Quick Tip: Why You Shouldn’t Hit Behind Your Shoulder in Pickleball

Top 5 pro player James Ignatowich

Hey guys, this is James Ignatowich, and today I’m going to cover how to avoid making contact with the ball behind your shoulder. The key to getting the ball to go down is meeting it out in front. This is similar to executing a counter shot—when you reach out in front for a counter, the ball naturally goes down. But the closer you make contact to your body, the more likely the ball is to pop up.

If you think back to when you were really on top of a counter shot and making contact out in front, you might recall times where you ended up hitting it into the net. The same concept applies to an overhead shot. If you’re making contact behind your shoulder, the ball is likely to go up (Figure 1), and you’ll often hit it long unless you take a lot of pace off the shot.

(Figure 1)

The key is to meet the ball in front of your shoulder, which allows you to direct it downward. The natural motion of an overhead swing tends to lift the ball if you make contact too far back, but the further out in front you hit, the more control you’ll have in bringing the ball down. At the end of the day, the most important thing in pickleball is getting the ball down. That’s all for this one.

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James Ignatowich is a top 10 professional pickleball player originally from Connecticut, now residing in Delray Beach, Florida. A former Division 1 tennis player at Vanderbilt University, James made a transition to pickleball, quickly rising to prominence in the sport and often playing doubles with Tyson McGuffin and Anna Bright. In addition to his athletic achievements, he runs his own podcast, where he shares insights into the game and interviews other professionals. jamesignatowichnewsletter | PPA | MLP | My paddle