{"id":1244,"date":"2026-10-29T06:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1244"},"modified":"2026-10-29T06:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:38:19","slug":"left-side-dinks-go-wide-dont-aim-into-their-reach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1244","title":{"rendered":"Left-Side Dinks: Go Wide, Don\u2019t Aim Into Their Reach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Stop Aiming Dinks Like a Beginner! \ud83c\udfaf\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gan2K6MSZXc?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>Richard_pickleball fixes beginner dink aiming on the left side (especially with a righty partner): taking middle-ish balls and dinking into the crowded middle gives Alec (or any poacher) an easy offense look.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, dink wide for space, then look to pull and flick when the ball is attackable. More room beats \u201csafe\u201d middle that isn\u2019t safe.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Left-sider: prefer wide dinks over crowded middle<\/li>\n<li>Middle targets gift easy offense to the poacher<\/li>\n<li>Wide first, then pull\/flick the attackable ball<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Left-side dink game: only wide targets for 10 minutes<\/li>\n<li>Count how often middle dinks get attacked vs wide ones<\/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>Richard_pickleball fixes beginner dink aiming on the left side (especially with a righty partner): taking middle-ish balls and dinking into the crowded middle gives Alec (or any poacher) an easy offense look.<\/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_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,3,19,200],"tags":[730,376,100,975],"class_list":["post-1244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinks","category-kitchen","category-soft-game","category-strategy","tag-dinks","tag-left-side","tag-richard-pickleball","tag-spacing"],"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\/1244","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=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/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=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}