Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

If you could change one thing about pickleball, what would it be? Today, we'll find out how The Pickleball Clinic community responded to that question, visit a prison that’s using pickleball with its inmates, find out how the pros are attacking cheating, and a whole lot more.

Let’s go! 👇

Pickleball brings people together from all different walks of life — young/old, athletic/people with no athletic backgrounds, and people of different races, political leanings, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

But another area that pickleball has had a profoundly positive impact on is our prisons. At Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine, pickleball is played once a month between civilian volunteers, corrections officers, and prisoners.

It really is amazing when you think about it. "Nowhere else have I ever heard of community members coming in with actual inmates and participating," said one of the incarcerated men, Jose Verdugo. "I think it's good on both sides. Good for the community and good for the inmates."

It started when the prison reached out to a pickleball club in nearby Brunswick and asked if someone there would be willing to come by and teach the game at the jail.

The president of the pickleball club, John Coray, didn't quite know what to expect at first, but he accepted the offer and hasn't looked back. 

"Look at what they're doing," said one of the corrections officers, Denis Duperre. "They're playing a sport. They're not trying to figure out how to hustle, how to hurt somebody. It's about as pro-social as it gets."

Granted, some people may have ambivalent feelings about rewarding people who are incarcerated, some of whom for very violent crimes. 

On the other hand, we don't know what each inmate did, when they did it, or the other factors involved. 

Regardless, all of the inmates are human beings, and if and when they do return to society, it is better for all of us that they return as people who appreciate community and enjoy interacting with people in healthy and positive ways.

If Your Strategy Isn’t Working, Adjust It

Notice which shots are giving you trouble—sticking to a failing approach is a quick way to let a game slip away. For instance, if you’re struggling to score, switch from drives to drops (or vice versa). If you’re losing hand battles, try dinking more. Shifting your strategy can turn a losing game into a winning one!

Now that’s a sweet camera angle. 👇

It's 2026, which means that pickleball is no longer a spring chicken. Well, it actually hasn't been a spring chicken in decades, but you know what we mean — it's been well known now for more than 5 years. So if you're going to play pickleball, then you don't want to use some ordinary paddle that you find on some random site online or at a large department store. 

Instead, you want to take advantage of the years and years of paddle technology that has made paddles so much better than they used to be. And that means JOOLA, the leader in paddle innovation, technology, and playability. Their latest Pro V uses its all-new KineticFrame that's inspired by kick-point engineering in hockey sticks and golf clubs. Plus, it comes in the existing shapes you know and love and a new shape, the Kosmos, used by Federico Staksrud and Tyson McGuffin. Order your JOOLA Pro V today.

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

Stacking (verb)

Stacking is a strategy in pickleball where partners switch sides of the court after the serve or return of serve to ensure that both partners play the rest of the point on their preferred sides. This strategy is used by many high level players, lefties, and almost all professionals. Stacking is perfectly legal because the correct partner is still hitting the serve or return of serve from the correct side — the partners are simply switching sides after those shots. Here’s what it looks like.

Sure, we all love pickleball here, but nothing in life is perfect. So what would you change about our sport if you could?

We actually asked this question to all of you via our Facebook and Instagram communities. Let's take a look at how you responded...

Many people replied with variations of "a let when the serve hits the net." This is referencing the "let" term in tennis, whereby if the serve hits the net and still goes in, then it does not count and the point is simply replayed.

Now that's a perfectly reasonable suggestion. The founders of the game could have gone either way on this one, but went with the current rule — probably because a pickleball court is a lot smaller than a tennis court so a ball that hits the net isn’t as difficult to reach.

Several people said that a Nasty Nelson should be banned and that hitting someone with the ball at any point during a rally should result in the point going to the person who was hit as opposed to the other way around. 

Interesting thought. However, that change would then incentivize people to purposely let a ball hit them so they can win the point. We suppose you could penalize that, but then players would have to constantly be determining intent, which is difficult to do.

More than one person said to remove the kitchen line. What?! With all due respect (actually not that much respect 😉), the kitchen is literally the defining line of our sport and what makes it the way it is.

Without the kitchen line, dinking and dropping would not exist, and the possibility that a less mobile player with touch could compete with a quicker, more agile player (like it is today 🎉) would all but vanish.

As always, we got some really funny responses, like "Remove the net from the court. Game would be a lot easier," and "...If you lob the elderly in rec play, you owe everyone donuts the next day!" 😂

When you forget to bring sunscreen with you to the courts. 😀

Pickleball clubs and facilities are popping up all over the place, which is great. BUT as the number of venues increases, it is becoming more and more important for those clubs and facilities to market themselves. Otherwise, they will have tons of courts sitting empty. That’s where CourtsApp comes in, the first AI-powered court marketing platform built to connect racket sport facilities with interested players by showing people in real time where there are available courts in their area.

It’s immediate marketing and exposure for pickleball clubs, and it's absolutely free because CourtsApp only makes a commission on the courts it books. CourtsApp is a win-win for both facilities and players, and it’s already in 175+ clubs and helping to book 1800 courts. So sign up here, and don’t let any more of your courts stay empty.

A major part of higher level pickleball — or really any level — is court positioning. There are places you want to be, like up at the kitchen, and then there are places that you DON'T want to be. One such place is called "no man's land," but our friend (and one of the best players in the world) Jill Braverman, has a different term for it. She calls it the "Zone of Death," and it’s on a slightly different part of the court. Jill, Matt, and Aaron show you how to stay out of that zone below. 👇

Like with any sport, human error is part of our game. And it will continue to be until all line calls are automated. Until then, we're doing our best, and sometimes we just get it wrong. However, purposely cheating is a whole different story. Cheating undermines the entire notion of fair play and is a detriment to any sport.

Unfortunately, cheating happens at every level of the game, including amongst pros. Well, the PPA (Professional Pickleball Association) Tour has had enough and is instituting a new policy where players can ask for their match to be reviewed. While the outcome of that match will not change, the player who made the bad call will be fined. Moreover, records will be kept for each player, and repeat offenders will face steeper and steeper penalties including possible suspension.

Hope you enjoyed the read. See you next week!

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

Missed an issue? You can catch up anytime!

WANT TO WORK WITH US?

Let us know who you are and how you’d like to partner with The Pickleball Clinic here!

Have an idea, story, or video? Reply to this email! We’d love to hear from you…