Why You Should Play Pickleball with Players of All Levels

One of the things that I really like about pickleball is drop in play allows me to compete against so many different types of players who are at all different levels.  While people in sports like tennis only tend to play with others of the same skill level, pickleball competition has much more variety to it.  I think this is not only great for the sport but great for improving your game, and here is why.

When I play against lower level players, I find the ball goes higher over the net and is also slower.  What is interesting about this is I sometimes struggle with this style of play.  It reminds me of an interview I did with Laura Fenton Kovanda on the Pickleball Fire podcast.  She was one of the top professional women's racquetball players in the world and her strategy was to always find her opponent's weaknesses.  So in a match against the number one player in the world, she found a very unusual weakness.  It was a serve off the side wall which Laura said would be an easy put away opportunity for any player at their level.  However, it was a serve which her opponent clearly was not used to so Laura was able to exploit the weakness.

That's why I like to play against players who hit the ball higher and softer.  I feel uncomfortable with this style of game so I want to make sure I practice against it so it doesn't become a weakness of mine.  Honestly I would much rather have someone blasting the ball at me low over the net.  But that is not the only reason I like playing “down”.  It gives me an opportunity to practice shots I don't usually use.  One example of this is a lob over my opponent's head.  This is a shot I find difficult to practice when I use my lobster ball machine as it just isn't the same as when hitting it against a person.  So I'll hit a few lobs during the course of the game to practice this skill.

As I said at the beginning of the article, I think playing against all levels of competition is great for the sport.  But I also know it's great for my game and I plan to continue to do this as long as I play pickleball.