Hey Team!

I spent my summer in New Jersey with my family. I’m excited to return to Delray Beach, Florida, in two weeks, where I can train full-time with top players!

I’m feeling more confident than ever about my game, having reached my best results this summer (4th and 5th place, back to back). I’m going full speed ahead to take down APP Dallas in mid-October!

Now, let’s get to your Week 15 video!

In today’s email:

• 🤫 EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The Strategy to Win Your First Pickleball Tournament

• ⏱️ Get your 60-second fix

• 👀 What I’m working on right now

The Strategy to Win Your First Pickleball Tournament 🏆

Whether you’re playing your first tournament or your 80th, there are always ways you can approach it better to improve your experience and results. Here are my tips to winning pickleball tournaments.

😳 1. Embrace your nerves

We all get nervous before tournaments – even pros. Nerves can make you tight and inconsistent in your swings. So, when you first start the tournament, try hitting third-shot drives instead of drops.

Drops require more touch and feel and a more consistent swing than drives. Plus, driving the ball can help release some tension in your body. If the drives work, keep doing them. Once you relax a bit, then start dropping.

👉❎👈 2. Aim your drops and dinks to the middle

The next best tip for tournament play is to aim your drops and dinks to the middle of the kitchen. This is a great spot to build confidence because a) there is more room to “miss,” and b) the net is lower in the middle, making it an easier spot to hit consistently.

When we aim for the sidelines and are tight, we risk hitting bad balls that go out of bounds.

A bonus reason to aim in the middle is that most players have trouble being aggressive from a middle dink.

👋👋 3. Hit 10 dinks before you speed the ball up

Another strategic shift to consider in tournament play is hitting ten dinks before you attempt a speed-up. When you force yourself (and your partner) to be patient, you’re allowing your opponents to make mistakes first. Those mistakes can compound, leading to more mental errors that cause them to lose the match.

Most of the time, your opponent will either attack something they shouldn’t or start taking poor shots. You usually won’t even make it to ten dinks before your opponents give the point away to you.

Of course, if the ball is high and you can easily smash it, go for it!

🔔 Practice

The only way to practice is to play tournaments and leagues. While rec play is fun and competitive, nothing can replace the high-pressure situations you’ll face in a tournament.

If you haven’t already, find a local tournament to compete in, and you’ll quickly learn how much more of a challenge (and how much fun) they can be.

Pickleball Stacking Hand Signals 👋 ✊ 🤌

When stacking, it’s crucial to communicate with your partner so that your opponents don’t know what’s coming. For that, we use hand signals. Here are the ones you need to know…

IN UNDER 60 SECONDS 👈

What I’m Working On Right Now

This past week I’ve went back to the basics and focused on third shot drops!

When you miss this shot in a tournament, you feel a mental weight placed on your shoulders.

Why?

Because your opponents will hit you every third shot until you can prove you can consistently make one 😅.

This happened to me in my past tournament, I began driving the ball because I was feeling nervous to drop. This alleviated the pressure and no harm was done.

However, I want to be a MACHINE when hitting drops, so I hit 100 everyday for the past 7 days. 😏

Till next week,

Tanner