Tennis Influencer Rachel Stuhlman Talks Pickleball

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Being a tennis player, I never felt super great trying out other sports for the first time Basketball, golf.. I always felt somewhat uncoordinated and like I had two left feet lol Pickleball is the first sport I’ve tried, where the moment I stepped on the court, I felt confident and good. With that being said, there are still some major strategic/mechanical differences between the two. Here are 3 areas of my pickleball game that I’m working on:

1) Short game/dink: I was more of an aggressive baseliner in tennis, so the soft-touch balls are definitely taking some getting used to. Learning which types of dinks to hit and when, and then navigating the spin, speed, and placement for each shot is a big part of it.

2) Point construction: In tennis, you’re constantly looking to take control of the point by being aggressive, setting up your strengths, and advancing forward into the court. In pickleball, you can’t hit the ball in the air if you’re inside the kitchen. It’s more handsy- it’s all finesse and there are more cat and mouse type of situations.

3) Mindset: In pickleball, I’ve found that I need to slow down my mind and be intentional on choosing which shots to be aggressive on. Sometimes you have to hit a lot of shots- 8, 10, even 15 in a row before you get the ball you want. Tennis points are fast paced. Being patient is huge in pickleball.

Reminder, there is space for both sports to coexist In a way, tennis and pickleball help each other. Again, racquet sports for the win

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