Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

What's the nicest thing you've done for your pickleball partner? Today, we'll reveal the greatest gift ever given to a pickleball partner, find out what the biggest flaws are in people's games, learn an essential strategy for speedups, and much more.

Let’s go! 👇

What would you do for your pickleball partner? Get them a holiday gift? Take them out for dinner?

Well, Rob Gray, a former kicker and punter for the University of Minnesota Gophers and senior pro pickleball player, got the ultimate gift from his pickleball partner: a kidney.

"It got to the point where I would pretty much stand in one spot and make my partner do most of the work," said Gray. "I knew I was going to need one [a kidney], and if I didn't get one, I was going on dialysis."

So without even being asked, Gray's pickleball partner of several years, Matt Skahen, got tested to see if he would be a match.

Upon learning that he was a perfect match for Gray, Skahen offered to give him one of his kidneys.

A spiritual man, Skahen believes that it was ordained that he would have two healthy kidneys so that he could eventually give one of them to his friend and pickleball partner.

The transplant was successful, and Gray was extremely grateful for the life-saving kidney he received. But he also wants to raise awareness about kidney transplants, as 12 people in America die each day waiting for one.

"There are 300 million people in the United States with two kidneys," said Gray. "There has to be a way that this education can get out there so we can start saving lives."

OK Rob, we accept that challenge and will use our platform right now — find out more about the possibility of you being able to donate a kidney at the National Kidney Foundation.

When in Doubt, Drop It Into the Kitchen

It’s easier said than done, but dropping the ball is often the smartest defensive option. Kitchen shots are harder to attack and buy you extra recovery time since they stay in the air longer than drives. In practice, focus on resets and dropping the ball from various areas of the court. Strengthening your defensive skills is one of the fastest ways to start winning more games.

Do you know anyone who says that pickleball is just an easy, unathletic sport for old people? If so, please send them this clip. 😀👇

The best topical pain reliever in the game, and the first ever to be designed specifically for pickleball players, has just added another product to its arsenal. As of yesterday, Pickleblam now has a Pain Relief Spray, featuring the same powerful pain-relieving formula that has made Picklebalm so popular. 

The new Picklebalm Pain Relief Spray is perfect for hard-to-reach areas like the middle of the back or for knees and elbows that may be partially covered by braces. The spray provides a light, even coverage without manual spreading and has the signature refreshing green tea and sage scent. Grab a bottle today. 

Welcome back to the section where we will define a word or term that is widely used in the pickleball world…

Body-bag (verb)

When you attempt to "body-bag" someone, you are intentionally trying to hit your opponent’s body with the ball in order to win a point. It is a controversial strategy that is frowned upon during rec play, but is generally accepted at higher levels because it serves the purpose of either intimidating your opponents or simply jamming them up such that even if they do get their paddle on your shot, they hit a weak volley back. However, intentionally trying to body-bag your opponent in the face is universally condemned at every level for obvious reasons.

We all love pickleball around here, and for many different reasons. It's fun and social, but it's also challenging from both a physical and mental perspective.

So we decided to ask all of you, "What's the biggest flaw in your pickleball game?" We posed the question to our Facebook Community, and as always, you had some incredible responses...

One player wrote, "Freezing up when someone smashes the ball at me rather than trying to hit it." We hear you! Just make sure you keep your paddle out in front and hold it firmly. (Wearing some protective eyewear also wouldn't hurt.)

Someone else wrote, "Not bending my knees," which is a good one because so many pickleball shots benefit from doing just that. Then someone else just wrote "my knees." 😀

Other common responses were "hitting out balls," "consistency," and "popping up." Hitting pop-ups can be REALLY frustrating, and if you regularly do it, then you're probably doing at least one of these things...

1. Holding the paddle too tight. 2. Not getting behind the ball. 3. Having too long of a backswing. 4. Flicking your wrist. 5. Short-hopping the ball.

Another player wrote, "Impatience to win the point, at the expense of consistency and placement." Wow, what a thoughtful and self-aware statement from someone who says they have no patience.

Our favorite response, though, was probably, "My lack of skill… but my cursing is on point!" Well, hey, at least you're good at something. 💪

Other people actually included cursing as one of their flaws, which we also understand. Let's compromise — you can curse, but just do it in another language, like this.

We just warned you about body-bagging above. 😆

Let's do a little thought experiment. Imagine there was an app that showed all of the available pickleball courts in your area in real time. It would mean that if you're an owner of a facility, any of your open courts could be seen and booked by new customers that may not have even known you existed.

Well, you can stop your thought experiment because this app already exists. It's called CourtsApp, and it's like an OpenTable or Expedia for courts. It's also the future of court booking because it provides a win-win for players and facilities, which get a ton of marketing totally for free because CourtsApp only makes a commission on the courts it books. Learn more and join CourtsApp or download it from the App Store or Google Play.

The speedup is a very important shot to hit when you're up at the kitchen because it allows you to go on offense and end a dink rally rather than waiting for a popup to come after 10, 15 or 20+ dinks. But as you get better, simply speeding up at your opponents won't cut it because your opponents will have excellent counters. So you need to have a plan of exactly where to hit your speedups and where to wait for the next shot. Good thing Coach Matt is here to explain the Triangle speed-up pattern. 👇

A lot of good things happen when you are the fastest-growing sport in America for at least five years in a row. More attention, more players, more places to play, and more choice of products you can use. But there are some disadvantages too, and one of them is the rise of fake or counterfeit products, like paddles. 

Virtually every major entity in pickleball recently issued a joint statement saying "there is no room for counterfeit paddles in our sport." But UPA-A (United Pickleball Association of America) took it a step further with a funny "Don't Trust a Fake" campaign where they used AI-generated pictures of the best pro pickleball players in the world working at other professions. 👇

Hope you enjoyed the read. See you next week!

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

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