{"id":1000,"date":"2026-10-12T01:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T01:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1000"},"modified":"2026-10-12T01:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T01:20:22","slug":"use-the-kitchen-as-a-safe-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1000","title":{"rendered":"Use the Kitchen as a Safe Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Use the Kitchen as a Safe Zone\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_tZclA8uqww?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>Kyle Koszuta reframes the kitchen line as your friend, not just an attack zone. When you are under pressure, a soft, shallow ball into the kitchen strips away some of the aggression a higher ball would invite.<\/p>\n<p>That is why pro points linger in long dink exchanges: the soft game buys safety and resets the point when a drive or pop would hand the other team a kill.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The kitchen is a safe area when you are in trouble<\/li>\n<li>Soft and shallow takes away opponent aggression<\/li>\n<li>Pros dink a lot because it protects them<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In scrambles, choose a soft kitchen ball instead of a high escape<\/li>\n<li>Play a game where your only reset option is a shallow kitchen float<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"tdd-newsletter\">\n<p><strong>Get the 5 best pickleball tips every week<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com\/v3\/loader.js\" data-beehiiv-form=\"0e5f3fe0-e4d3-4036-8d7f-c33b311980b2\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thedropdrive.beehiiv.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe free<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kyle Koszuta reframes the kitchen line as your friend, not just an attack zone. When you are under pressure, a soft, shallow ball into the kitchen strips away some of the aggression a higher ball would invite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,3,200],"tags":[460,984,63,985],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinks","category-kitchen","category-strategy","tag-defense","tag-kitchen-safe-zone","tag-kyle-koszuta","tag-soft-shallow-ball"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/02-kitchen-line-through-the-net-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}