Why I'm Better than You at Pickleball

Improving at anything is hard, and only gets harder with time. It’s still a trip to me that I’m one of the best in the world at something, and after all my international travels and playing with a lot of amateurs, I’ve been thinking a lot about just what it takes to get better and to get really good at this silly little game we are all obsessed with.

If you want to see more of my life being a trip, check out my latest vlog of my time with JOOLA on the Titans Tour!!!

But anyways, without further ado, what is it exactly that makes me better than you at pickleball?

This one is obvious, so I figured I would get it out of the way first. You’ve all been told you need to drill more, and I can write an entire piece on why drilling is so important, but in short, if you want to get better and you’ve plateaued, you need to get out there and get dedicated touches. I love drilling and tend to prefer it to games. I wasn’t always like this, and in my first year of playing, I probably drilled less than 10 times. But eventually, it becomes necessary no matter how good you are. If you want to get better, I suggest you start falling in love with the process!

One thing that has always characterized me as a tennis and pickleball player is a deep hatred for making loose errors and giving away free, unearned points to my opponent. It’s a major source of pride for me that I never double-faulted in tennis when down match point, and I personally think there’s nothing more disgusting in pickleball than losing a game or MATCH on a missed return. You just can’t do it. Make people earn things.

When I tell people they should hate missing, I’m not saying you should completely beat yourself up over it, but if, generally, your unforced errors on routine shots don’t bother you, you will not be inclined to figure out why you are making them, and your brain will not work to subconsciously correct whatever is going wrong. Take note of your errors, especially when they are repeated, and really try to minimize them. Most of you can get SIGNIFICANTLY better by adding NOTHING to your game except a bit more consistency. You would be amazed.

I’ve written before about how much Anna Leigh and I are borderline psychotic in rec play, and I think this is one of the things that makes us great. We are both competitive as can be, and this isn’t just a switch you flip on when a ref is calling the score. Of course, practice is the time to work on things, so there is nuance, but I am pretty much always bringing a very high level of intensity to my rec play.

I’m not saying you can’t have fun with your friends, but don’t mess around too much whenever you’re on court. Every shot you hit has the potential to make you better, or make you worse. If you’re lazy, your footwork will get worse, you will build bad habits that may show up in crunch time, and you won’t be holding yourself to a standard you know you are capable of. Be the person that tries hard, always.

There is nuance to this - I know a lot of you saw Lea Jansen’s episode of PicklePod where she called out people who emote aggressively in rec. I’m not saying you need to be doing THAT, just that you should hold yourself to a high standard. We only have so much time to play pickleball - let’s make the most of it!

This is a cornerstone of improvement and something I bet 99% of you who are wanting to improve are NOT doing enough of. There is NO SHORTCUT around watching yourself play. If you want to improve quickly, you need to do it. Grab a tripod, set it up, and suffer through watching yourself back.

It might be ugly, you might be shocked at how slow you are, at your technique, at your error count, and it’ll definitely be tough to watch at first, but you have to do it if you want to get better. I made my bootcamper baddies do this, and at first it’s hard, but they all got progressively more numb to it the more they did it.

I will write another piece in the future on what specifically you can look for when you watch yourself, but generally just notice what you’re not good at, what works on you repeatedly, and what shots you are missing a lot, so you can work on them! A huge thing you should take note of is your footwork, I bet it can be a lot better!!!

When I first started, I watched myself play obsessively. You could say that’s narcisstic of me, but I truly think it was a major cheat code to me getting good really fast. Here’s a video of me playing when I was just a baby that I have spent a lot of time watching (I’d been playing less than 2 months!).

Ben Johns has talked about this when he’s asked about his game and how he has stayed at the top. It’s important ot not only learn from yourself, but to learn from those around you. I am always copying what others do or if I see someone hit a stroke a certain way that I like. When I was just learning, I would watch a lot of Anna Leigh and Simone Jardim. I’d watch them hit a shot, go back 10 seconds and watch it again. I did this over and over and over on a bunch of different shots.

I continue to do this when I see someone do something I like, and it’s not unique to me. I’ve seen Anna Leigh shadow swing trying to figure out what I did in practice after I hit a good shot, and I regularly talk with my friends about how people do different things. I learned how to hit a forehand misdirect from watching Vivienne David closely, and I have about 10 screen recordings of her cooking men in my phone to prove it.

If you see someone do something you like that you can figure it out, study it, practice it, and eventually, implement it! This is the best way to add new shots to your game.

That’s all for this edition folks, thank you for reading, as always♥️. I hope everyone enjoys PPA Sacramento! I’m sad to be missing it, but I definitely need a break after all the travel and it’s sooo nice to be back home. You guys will catch me back in action at the Atlanta Slam🍑🫶🏽!

As always, dink big, dream bigger - your internet bestie, Anna ♥️✨🫦