Five games in and you’ve probably heard at least three of these… maybe even said one yourself.

Go ahead—confess.

Which ones have you heard?
Which ones have you uttered?
Which one makes your eye twitch?

What’s missing from the list?

Hit reply and let me know, I read and respond to every single one.

A good doubles team looks like they share a brain.
Two key principles make that happen: shifting and respecting the X.

Shifting means you and your partner move together with the ball, keeping the middle and the ball-side sideline covered.
📹 Watch this quick video on shifting →

Imagine a giant X across the court. The player diagonal from the ball owns the middle shot in that moment.

📹 CJ explains how breaking the X cost Hayden & Federico a PPA championship match (worth a watch to understand the principle and why you should respect it)

The other night, we were playing some friends (shout out to Andy and Ashlie—Five Dink Friday readers) and… let’s just say not respecting the X bit us in the butt more than once. A few net flubs later, the lesson was crystal clear: ignoring the X costs points.

✅ Poaching a sitter
✅ Relieving pressure (cuz your partner is out of position)
✅ Jumping on a fat, short return

❌ Crossing it “just because” is usually hurting more than it’s helping.

Pro Tip:
Shifting gets you in position.
Respecting the X tells you who swings.

Do both, and you’ll look like a mind-reading ninja instead of a middle-ball menace.

I used to be that player.

If I felt like driving it, I drove it.

Short? Long? Low? High? Didn’t matter.

No rhyme. No reason. No plan.

I never thought about where I should be putting it or whether it made sense.

Basically, I was driving recklessly —

And yes, my partner suffered the crash damage. 🚗💥

But that’s all changed.

Once I actually learned when and where to drive vs. drop, my game leveled up fast.
Now I’m intentional. I control tempo. I’m acting instead of reacting.

Ever play with a partner who rips a drive at an opponent already at the net — and it comes screaming back at your feet?

Or blasts something that should’ve been a soft reset… straight into the fence?

Yeah. Me too.

They’re out there driving like it’s Mario Kart, and I’m trying to play chess.

So let’s fix that. (if you’re reading this thinking, “Oh no… that’s me,” well… time to pump the brakes.)

And, I made you a handy little matrix so you can do just that:

✅ Green Light to Drive if:

🚫 Pump the Brakes (Drop Instead) if:

Like I said, just paying attention to when and where to drop has been a game-changer for me. If you really want to “drive” it home, you can watch Austin explain the principles in this video:

Now, I’m not perfect. I still make a few bad drive vs. drop decisions during each game, but compared to my old “drive everything” days, let’s just say I’ve come a long way.

And that’s a win worth bragging about.

So now I’m wondering… what other pro concepts are just sitting out there, waiting to level me up once I finally learn them?

Your turn: What’s one piece of strategy that completely changed your game? Hit reply and let me know.

Because a good team name is half the battle.

I love me a good league name. In my short(ish) pickleball career, I’ve seen some that are so good I’d join the team just for the merch.

Here are my current favorites (in no particular order—except the order I think makes you laugh the fastest):

💬 Your turn:

Reply and let me know. I want to get a list of at least 50 bangers—I’ll feature the best reader submissions in a future FDF (aka Five Dink Friday).

Confession: I used to hate open play.

I tried it twice when I first started playing pickleball… and swore it off forever.
Why?

Because “open play” felt like “grab-bag pickleball” — sometimes you lucked into a solid game, but more often you got:

Not exactly high-quality reps.

So I became a partner snob. Only curated games. Only “good pickleball.”

But the last two weeks at The Kitchen?
Open play has been… dare I say it… awesome.

🔥 The competition: Everyone was 4.0 or higher.
🎯 The variety: Every game was a new puzzle to solve.
💡 The learning curve: I had to adapt, fast.

🌀 Shaggy the Spin Doctor
Looked like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, served up spins I’d never seen before. First game, they burned me. By the second game? I had the reads and was sending them back with interest.

🥞 Mangos the Pancake Man
Forehand-only, flat as a griddle — and deadly. Once I learned where the pancake was going, I could set up my counters.

🏆 Max & Jason, the Champs
We played a best-of-three world championship. Won the first, lost the second, took the decider.

Sometimes we won in a landslide, sometimes we got schooled. Either way, I walked away with sharper skills and a fresh respect for the chaos.

Poll Time:

And Max — thanks for forwarding FDF to your friends. You’re the real MVP.

That’s it for this week, Pickleball Nerd Nation. 🧠

If you’re now slightly more confident pulling the trigger on a drive…
…or tempted to rename your team “Slice Slice Baby” just for the merch—my work here is done.

Hit reply if you’ve got:

And if someone forwarded this to you — bless them — you can subscribe right here.

Until next Friday: dink smarter, not harder.

– JP

P.S. 📤 Know someone who should be reading this? Forward it like a forehand drive—fast, flat, and impossible to ignore.