Pickleball Strategy for the Three Zones of the Court

When considering the pickleball court, mentally divide the court into three zones or areas: the baseline, the midcourt, and the Kitchen or Non-volley zone. Next, I want you to think of each zone as a corresponding part of a traffic or stoplight. The baseline should represent red light.

Baseline

From the baseline, your entire goal, whether it’s your first time playing or you’re a contracted pro, should be to move forward and reach the Kitchen. The Kitchen is the only area on the court where you can consistently have opportunities to attack your opponents and play offense.

One of the biggest mistakes I see amateur players make, especially those lower in rating, is poor decision-making from the baseline. This is your redlight zone – you should almost never try to play offense from the baseline, with very few exceptions. The correct strategy is to drop the ball in front of your opponents at the Kitchen and attempt to move into the next zone – the midcourt.

Too many amateurs treat the baseline as an offensive zone. They drive the third shot, the fifth shot, and even the seventh shot, and meanwhile, they haven’t gained even a foot of court positioning and are still behind the baseline.

This tactic may work some of the time, especially at the lower levels where your opponents play your shots that are going out and lack solid volleys. However, as you level up, attacking from the baseline will put you in an increasingly worse position.

From the baseline, drop the ball and attempt to move forward into the midcourt.

Midcourt or Transition Zone

As a professional player, this is where I spend the majority of my time drilling and training. Unless you flat-out miss the third shot or treat the baseline as an offensive area, odds are you are going to make it to the transition zone or midcourt nearly every service point. From a tactical standpoint, the midcourt is the yellow light on a stoplight. This means you have to make a decision based off your opponents’ shot to you. Should you attack the ball (run through the yellow light), or drop the ball (hit your brakes and wait for your next opportunity).

Let me make this easy for you – when in doubt, always hit a reset and drop the ball from the midcourt. Unless you are given an overhead or a complete pop-up from your opponents, you really shouldn’t attack from the midcourt. Again, if you are playing at a lower level or your opponents are below your level, you can get away with attacking from the midcourt more frequently. But, as you grow in level and start playing better players, it becomes more evident just how necessary resetting the ball and giving yourself time to move forward to the Kitchen truly is.

If you are looking for a takeaway from this article, let this be it: practice resetting from all locations in the midcourt, including just a foot or two inside the baseline and also just a foot or two off the Kitchen line. You should be able to hit resets that land in front of your opponents at the Kitchen line. This will be essential to you reaching the Kitchen, which is the final area of the court.

The Kitchen or Non-Volley Zone

The Kitchen is your greenlight zone, where offensive pickleball truly comes into play. With that being said, proceed with caution. The main strategy when reaching the Kitchen line is to move your opponents around with accurately placed dinks. Eventually, they’ll surrender a ball you can attack, at which point you will want to hit into their body or down at their feet. Refrain from trying to put the ball away with sharp angles or too much power, as that can result in an error.

The most important strategy in pickleball, which separates the amateurs from the professionals, is decision-making. By using this article as a reference, you have the tools and the decisions necessary to elevate your game. Mentally divide the court into these three zones, and work on the corresponding shots needed in each zone to move through the court and ultimately get to the Kitchen, where offensive pickleball is played.