Common Beginner Mistake: Overhitting Dinks
Also known as: dinking too hard
New players often swing at dinks with too much paddle speed. The ball pops up above net height, handing the opponent an easy attacking shot instead of staying low and soft.
A proper dink is a soft, controlled shot that clears the net by a small margin. It drops quickly into the opponent's kitchen, giving them little to attack. Beginners are used to generating pace on every other shot, so they often carry that same swing speed into the dink. That can send the ball long past the baseline. More commonly, it pops the ball up above net height, where a settled opponent can attack it comfortably.
The root cause is usually treating the dink like a small version of a groundstroke. It is really its own distinct shot with a different swing shape. A dink relies on a soft, compact paddle motion and precise contact rather than any real acceleration through the ball. An overhit dink is especially costly because it does not just lose the point outright the way an out-of-bounds shot might. It usually sets the opponent up for an immediate, easy put-away.
Building a reliable soft dink takes deliberate, repetitive practice at slow paddle speed. It works against the instinct to swing harder, which serves a player well almost everywhere else in the game. Drilling dink exchanges specifically, rather than only working on power shots, is usually the fastest way past this particular habit.
Practice dinking with a noticeably slower, shorter paddle motion than feels natural at first. Most new players still swing too hard even after consciously trying to soften it.
Example
A beginner, comfortable generating pace on drives, swings through a dink attempt with too much speed, popping the ball up to shoulder height for their opponent to smash.
Why it matters
An overhit dink usually does not just lose the point. It sets up the opponent for an easy attacking shot, compounding one mistake into a much worse outcome.
Common mistakes
- Treating the dink as a smaller version of a groundstroke rather than a distinct, soft shot
- Swinging with acceleration through contact instead of a slow, controlled paddle motion
In SwingVantage Motion Lab
Motion Lab traces your follow-through on each dink clip, but it does not compare strokes across an exchange or measure contact height. A long follow-through on a dink is the sign of a groundstroke swing rather than a controlled push.
Frequently asked questions
Why do my dinks keep popping up instead of staying low?
This usually means too much paddle speed through contact. A dink relies on a soft, compact motion rather than acceleration — slowing the swing down, not adding more spin or power, is usually the fix.
Is it normal to overhit dinks as a beginner?
Yes. It is one of the most common early habits, since most other shots in the game reward more pace, and the dink asks for the opposite instinct.
Related terms
- DinkA dink is a soft, controlled shot hit from near the kitchen line. It arcs just over the net and lands in the opponent's kitchen, forcing them to hit upward and preventing an aggressive return.
- Soft HandsSoft hands is the ability to absorb pace from an incoming ball by relaxing the grip slightly at impact, converting a hard shot into a controlled, softly placed return.
- Topspin DinkA topspin dink adds forward spin to a kitchen-line dink so it dips quickly after crossing the net and kicks up on the bounce. This makes it harder to reset cleanly.
Related guides & benchmarks
Put this into your swing
SwingVantage can spot this in your own swing — free to start.
See a sample Pickleball report first