{"id":1038,"date":"2026-10-15T01:22:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T01:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2026-10-15T01:22:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T01:22:47","slug":"tic-tac-toe-out-of-the-air-fourth-shot-control-drill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1038","title":{"rendered":"Tic-Tac-Toe Out of the Air: Fourth-Shot Control Drill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe title=\"Titan Pickleball Drill - Tac Tac Toe out of the Air! John Cincola Rapid Fire drill, Titan Drills Pro\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uzh_sHsCVLM?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><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>John Cincola&#8217;s Titan drill works fourth-shot control out of the air. Place the machine in transition-zone left or right, use rapid fire (with ball count and rest time set so you aren&#8217;t restarting from the phone), and aim at nine staggered cones laid out like tic-tac-toe.<\/p>\n<p>Hitting line targets in different directions trains the placement you need when someone is moving forward in a real point \u2014 control first, then you can choose which lane to punish.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Purpose: fourth-shot OTA control and placement<\/li>\n<li>Nine-cone tic-tac-toe forces directional accuracy<\/li>\n<li>Rapid-fire from transition L\/R matches game closing pressure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Set rapid-fire ball count + rest, then clear each cone line before switching sides<\/li>\n<li>Track make% per cone lane over one full tic-tac-toe clear<\/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>John Cincola&#8217;s Titan drill works fourth-shot control out of the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729,"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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[600,381,20],"tags":[303,1058,169,1059,1060,1061],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drills","category-technique","category-transition","tag-cones","tag-fourth-shot","tag-john-cincola","tag-out-of-the-air","tag-rapid-fire","tag-titan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038","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=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}