A really quick and easy drill to improve reaction time is actually go ahead and take a step into the nonvolley zone. That's going to put you and your practice partner 10, 11, 12 feet away from each other, which is closer than you'll ever be in an actual pickleball match. And practice keeping the ball in the air, volleying back and forth with each other at that super close proximity. You'll quickly find out that there's not a lot of time to guess whether it's a forehand or a backhand. As such, the best thing to practice from there, go ahead and commit to the backhand. The backhand is best for defending against a body shot. Really, you can handle a lot of attacks by using the backhand side of the paddle. So let's not guess. Commit to the backhand side. Stand relatively close to your opponent, a foot inside the nonvolley zone. And then when you actually play, things will slow down a little bit, and I think your reaction time will be all that much quicker.

So why is it called pickleball? There's two origin story theories. The first is that the Pritchards, one of the families that invented the sport, had a family dog named Pickles, and that Pickles would go and retrieve the ball when it went out of play. The second is that the mish mash of equipment-- from a badminton net to a wiffle ball to a paddle-- reminded the inventors of a crew term-- a term that's used in crew-- of a pickle boat, which is where leftover oarsmen paddle a boat. And in this case, you're using leftover equipment to play a sport.

There are a ton of tennis players coming into pickleball which is a great background sport for the game. However many tennis players just simply hit the ball too hard, take too much of a backswing the problems with that have to do with the generally rudimentary equipment and the tiny court on the court is only 22 feet on the other side of the net which is pretty tough to keep the ball in play. Combine that with the fact that the pickle ball, doesn't bounce very high, so often We're hitting a ball 8, 10 15 inches off the ground, which means you have to hit up over the net and add to that. We're playing with her. Generally you know, not very sophisticated paddle especially compared to a tennis racket with strings, felt on the ball and all those things. So it's difficult to impart enough spin to hit the ball, hard and have that spin. Keep the ball in play. So my recommendation with tennis players is to take negligible minimal backs. Wing and really embrace the soft game with a finesse elements of the sport. Thanks for asking the question, Wendy. I'll see you on the courts.

A pickleball, net is 2 inches lower than a tennis net in the center. It's 34 inches, high half way out to the ends. Is 35 inches high and all the way out near the posts, it's 36 inches high. All those are just two inches lower than in tennis net.

In 2022 pickleball. Still play predominantly in the US. Canada has a good number of players Mexico. Costa Rica a lot of the resorts are attracting players down there and Europe England, France have pretty good scenes and down under Australia has a number of terrific players growing by the day. This past summer, I had a chance to join a group in Israel promoting. A ball as a part of the Maccabi games, the every four years Jewish Olympics. We taught a number of Israelis as well as participants from teams around the world. The Spanish players picked it up really fast. So pickleball is growing the world pickleball Federation is helping spread the game globally but right now pickleball is still played mostly in the US.

Skinny singles is my favorite thing to do. When only two of us show up at the courts, you could play regular singles but given the ball doesn't bounce very much. There's just a lot of running around covering a lot of court, and if you're not a dedicated singles player, it's a bit of a waste of time. So, in order to practice your doubles, skinny singles is a great game where you pretty much, just divide your court into either on the diagonal or straight ahead and then you practice Practice playing covering only half of your court aiming for half of the court for your opponent's beyond that, it's a great opportunity to practice your serve and return, and your third shot drops. And then play the point out from there as if you were playing doubles.