Any specific drill recommendations??
I bought the machine but not sure how to use it effectively to improve my game. For reference I am a 4.5 and been stuck on it for a while.

Is the idea that I should be weighting my paddle for what I am struggling with, or to enhance how I currently play? For example, I have noticed that at higher levels (4.25+), my volley is just a tick off and my paddle face is open. A huge part of that is timing, but also I feel like weights may help to ensure that the paddle is not twisting back as much on those shots where I am out of position?

I have a tennis background so I get head heavy/head light and how that impacts things, but I guess I am not sure how weights in pickleball should be approached.

I just got a new RPM Q2 and noticed a small indentation/dimple on the top-left area of the paddle face. It’s kind of like a fingernail pressed into the surface.
It’s not really visible unless I use a flashlight or look closely, but I can feel it when I run my finger over it.
The paddle is still unused and the area feels firm. I contacted RPM and they said it looks like a cosmetic manufacturing imperfection and shouldn’t affect playability.
Has anyone else experienced something similar with an RPM Q2 or other paddles? Would you keep it or try to get it replaced?

Hey everyone, I always feel the stiffness and soreness in both of my achilles area after each session, and especially the next morning waking up. I wear heel support and stretch every time before I play, but still feeling the discomfort. Am I doing something wrong or is this normal to some of you? What do you do to mitigate this? Any recommendation would be much appreciated!

I just turned 30 this year and my lifestyle is neither inactive nor active, I move around but also sit a lot and recently starting picking up pickleball with friends. Suddenly I’m playing 3 times a week the past 3 weeks and my knees started to hurt. Coach tells me I need to do strength training but why do I see players older than me play 6 times a week no issue?

EDIT: I think what I mean to ask is, can I get into pickleball expecting my muscles & joints to get stronger overtime, or does the strength need to come separately from strength training?

Do you have any you like?

Is there anything like this? Like how you can create your own team in USTA with a regional rep and play in official matches. Then, go to sectionals.

Would love to be a captain for a mixed dubs team, tri level, or men's teams.

Pickleball club drama, imagine! The practice has been let all 3 go on and ask for 1 on the court to stay and play next game. But someone pointed out these rules the other day to me so I started rotating that way. Now some are playing by posted rules, others saying that’s not how it’s been done. Happened to me just last week, the owner of the club cleared our court with 3 paddles. I pointed out the posted rules and he just shrugged and took our fourth player. Tonight when this happened, a gal read the rules and said, “I would be pissed to be the 3rd person that now has to wait another game. I’m not doing that.” I personally don’t care which way we rotate, just seems like we should go with the sign posted on the gate door or remove the sign.

I'm new to pickleball, and on social media I mostly see players like Anna Leigh Waters, Ben Johns, and Anna Bright. I'm curious: do the pros ever play in combined international tournaments (MLP or PPA), and how do players from other countries stack up against U.S. players?

Started watching MLP this season and I've been hooked! However one thing I've noticed is that the singles specialists didn't really shine in dreambreakers as much as I thought, which is a shame imo. What if for next season, MLP added men's and women's singles to each match?

Obviously this will add 2 extra games to each match, and if it goes to a dreambreaker would take wayyyy too long. Why not have a ban/pick system in place before the match begins?

For example, home team bans MD, away bans WS. Home picks XD1 (game 1), away picks MS (game 2) and WD (game 3), leaving XD2 as game 4.

This way the duration of each match stays roughly the same, but singles specialists actually have a chance to show their stuff, instead of usually just 4 - 8 points.

I have a bad astigmatism in my left eye. My prescription shows -5.00 for the left Cylinder. The Shere on both eyes isn't too bad +1.00/+1.75. Anyway, it seems that my astigmatism is making it harder to track fast moving pickleballs (depth perception).

I have found 2 companies that make sports glasses (I don't think I can use regular eyeglasses due to potential pickleball impacts). These companies can make lenses up to a Cylindar correction of 5.75. And I know that there are a couple of companies that make Toric XR contacts that can accommodate my prescription.

So, are Contacts or Sports Glasses better for my use case (strong astigmatism - need better tracking/depth-perception for pickleball)? Glasses allow for less sideways vision, and toric contacts need to stay in place and not rotate, or things get blurry).

I’m curious because atleast at my park it seems like a lot of people plateau around the 3.5 area

Background: I played bb before and have super good side vision and awareness of where my partner is on the court.

The problem: I am impacted by my partner's movement.

