The Third Shot Drop, Explained Simply

By Steve Kennedy · South Florida Pickleball Academy · Davie, FL

If you only ever fix one shot, fix this one. The third shot drop separates players stuck at 3.0 from players who move comfortably at 3.5 and up. It is also the shot most often taught badly, in a rushed sixty seconds at the end of a clinic, to twelve people at once. So here it is properly, the way I teach it to a student standing in front of me at Bamford Park.

Why the shot exists at all

Start with the rule that creates the problem. Pickleball has a two-bounce rule: the serve must bounce, and the return must bounce. So after you serve, you cannot run forward. You have to stay back and wait.

Meanwhile the returning team hits their return and walks straight to the kitchen line, because nothing stops them. Now two people are at the net and two are twenty feet behind it. That is a losing arrangement in any racquet sport. The players at the net hit down, the players at the back hit up, and down beats up.

The third shot drop is the answer. You hit a soft ball that lands in or near their kitchen, low enough that they cannot hit down on it, and while it floats over there you walk to the kitchen line. Now it is two at the net against two at the net, and the point is even.

That is the whole idea. The drop is not about winning the point. It is about buying yourself the right to move. Students get upset that their drop did not produce a winner. It was never supposed to. A drop that makes the opponent hit up while you walk in did its entire job.

What the shot actually looks like

Picture an arc. The ball leaves your paddle going up, peaks somewhere around head height on your side of the net, and comes down soft into their kitchen. It is a lift, not a hit. Mechanically, four things:

• Get low. Bend your knees and get your paddle below the ball. You cannot lift a ball you are standing above.
• Open the paddle face. It points slightly up at the sky. That is what creates the arc.
• Push from the shoulder. The stroke comes from your shoulder and body moving forward, not from a wrist snap or an elbow flick. Slide a plate across a table rather than swat a fly.
• Finish and go. Follow through toward your target and start your feet forward as soon as the ball leaves the paddle.

Grip pressure is the part I correct most often. Hold the paddle loosely. If you squeeze, the ball comes off hot and long. A relaxed hand is what makes it die in the kitchen.

The three things that go wrong

In forty years of coaching I have watched every possible version of this shot fail. It is almost always one of three problems, and you can diagnose yourself in one game.

1. It goes too deep, and they smash it

Your drop lands past their kitchen line, sits up around chest height, and someone puts it away. Nine times out of ten you hit the ball instead of lifting it. Something in your arm accelerated: a wrist snap, an elbow flick, a swing that started too far back.

The fix is boring and it works. Shorten your backswing until it feels almost too small, loosen your grip, and let the forward motion of your body supply the pace. The cue I use is "carry the ball, do not strike it."

2. It goes into the net

Usually this is a player who was told the drop needs to be low and took it literally. They aim at the tape and half the balls find it.

Aim at a spot in the air two to three feet above the net and let gravity do the rest. The apex of your arc should be on your side of the net, not past it. Check your legs too, because players who do not bend cannot get under the ball, and a shot hit from above the ball goes into the tape almost automatically. A drop that lands a little deep is recoverable. A drop in the net is zero. If you are going to miss, miss long.

3. It was a good drop and you stayed home

The player hits a beautiful drop, admires it, and stands on the baseline. The whole point of the shot was to get forward, and they gave it away.

You do not have to sprint. Take four or five walking steps while the ball is in the air, then split step as your opponent contacts it. If you only reach mid-court, fine: hit another soft ball and take a few more steps. Reaching the kitchen in two moves is normal. Not moving at all is not. Build the reflex that every soft ball is followed by forward movement and your drop gains value before it gains accuracy. There is more on positioning that saves your legs in playing great pickleball at 70 and beyond.

A practice progression you can actually do

You do not need a ball machine and you do not need to be fit. You need a partner and twenty minutes. Do these in order and do not move on until the current step is comfortable.

Step one: dink from the kitchen line. Both of you stand at the kitchen and dink. That is the same motion as a drop, just from close range. Twenty in a row into the kitchen. This teaches your hand what soft feels like.

Step two: back up to midcourt. You move a few steps into the transition zone, your partner stays at the kitchen and feeds you. Same soft lift, slightly bigger. Twenty in a row.

Step three: back to the baseline. Now it is the real shot. Do not count winners. Count how many landed in the kitchen or within a foot of the line, and aim for six out of ten before you move on.

Step four: add the feet. Same drill, but after every drop you walk forward and split step. Your partner blocks the ball back and you play the point out from wherever you got to. This is where the shot becomes real, because the drop and the movement are one thing.

Step five: serve, return, third. Play out only the first three balls of the point, over and over. Ten minutes of this beats an hour of open play, because in a real game you might get twenty third shots in ninety minutes. Here you get sixty in ten.

That last point is the whole argument for drilling instead of only playing, and it is why players who are out five days a week still plateau. More on that in what actually improves your rating.

When to drop and when not to

The drop is your default, not your only option. If the return lands short and sits up around waist height, drive it instead. A short return is a gift and a soft ball wastes it. Hit it firm at the feet of the player in front of you and follow it in.

If the return is deep and pushes you behind the baseline while you are still moving backward, do not attempt a delicate drop off your back foot. Hit a deep, safe ball down the middle, reset, and try again on the fifth shot. Nothing in the rules says you have to reach the kitchen on the third ball.

The honest timeline

Most students have a usable drop within a few weeks, meaning it goes in when nobody is rushing them. Making it hold up at 9-9 with the wind blowing takes longer, and that gap is normal.

What speeds it up is having someone watch you hit fifty of them and tell you which of the three problems you actually have. Players are poor at diagnosing their own drop, because hitting too hard and hitting correctly feel nearly the same from the inside. From ten feet away I can see it in three balls.

I teach at Bamford Park in Davie and I travel to students in Weston, Cooper City, Plantation, Southwest Ranches and Pembroke Pines. Private lessons are $100 an hour, and this shot is the single most common thing people book me for. Details are on the lessons page.

Text Steve at (954) 461-9946 if you want an hour on this shot. Tell me what your drop does wrong and I will usually know what we are fixing before you hit one.

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