How to Dink in Pickleball

If the third shot drop gets you to the kitchen line, the dink is what you do once you are there. Long dink rallies decide the majority of points between evenly matched players, and the patient, soft-handed player usually wins them. Here is how to dink well.

What a dink is

A dink is a soft shot, hit from at or near the kitchen line, that arcs just over the net and lands in the opponent's kitchen. Because it lands short and low, it cannot be attacked: the opponent has to let it bounce and hit up on it, producing another dink. The whole point of dinking is to keep the ball unattackable— low and soft — until your opponent gets impatient, reaches, or pops one up high enough for you to put away.

The technique

A good dink is all about soft hands and the body, not the arm:

1. Relax your grip.Hold the paddle loosely — a tight grip adds pace you do not want. Soft hands make a soft shot.
2. Use a gentle push, not a swing. The motion is a small, controlled lift from the shoulder, almost a nudge. There is very little backswing.
3. Get low with your legs. Bend your knees and drop your body rather than dropping the paddle head. Staying low keeps your contact stable and your shots consistent.
4. Contact out in front. Meet the ball in front of your body with the paddle face slightly open, lifting it just over the net so it descends into the kitchen.
5. Reset to ready.After each dink, bring your paddle back up in front of you, ready for the next one — kitchen exchanges are fast.

Cross-court vs straight-ahead dinks

Cross-court dinksare the higher-percentage choice: the net is lower in the middle, the diagonal distance is longer (so you have more margin), and the ball travels away from your opponent's attack angles. Straight-ahead dinks are tighter and riskier but useful to move your opponent and change the pattern. Good players dink mostly cross-court and mix in straight dinks to keep opponents honest, aiming at feet and to the sides to pull them out of position.

The strategy: patience is the point

Dinking is a battle of patience, and the mental side matters as much as the technique. The winner of a dink rally is usually not the one who hits a spectacular shot — it is the one who refuses to go for too much and lets the other player make the mistake. Resist the urge to speed the ball up unless you get a genuinely high, attackable ball. Keep every dink low, stay relaxed, move your opponent, and wait. Impatience — attacking a ball that is too low and dumping it into the net — is the single most common way to lose these exchanges.

Drills to build your dink

Dinking improves fast with focused reps. The classic drill is a cooperative cross-court dink rallywith a partner: both of you at the kitchen line, dinking back and forth, trying to keep the ball low and in the kitchen for as long as possible — count your streak and try to beat it. Progress to dinking on the move, side to side, and then to one player trying to move the other. Our beginner drills include dink work, and a soft control paddlemakes the touch easier to find. Master the dink and you have the tool that wins the kitchen — and the kitchen wins matches.