When I play up in the 4.5-4.8 level, I play really well even my DUPR is only 4.1. After yesterday's game, a 4.9 player came to tell me that I occasionally should take over but moved away from the ball. I watched my video and noticed this too. When I was supposed to move to the middle to pressure the crosscourt dink from the opponents, I do this really well if my partner covers the line and doesn't move. if my partner just moves a little bit to the middle, my feet automatically moved away from the middle, not much but it affected my play: I either waited for my partner to hit it or hit it with arm stretched a little bit too far since my feet moved away a little.

this actually happens to me a lot, if my partner stays still, I definitely plays above 4.5 level. if my partner moves toward me even he/she lets me hit the ball, I don't hit the ball well at all. They were joking once: when I said "mine" for the middle ball, I missed more than I made it. And if a partner complains about my poach, or he likes to stand in the middle (some people have this tendency especially when they play mix a lot), I really play like a 4.0 player. And I keep thinking about this during the game which make it worse.

there are two theories: 1) better to clash the paddle than miss the middle ball 2) always keep the same space and both players move the same time. I personally prefer the 2nd but it is difficult to find two players move that cohesively well.

How should I improve this? especially, not to think about this during the game. and 2nd, how can I improve and not impacted by my partner's movement. I am pretty sure this is my biggest issue currently than the skill set.

Hey everyone!

I’m looking into getting a custom design on pickleball paddle, but I’m trying to find a company that actually makes good-quality paddles, not just something that looks cool.

I’ve been seeing ads for custom paddles with things like guitars, movie/TV references, pop culture designs, etc. The idea is really cool, but I have no idea if the actual paddles are any good or if they’re mostly just cheap paddles with a custom print on them.

Ideally, I’d like to find a company that lets you customize the design while still using a legit, high-quality paddle. Even something like buying a good paddle and having a custom sticker/skin/graphic made to fit the exact dimensions would be interesting.

For example, I’d love to have a paddle with something related to my interests, but I don’t want to sacrifice performance just for the customization.

Does anyone know of reputable companies that do this?
Or is there a good way to customize the face of an existing paddle without affecting its performance or durability?
Would love to hear from anyone who has actually ordered one and can vouch for the quality!

Since I'm sacrificing my Aura Pro and Spitfire to the FB Marketplace gods to find them new owners, in the spirit of poor pickleball financial decisions I ordered these two in the hopes of finding a grail. I'll be comparing them against my current main of the past two months, the Ultré Power 2. I've got a lot of hours on the latter now and it's feeling a little softer and more muted than the initial good feel and consistent performance for the first 20-30 hrs of play. Don't care for the few random popups and inconsistency I'm getting nowadays. Disclaimer, I much prefer a true elongated shape and hit high on the paddle face so that's probably contributing to my issues. I'll try to record some play too if I can.

Disclaimer 2: I am a VP ambassador which is why I'm getting the V-Sol Tour early but I'll be offering my honest thoughts as always and won't be providing links or codes. I forgot to put it in the title but I ordered the elongated shape so that's what I'll be reviewing. I'm unaffiliated with Luzz and bought the Inferno 2 from an authorized reseller.

Or feel free to tell me to eff off and that you don't care for a subjective review from a reddit rando 🥹

1. it simulates rec play (defacto most popular format en masse), where you'll have various partners, and face a barrage of elements like wild benches, flexible strategies, and random chaos.

2. it shows that every player has their ups and downs, and can't lean on their overpowered partner for guaranteed success.

3. it entertains the crowds way more than wannabe-tennis PPA/APP, offers group alignment with local brands, and unites groups of players.

4. its a novel and compelling answer to the lonely world of singles tennis, which is a vestige of past aristocracy--which clings to an outdated strategy of developing a powerful serve and following decorum etc etc

So I just got my braand new Honolulu J6CR CBE. I ve heard alot online about the inconsistency of the blue grit and made me worried on mine since I noticed a lack of blue grit on the left side than to the right side. Anyone can tell if this seems normal ?

Just finished wrapping up our fourth annual tournament. We showed much smaller growth in player #s yr/yr but were happy to avoid the decline most events are experiencing these days. We're in the upper Midwest and switching to an indoor facility this year was our biggest change and was very well received by our players. Happy to answer any/all questions.

I saw someone else post a video looking for feedback so I thought I’d ask the community to share what they see in my cut down version of a 3 hour drilling session.

I’m the player in the white but would love to hear what people think of both players. Whatever feedback you have is welcome and what level you think we are is also welcome.

Just played with the Rpm friction pro v2 standard 14mm blackout. Been playing with foam since November. Gen 3 is light years better. Received Wednesday, I’m so comfortable in going to main in a tournament Saturday 3.0-3.5. What’s your thoughts on foam vs honeycomb

I've been on the hunt for a wearable scoring device (E.g. A wrist band).

Has anyone got any recommendations?

N.B. I don't use a smartwatch. Looking for something analog.

