{"id":251,"date":"2026-09-24T01:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=251"},"modified":"2026-10-05T03:36:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T03:36:48","slug":"take-control-on-the-middle-dink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=251","title":{"rendered":"Take Control on the Middle Dink!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Take Control on the Middle Dink! #pickleball #pickleballtips\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/irQSte9S2zc?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>tanner.pickleball\u2019s middle-dink cue: don\u2019t freeze and hope your partner takes it. <a href=\"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=85\">Control the middle<\/a> by claiming it early with clear body language (and voice), so you set the pace of the dink battle instead of giving free middle attacks.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Middle balls need an owner<\/li>\n<li>Claim early; don\u2019t spectate<\/li>\n<li>Communicate with partner<\/li>\n<li>Controlling middle controls the kitchen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Crosscourt dinks with forced middle feeds<\/li>\n<li>Call \u2018mine\u2019 every middle for one game<\/li>\n<li>Agree roles: who owns middle by default<\/li>\n<li>Review unforced middle losses after session<\/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>Summary tanner.pickleball\u2019s middle-dink cue: don\u2019t freeze and hope your partner takes it. Control the middle&#8230;<\/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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[220,3,200],"tags":[448,446,447,325],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinks","category-kitchen","category-strategy","tag-kitchen-control","tag-middle-dink","tag-partner-communication","tag-tanner-pickleball-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","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=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/847"}],"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=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}