Improve Your Pickleball Doubles Skills with the \"Mini Singles\" Drill

I'm writing today because I wanted to share with you the new practice “drill” I did last night that, somehow, in my 15 years of playing doubles pickleball, I hadn't done before.

It forces you to:

MOVE, RUN and PLACE the ball in ways that doubles doesn't usually require us to.

The ONLY way I could be successful with it was to make sure I was being consistent with my split step.

I was at the courts with someone who likes to play singles and is a lot faster than I am (tho not as good of a doubles player...)

There were no “extra” people to play doubles with, so we hit singles…

But first we did this drill.

Okay, enough with the suspense, are you ready for me to tell you about it? (I'll assume so!)

Basically, you know how you dink the ball back and forth from the kitchen line when you're warming up as a foursome?

Well, it's like that…

Except there are only two of you and you are both covering the WHOLE width of the court!

And instead of being “nice” and hitting it TO the person like I sometimes would during a warm-up, you are purposely trying to keep it AWAY from them.

And if you CAN hit it past them, well that's allowed, too!

Now, this requires QUITE a bit of mobility. If you or your partner struggle with that, you can either avoid this drill, or you can agree to play with, say, only ¾ of the width of the court instead of the entire width. Or start out playing on the ½ court, but instead of hitting it TO each other, hit it AWAY from each other.

One thing my practice buddy and I figured out is that, for some reason, whoever “served” this drill (by dropping the ball and dinking it across the net after the bounce) seemed to have an advantage.

So we decided that we would play to 7 points, but you only score when the OTHER person serves, which is, of course, the opposite of how you typically score in pickleball.

There were some shots I simply didn't have a chance of getting, but it was really fun to, not only be practicing sharp, cross-court dinks, but also forcing myself to MOVE my feet and get my weight centered after every shot so that I could prepare for the ball to go in either direction.

We alternated between serving and playing out singles points, and then when I got too overheated, I'd come back up to the net to do this drill for a while.

It was fun, a great workout, and a useful drill.

If you aren't familiar with my “S.M.A.R.T From the Start” approach to teaching newbies to play at the intermediate level in just 3 sessions (!!), you may not know that the “M” stands for “Mini Match” which is when I have people “serve," keep score, and play out points all from the non-volley line.

I actually have them do this before I ever teach them a regular serve, which happens in the “A” part of the methodology!

Based on that, I'm going to call this drill “Mini Singles”.

So, I'm curious…

I'm assuming most singles players have practiced “Mini Singles” before, but if you're NOT a singles player, is this something YOU'VE done regularly to warm up?

Am I the only one who hasn't done it??

I mean, of course, if there is a shortage of courts, and all 4 of you must be on one court, then it's not a great option.

But there are PLENTY of times when I am warming up with a foursome when we COULD be warming up on two courts, but we just don't…

Or at least, I haven't 'til now…

But I plan to do this “Mini Singles” drill more often because I can tell that it will definitely help me sharpen my game, and I hope it helps yours, too! 🤗

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Warmly,