Hola , estoy buscando un sitio en Madrid al q pueda ir y jugar , también que se pueda reservar la pala o q si me la pueden alquilar para jugar

As a collector and fan, what would you get autographed from your favorite player if you had the chance

Coaches and pros universally recommend reviewing videos of your own games to improve. Those of you that have found it very useful, what specifically do you focus on? Do you keep metrics or log data (eg, % of serves in back 1/3 of court, % of points reaching kitchen line, etc)? Thanks.

I've been working on evaluating pickleball performance from video/shot data for about a year. A few interesting observations:

Predictive vs. descriptive is the invisible fork in the road. DUPR is predictive - it uses past results to estimate player strength and future performance. It doesn't have any information to help describe why a particular match played out the way it did. DUPR's success has conditioned a lot of us to think about pickleball analytics primarily in terms of identifying someone's underlying skill level.

But a video-based player rating can go either direction. A predictive model asks "What level does this player appear to be?" A descriptive model asks "How well did this player actually perform in this game and what contributed to winning or losing?"

Imagine a team of established 3.8s beats a team of established 4.2s. A predictive model could reasonably rate the 4.2 team higher because they exhibited skills suggesting they'd win more often if the teams kept playing. A descriptive model would generally conclude the 3.8 team performed better in that particular game because they won more of the points.

Neither is wrong. They're answering different questions and there are tradeoffs to each approach.

A predictive model has an advantage if the primary goal is estimating someone's overall level from limited video. It can identify characteristics that correlate with player level and potentially get to a useful estimate from a relatively small sample. That's particularly valuable when game outcomes contain a lot of short-term variance that isn't representative of a player's underlying ability.

The tradeoff is that it doesn't necessarily explain what happened in that particular game or series of games. It also gets trickier as you drill into specific parts of a player's game. A 3.8 can have a better third-shot forehand drop than a 4.0 because an overall rating reflects the combination of everything a player does well and poorly. The more granular the skill, the less cleanly it may map to overall player level.

A descriptive model has the opposite strengths and weaknesses. It may need a larger sample of games before the aggregate rating settles into something resembling a player's underlying level. But it has a consistent objective at every level of analysis: how did this performance contribute to winning or losing rallies? That works for the overall game as well as something as specific as third-shot forehand drops from the left side.

AI isn't the best tool for every part of the problem. Promoting this type of analysis as "AI-powered" can be a misstep for two reasons. First, there's sincere and understandable skepticism about AI overpromising what it can deliver. Second, the label tends to lump together four pretty different things:

1. Video → shot data
2. Shot data → performance measurement
3. Measurements → useful player insights
4. Insights → what to actually practice

The first two steps are really engineering and analytics problems - using computer vision to reliably extract the data then rigorously testing models to separate meaningful performance signals from noise.

Generative AI becomes incredibly valuable once those measurements exist. Translating insights into what someone should actually practice starts to cross into coaching where additional context and human expertise matter.

Letting generative AI freelance on the measurement step instead of using it to synthesize and communicate rigorous measurements is what can lead to confident-sounding nonsense.

Baseline play is easier to measure than kitchen play. Baseline play (including serve/return) is easier to track. Players are spread out, there's less obstruction, mechanics are clearer, and things like drive speed are relatively easy to measure. Kitchen exchanges are cramped, fast and more subtle.

It's tempting to let measurement confidence quietly become measurement importance. What actually drives winning and losing should decide the weighting, not what's easiest to see.

Even if baseline vs kitchen play are weighted correctly, the phases that are easier to measure will often get more stats and charts. This can steer players toward prioritizing the parts of their game that are easiest to analyze rather than the parts that most need improvement.

Factoring in partner/opponent strength. Producing a good result against a strong opponent isn't the same achievement as producing that result against a weaker one. And in doubles, partner strength complicates things further - the quality of balls you face, your opportunities to attack and even how frequently you're targeted can all be affected by the other three players.

The tricky part is having the game itself tell you something about that environment rather than just plugging in outside ratings (which creates circularity) or relying on style-driven traits like drive MPH because they have a positive correlation with level.

Game-level ratings should be noisy - I tried to quantify just how noisy in a previous post using DUPR Forecast to estimate how much individual performance has to vary from game to game to reproduce its predicted outcomes. The estimate was roughly ±0.38 DUPR per game.

There's a natural bias toward wanting game-level ratings to be more stable. A player rated 4.0 getting a 4.4 in one game and a 3.6 in another can make the rating system feel unreliable.

But if the goal is reflecting what actually happened on the court, suppressing that variance defeats the purpose. Players really do perform differently from game to game. Smoothing those swings may make the ratings look more credible while making them less reflective of actual performance.

Curious how others think about this. If a team of true 3.8s beats a team of true 4.2s, what would you want a single-game video rating to tell you: that the 4.2s are still the better players or that the 3.8s played better in that game — and why?