The flick is one of the ultimate weapons in pickleball. You can take a short soft shot that was more effective before this shot existed and whip it into topspin shape, an offensive weapon that will rock your opponents’ world.
To wisely execute it, you first have to take a tactics-first approach. What is the situation coming your way? How high and fast is the ball? Where are the opponents on the court? It’s important to know as the flick is best used in a specific circumstance. You need to make the right decision or you’ll make a lot of errors!
A mediocre dink or drop is one that isn’t necessarily a pop-up that most pickleball players can attack, but one that should generally be taken out of the air. Many do a dink volley, but if you extend your arm fully, and are able to catch the ball at net height or a few inches below, that is the ideal contact point for the flick. Any lower and that pesky net starts to increasingly get in the way, forcing you to increase the steepness of the ball’s parabola, growing your margin of error. Better to do that volley dink at that point. Any higher and it makes more sense to have more of a driving power shot or roll, as the net is less of a concern.
So, now that you know the proper situation, now it’s time to execute this excellent tactic with new and improved technique! Extend your arm straight out (typically a one-handed shot), let the paddle face droop to 45 degrees, and right as the ball is falling and about to hit your paddle, whip your wrist up in an explosive motion, keeping the rest of your arm stable. The elbow needs to stay out of it or you’ll lose control of the fine motor skills needed to keep the ball in! This will create high paddle head speed right on contact, and the verticality will impart plentiful topspin. The paddle will have turned approximately 180 degrees.
The ball will whizz whizz whizz, and since you’re hitting the ball so close to the net, your opponents will struggle to react appropriately as the ball will be coming in hot, even if they’re at the baseline!
Get out there and give it a try! Not recommended for beginners, as they need to focus more on the gross motor skills of foundational contact-to-follow through pathways before adding in more rigorous complex shots to their arsenal.
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