joint for choking up to be worth it. But Jackie… is. But… why?

DUPR did a cute post after the Kawamotos won Cincinnati in what truly was a fairytale-esque tournament for them. It highlighted how the sisters have better results when they play together.

But… why are their results better? What is it about each other’s games that helps them excel as a team? They both get top women’s partners even when they don’t play together, so why the disparity?

I find this topic super fascinating, but effectively, I think their games literally developed around each other’s, and Jade does not get nearly enough credit for how her play allows Jackie to play a very unique style of women’s doubles.

Jackie’s combination of using a western grip while being choked up has resulted in her having less power, and to compensate for that, Jackie typically sits very hard forehand, and “pancakes” her counters. This is a great way to both get the ball down (power is less important if you can get the ball down), and if she is only expecting a forehand, she can really load up and hit it as hard as she can rather than if she was more neutral and had to be ready for the possibility of both a forehand and a backhand.

As a result of this tendency, Jackie slides very hard towards the left sideline to “protect”, or prevent herself from having to hit a backhand when she sees an attack coming. So… if she is all the way on the left side of the court… the middle must be open, right ? right??? WRONG!!!!!!!

Jade was there, Jade is there, and she will ALWAYS be there. No one covers the middle like Jade Kawamoto, and the way she does this enables Jackie to play with a super creative, choked-up grip. When Jackie plays with other partners, it’s much easier to exploit her tendency to slide very hard for the sideline to pancake. Jade makes it all possible.

The Kawamotos are probably the best ball movers in the game, and when you put them together, it can be torturous if you aren’t dinking well. Jade is a random number generator, Jackie will have you on ice skates, and there’s not really a great spot to hit the ball to. You often want to keep the ball away from Jackie’s forehand as it’s so creative, but if you go to Jade’s backhand she will just get you so uncomfortable, and if you go to Jackie’s backhand, great! It’s still really aggressive, and if you give her a few in a row, she will just start running around it and hitting forehands and will trust Jade to cover the other 70% of the court, which she will.

Their ability to dink so well forces you to dink too - they counter well and blind aggression off of good dinks while you’re not 100% balanced will not work at a high enough clip to be a dependable strategy. This is something AL and I had to wrestle with and accept. I don’t think my ball movement will ever be as good as theirs, but I am always trying to better it.

There is undoubtedly a chemistry that builds the more you play with someone, and no one has that more than Jackie and Jade. Of course, they do bicker at times, but when they are firing on all cylinders, the way they move together is really amazing. Such an even give and take of the middle and a true understanding of what the other will do. And if one of them does something the other finds dumb, if you’re close to the court, you’ll hear it😂.

We can go on and on and on about all the super high-level things that make the Kawas so good, but the main reason they are so good is the same reason all the other top players are good: they don’t miss much. In fact, the Kawamotos do not miss much at all. I think in Cincinnati Jade had some insane stat where in their last 3 matches she didn’t make one unforced error from the baseline or transition (don’t quote me on that, but it was something crazy).

They also are insane competitors and don’t get enough credit for that. If you’re someone trying to get better and learn from them… the main thing you should take away, honestly, is that you should miss less, hit better dinks, and move the ball around more. We can’t all have an identical twin with a different dominant hand!

Excited to get back to writing my newsletters regularly now that the Brighter Pickleball Bootcamp is officially in action, love you guys♥️♥️♥️