Drills to sharpen your dink
Pickleball soft-game drills for control at the kitchen — keep the ball low and unattackable.
- Type: Walkthrough
- Sport: Pickleball
- Level: Intermediate
- Area: Drills & Technique
- Watch: 0:53
- Read: 1 min
- Updated: Jul 2026
What you'll learn
- Finding the right drill
- How drills are organized
Before you start
- One clear priority to work on (run a swing analysis first if you have not).
- A little space to move and, ideally, a way to film a rep.
Step by step
Finding the right drill
Use the filters to find drills for your sport, skill level, and the specific issue you want to fix. Start with drills labeled as "high priority" for your current diagnosis.
How drills are organized
Drills are grouped by the swing issue they address — for example, club path, face angle, attack angle, timing, or contact point. Completing drills in a sequence is more effective than doing them randomly.
Try it now
Put this into practice in SwingVantage — free to start, no account needed.
Try it nowCommon mistakes
Trying to change everything at once.
Follow the one-fix idea: work a single priority, then retest before moving on.
Skipping the retest, so you never confirm the change stuck.
Re-record the same way after practicing and compare against where you started.
What happens next
Practice with drills
Work the fix with targeted drills built around what your swing actually needs.
Continue your path
The next lessons that build on this one.
Trust & accuracy
SwingVantage is honest about certainty: findings are labeled by how they were produced and how confident they are. Treat them as a strong starting point you confirm with your own retest, not a final verdict.
Frequently asked
What does the "Drills to sharpen your dink" video cover?
Pickleball soft-game drills for control at the kitchen — keep the ball low and unattackable.
How do I get started?
The dink wins kitchen battles — the goal is a soft, low ball your opponent cannot attack, not a winner.
What's the key thing to remember?
Re-check after a few sessions; a longer unattackable streak means your touch is getting more reliable.
Full transcript
- The dink wins kitchen battles — the goal is a soft, low ball your opponent cannot attack, not a winner.
- Start with the cross-court dink drill; the longer diagonal gives you more margin and is the safest target to groove.
- Use a quiet push from the shoulder, not a wrist flick — a stable wrist keeps the ball low and repeatable.
- Keep your paddle out in front and your knees bent so you are lifting the ball gently, not slapping down at it.
- Aim to land the ball in the kitchen so it cannot be volleyed; height over the net is what gets you attacked.
- Filter the Drill Library to pickleball and the soft-game area to find drills that fit the dink.
- Count how many dinks in a row you keep below net-cord height rather than chasing outright winners.
- Re-check after a few sessions; a longer unattackable streak means your touch is getting more reliable.