The Basic Overall Strategy of Doubles - Phase 3

A previous post mentioned that this is a theme week focused on understanding what is happening on the court. The centerpiece is a video, Doubles Pickleball - The Basic Overall Strategy. That initial post introduced and emphasized the overriding strategy of getting to the net. The next post moved on to the first phase of most points which the video calls "The Formality Phase", followed by a post about phase 2 named "The Service Team Struggle to the Net". This post discusses phase 3 of most points - "Dinking".

Dinking happens when all players are at the net and everybody is playing cautiously so as to not let the ball get too high. Dinking provides the best protection against allowing the opponents to make an offensive shot. When a ball gets to net height and higher, a player will smash the return. The players are so close that no one wants to create the first opportunity for an opponent to be aggressive. Dinking continues until a fault occurs or a shot is accidentally hit high. Then, the dinking phase typically ends abruptly with a smash.

I've written about dinking pretty extensively due to its importance to game's outcome. It Should be Called Dinkball discussed the techniques of dinking and Dink Game Strategies discussed how to be aggressive while playing a passive shot. But this video highlights the patience required and it strongly relates to my article The 80% Rule.

The video is shown below. This post covers about 2 minutes starting at 13:07. I will include the video each day as we move through it section by section.