{"id":789,"date":"2026-10-05T01:33:42","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=789"},"modified":"2026-10-05T01:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:33:42","slug":"she-went-from-4-5-to-5-2-in-1-year-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=789","title":{"rendered":"She Went From 4.5 to 5.2 in 1 Year. Here\u2019s how."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"She Went From 4.5 to 5.2 in 1 Year. Here\u2019s how. \" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jKtB6-rTtlA?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<\/div>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>Friday Pickleball plays a doubles match to 15 against Isaac and newly sponsored player Ariana Ajani, then asks Ariana how she went from a 4.5 to a 5.2 in about a year.<\/p>\n<p>Her answers: drill. She started drilling over the summer, mostly with her dad, and says the reps made her more consistent; your drilling partner doesn&#8217;t need to be a great player. And mindset: mistakes are what move a game forward, so don&#8217;t expect perfection.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Consistent drilling drove her jump in level<\/li>\n<li>Your drilling partner doesn&#8217;t need to be highly rated<\/li>\n<li>More reps mean more consistency<\/li>\n<li>Accept mistakes; they are part of every point<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Schedule regular drilling sessions, even with a less experienced partner<\/li>\n<li>Track consistency over a month of drilling<\/li>\n<li>Let go of errors quickly during matches<\/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>Friday Pickleball plays a doubles match to 15 against Isaac and newly sponsored player Ariana Ajani, then asks Ariana how she went from a 4.5 to a 5.2 in about a year.<\/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,"_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":[602,200],"tags":[808,809,187,691],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice","category-strategy","tag-4-5-to-5-2","tag-friday-pickleball","tag-improvement","tag-level-up"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/04-overhead-at-the-net-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","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=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/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=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}