{"id":1133,"date":"2026-10-20T01:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T01:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1133"},"modified":"2026-10-20T01:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T01:22:11","slug":"move-up-by-drilling-reps-beat-more-open-play-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1133","title":{"rendered":"Move Up by Drilling: Reps Beat More Open-Play Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"The players who move up aren\u2019t the ones playing the most games\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AYQbk9t53-U?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>Troy Akin\u2019s cue: the players who move up aren\u2019t stacking more open-play games \u2014 they\u2019re the ones drilling. Open play might give you ~10 dinks an hour; a drill block can give you hundreds, which is how a shot holds up when points get tight.<\/p>\n<p>His five favorite machine drills: deep returns that keep opponents back, aggressive low backhand drips to arrive at the kitchen, one-handed volleys taken out of the air, drives brushed up off a slice feed, and shoulder-turn angled putaways against lobs.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Drilling volume &gt;&gt; more unfocused open play<\/li>\n<li>Deep returns + BH drips raise kitchen-arrival %<\/li>\n<li>Practice 1H air volleys, slice-to-drive, and lob angles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Replace one open-play hour this week with a focused drill block<\/li>\n<li>Pick one of the five shots and hit 100 intentional reps<\/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>Troy Akin\u2019s cue: the players who move up aren\u2019t stacking more open-play games \u2014 they\u2019re the ones drilling. Open play might give you ~10 dinks an hour; a drill block can give you hundreds, which is how a shot holds up when points get tight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731,"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":[600,602,440,192],"tags":[1134,457,189,160],"class_list":["post-1133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drills","category-practice","category-returns","category-volleys","tag-ball-machine","tag-drilling","tag-reps","tag-troy-akin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133","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=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}