The Most Common Pickleball Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Quick Answer: Six mistakes account for most lost recreational points: staying back instead of advancing, attacking balls contacted below net height, playing balls that were going out, standing at different depths from your partner, swinging too long, and reaching with the paddle instead of moving the feet. None of them require a new skill to fix. All of them are decisions.

The useful thing about this list is that it is short and repetitive. Most players are not making dozens of different errors; they are making the same four or five in rotation.

What is the biggest positional mistake?

Staying back when you could be moving forward.

The team at the kitchen line hits down. The team behind the baseline hits up. That asymmetry decides most recreational points before anybody hits a winner, and it is why the whole architecture of doubles is about closing that distance.

Beginners drift back toward the baseline because there is more time there, and more time feels safer. It is not. From the baseline you are hitting upward into two people who are hitting downward at you, and no amount of extra reaction time compensates.

The fix: after you return serve, walk in. After your team’s third shot lands soft, walk in. Stop when your opponent strikes the ball, split step, then continue. Our guide to where to stand in pickleball doubles covers the positions in full.

What is the biggest shot-selection mistake?

Attacking a ball you met below the height of the net.

This single error probably costs more points than every technical fault combined. A ball you contact above net height can be driven downward with a margin for error. A ball you contact below net height cannot: hitting it hard means lifting it, and a lifted ball at pace is the easiest putaway in the sport.

The mistake feels productive while you are making it. Hitting hard is satisfying, the ball travels fast, and the point ends quickly, which obscures the fact that it usually ends against you.

The fix: make contact height the deciding question rather than how open the court looks. Below the net, the answer is a soft ball. Above the net, attack. Our guide to shot selection sets out the full decision grid.

Which mistakes cost free points?

Playing out balls, missing serves, and missing returns.

These three give away points with no rally attached, which makes them the cheapest errors to eliminate and the most annoying to keep making.

• Playing balls that were going out. Beginners play everything. A ball landing past the baseline is a free point if you leave it and a lost rally if you rescue it. Learning to let a ball go is a genuine skill and it takes deliberate practice.
• Missing the serve. The serve starts the point rather than winning it. A serve into the net hands over a point for nothing, and the trade for a little extra pace is a bad one.
• Missing the return. A return is worth more when it is deep and safe than when it is clever. Depth pins the serving team back and buys you the trip to the net.

There is a fourth in the same family: standing so close to the kitchen line that a routine low ball becomes a fault. Two feet back solves it.

What do partners get wrong?

They stop moving as a pair, and they stop talking.

One player at the kitchen line and one at the baseline is the most punished formation in doubles, because it opens a diagonal lane straight through the middle that requires no accuracy at all to exploit. It usually happens by accident: one partner advances behind a good shot and the other does not.

The communication failure produces its own signature error, which is the middle ball that lands untouched between two players who both expected the other to take it. That is hesitation, not positioning.

The fix: move together as if joined by a rope, and use four words during rallies: “mine,” “yours,” “out,” and “switch.” Our guide to moving with your partner covers the movement patterns.

What are the technical habits worth breaking?

Too much swing, an open paddle face, and reaching instead of stepping.

Too much swing. Pickleball rewards a short motion. A full backswing arrives late at the kitchen line and turns a ball that needed a block into a pop-up. Soft shots should look like a push rather than a stroke.

An open paddle face. The most common cause of the ball floating up when it was meant to stay low. Setting the face square or slightly closed before the ball arrives fixes more errors than any change of grip, and our guide to keeping the ball low covers the other causes of pop-ups.

Reaching instead of moving. Most technical faults at the kitchen line are footwork faults in disguise. Dropping the paddle head to a low ball while standing upright forces the face open; bending the knees does not.

What do intermediate players get wrong?

Impatience, and playing only against people they already beat.

At around the 3.0 level, hard hitting still wins because opponents miss. Above that, both teams reach the kitchen line and stay there, attackable balls become rare, and the ability to pass on a marginal attack becomes the thing that separates levels. Learning to hit a boring ball costs points in the short term and is what makes the next level reachable.

The other one is a scheduling mistake rather than a technical one. Playing repeatedly against people at or below your own level builds comfort without building skill, and it is the most common way a player plateaus. Our honest look at whether pickleball is hard to learn covers what the timeline actually looks like, and our guide to beginner tips covers what to prioritise first.

FAQ

What is the most common mistake in pickleball? Staying back instead of advancing to the kitchen line. The team at the line hits down and the team behind the baseline hits up, and that decides most recreational points.

Why do I keep losing points when I hit hard? Usually because you are attacking balls contacted below net height. Hitting those hard requires lifting them, and a lifted ball at pace is the easiest putaway there is.

Should I really let balls go out? Yes, and most beginners do not. A ball landing past the baseline is a free point if you leave it alone.

What is the most punished formation in doubles? One player up and one back. It opens a diagonal lane through the middle that requires no accuracy to exploit.

Why do balls land between me and my partner? Hesitation rather than positioning. Both players expect the other to take it, which is why calling “mine” and “yours” matters more than it sounds.

How do I stop popping the ball up? Set the paddle face square or slightly closed before the ball arrives, contact the ball in front of your body, and bend your knees rather than dropping the paddle head.

What mistake do intermediate players make? Attacking marginal balls. Above about 3.0, both teams hold the kitchen line and the willingness to hit a boring ball is what separates levels.

Do I need lessons to fix these? No, but they compress the timeline. Most of this list is decisions rather than skills, and decisions can be changed in a single session once you know which ones to change.

Want the errors pointed out as they happen? The coaches in our directory diagnose a pattern in one game, and the camps and clinics in our listings drill the fixes.

Written by the Pickler Junction Team.