Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

Do you ever look up at the skies and wonder if anything is looking back down at you? Today, we'll take a look at aerial footage of outdoor pickleball courts, discover the best coaching advice you've ever received, learn the two most important shots for preventing your opponents from scoring, and a whole lot more.

Let’s do this. 👇

All over the U.S., tennis courts are quietly becoming something else... pickleball paradise!

According to a recent study conducted by The New York Times using aerial photography, 8,000 tennis courts have been converted to 26,000 pickleball courts since 2017.

The majority of those conversions came after 2020, and by 2024, an average of 14 pickleball courts were being built or drawn over tennis courts every single day.

Aerial footage reveals that there are many ways to put pickleball court lines on top of tennis courts. You can fit two, three, or even four pickleball courts (see below) on one tennis court.

According to the study, while the rate of creating new pickleball courts has not dropped, for the first time in years, there has been a decline in new pickleball courts painted onto tennis courts.

That makes sense, as the pickleball community is getting more and more used to playing on courts solely devoted to pickleball!

But remember when you had to make lines with tape every time you wanted to play? (The OGs know what we're talking about. 😃)

Of course the tennis community has been threatened by this pickleball takeover — and hey, can you blame 'em? That's why they're pushing their "red ball tennis" as a pickleball alternative. 😀

Can't we all just get along? The highest-ranked American tennis player, Taylor Fritz, seems to think so.

"I don’t really have an issue with pickleball,” said Fritz. “I like playing sometimes... I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist." ☮️

If You Hit a Good Drive, Follow It Up to the Kitchen

Many players stay back in the transition zone or by the baseline after hitting a great drive instead of following it all the way up. Staying back sacrifices your opportunity for a potential putaway, and will keep your opponents comfortable because you're less of a threat the further back you are.

Athletic? Nah, pickleball isn’t athletic. 😉

The Game is Still the Game

Pickleball is everywhere these days. Tina Fey just made a joke about it at the Emmys over the weekend and real estate developers are making sure to include pickleball courts in their apartment complexes to entice prospective buyers. 

That's great news for all of us because more pickleball buzz means more people playing and more courts being built. But no matter how many new courts and players there are, the game is still the game. Sure, the sport is evolving, but it will always be about using your paddle to hit a ball with the utmost precision and power. And if you want to be the best you can be, you've got to play with the best paddle out there.

Welcome back to Ask Jilly B, a monthly thought-stream from coach & top pro player, Jill Braverman.

These Two Shots Reveal Your DUPR

The return of serve and its counterpart “the fourth” are the two most important shots in pickleball. Show me a player’s return and 4th and I will tell you their DUPR almost exactly. So why are these shots so important?

Because they prevent your opponent from winning points. Think about this: if you and your partner miss 3 returns per game that’s 27.5% of all the available points in a game to 11. But if you do nothing well except hit good returns and good fourths then the best your opponents can do against you is 0-0.

There are always two games being played simultaneously in pickleball: the game of winning points and the game of preventing points from being won. They require different skills and thought processes! Shore up your returns and fourths and get ready to drive your opponents crazy.

Be sure to follow Jill for more insights and instruction on Instagram and YouTube.

Can You Say Giveaway?

We’re giving away some incredible stuff to 10 winners! Just visit us HERE on Instagram for your chance to win.

The Best Coaching Advice Ever!

We think you all know the drill by now: we ask pickleball-related questions to you on our Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as our Facebook group, and you give us amazing answers!

Our most recent question was, "What’s the best pickleball coaching advice you’ve gotten?” As always, you knocked the responses out of the park. Let's take a look...

Several of you wrote "placement over power," which is a great piece of advice. But then someone else responded, "why not both?" 😀

That is a fair comment, and yes, the best players have mastered both the hard and soft games. But if we had to pick one, we'd go with placement.

Another person wrote "Get your feet right and everything else just happens." Maybe a tad of an overstatement? 🤏 Being good at pickleball doesn't "just happen." But we get the gist.

It's similar to the "move your feet," comment, which we got a lot of. Yes, if you're on your toes and getting behind the ball — as opposed to always reaching — your mechanics will be a lot better.

Someone else responded with "Rule # 1: Get the ball over the net. Rule #2: Refer back to rule #1." That's cute. 🥺 And in theory, if you always got the ball over the net, you couldn't lose a point.

HOWEVER, you won't always get the ball over the net if you aren't hitting the right shots. Which brings us to another response, "Hit the ball with a purpose!"

Now that's a great piece of advice because pickleball is a sport of leverage and precisely controlling the height and depth of your shots. So if you're just aimlessly getting the ball over the net, you're screwed!

Great stuff all around! But our favorite coaching advice someone responded with (or at least the funniest) was this one... "Have you tried bowling?" 😂 

It was SO worth it! 🕺

Stay as Long as You Like

You know when your non-pickleball friends (we hope you don't have too many of those 😉) say they've heard pickleball is dangerous? That's completely false, as there is nothing inherently dangerous about pickleball. It's just that it has become wildly popular with people of all ages and fitness levels. So of course if you're not used to moving around, you don’t warm up, and you don't listen to your body, then sure, you can get injured playing pickleball — as you would with any other sport.

But even if you do stretch and warm up, you may still experience aches, pains, and sore muscles. Why? Because you're human. (Or at least you're human and not in your 20s anymore. 😀) Well, it's 2025, and now you can do something to relieve your sore muscles. In other words, we want you to play more and hurt less so you can be out on the courts for as many hours and years as possible! Plus, first time customers receive 20% off their first order!

The serve is a shot that has definitely evolved. If you want to get better at pickleball these days, you've got to start viewing the serve as a weapon and not a shot that you "just want to get in." Luckily, pro pickleballer and former #1 player in the world, Zane Navratil, is here with Matt to share some super important tips for improving your serve. Check it out below. 👇

Key takeaways:

• Don’t worry if you miss your serve sometimes. You want to be hitting a deep, aggressive serve, so if you miss your serve deep every once in a while, that’s OK.

• Try using a semi-western grip to create more topspin on your serve.

• Make contact with the ball out in front of your body, not at your side.

Ruston Kelly is an American singer-songwriter whose song "Nashville Without You" appeared on one of Tim McGraw's albums. But not long ago, Kelly was feeling uninspired in his work and in life. He was searching for meaning and purpose. 

Then he met Tia (now his girlfriend), who suggested pickleball as the venue for their first time hanging out. Kelly admits “I'm not, like, Mr. Athletic, but I would just go and do these things anyways... My body felt good after it. But it [pickleball] was filling up my personal soul’s bucket in a really great way.”

For Kelly, pickleball represents the notion of taking a chance on something new. He is very inspired by his experience, which is why he just released a new song called, "Pickleball." Check it out here. 

Hope you enjoyed the read. See you next week!

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

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