3rd shots in pickleball often dictate how your point will go. The 3rd shot drop is the safest option to go with and one of the most common techniques that pro pickleballers use to get to the kitchen.
Because getting to the kitchen is the most important goal in pickleball.
In this guide, I will be walking through how to hit a 3rd shot drop in Pickleball.
What is a 3rd shot drop and why is it critical in pickleball?
If you are a beginner, isolating the topics of 3rd shot and drop may be helpful. The 3rd shot in pickleball is the shot after the return of serve. So it goes, serve, return, then the 3rd shot. A drop is when you hit the ball softly with touch and aim for hitting it into the kitchen. It is essentially an extended dink.
This shot is crucial in pickleball because it allows teams to neutralize the point. If the team that you’re playing hits a really good return to the back of your baseline, you have no choice but to hit a drop if you don’t have a powerful drive.
Drills to Master the 3rd Shot Drop
When I first started playing, someone took me aside and drilled on how to hit a drop. You want to aim your paddle down, make sure that your knees are bent. Pretend that you’re scooping the ball and aim for hitting the ball right above the net.
There are a couple drills that you can do to practice your third shot drops:
The first drill is to choose one side of the court with your partner.
Have your partner stand in the kitchen and you stand in the baseline. Have your partner practice their volleys and rolls hitting it back to your baseline.
It’s ok if your drops are high in the beginning and not perfect. It’s better than hitting the ball into the net. As you’re doing this drill you may find that It’s easier to hit forehand drops rather than backhand drops.
Backhand drops are one of the hardest to hit. Even 3.5-4.0 players struggle with the backhand so if you’re struggling, don’t worry.
As you continue working on this drill, make sure to hit different spots to your opponent. Aim for their backhand, their forehand, and hit some shots to the middle.
The second drill that I want you to do is hitting cross court drops. You stay on your side of the court and your drilling partner shifts over.
After hitting 3rd shot drops straight up, cross court drops should feel easy because the height of the net is lower. This leaves you with more of a grace room for error.
Like dropping straight up, focus on hitting shots to the left, center, and right of your opponent.
The 3rd drill you can implement is a mini game called 7/11.
You can play this game either straight up or cross court. One person stands at the kitchen, and the other at the baseline. The person at the kitchen feeds the ball to the baseline player, who must drop it as their first touch. Anything goes after that.
The goal is to get to the kitchen line and reach a neutral position to play out the point.
The player at the kitchen needs 11 points to win, while the baseline player needs 7.
The purpose of this drill is to combine everything you’ve learned—drops, resets, attacking high balls, dinks, counters—simulating a real rally. This is one of my favorite drills.
Common Mistakes Players Make with the 3rd Shot Drop (And How to Fix Them)
Evaluating if your drop would be effective is important. If the ball is high, stay put or even move back.
If you hit a decent drop, then take 1 step forward. If you hit a great drop, then you can move up to the kitchen really fast and ‘crash’ the kitchen.
The 7/11 drill will expose you to what you are doing right or wrong. In my experience, I tried to move up to the kitchen too fast after hitting a poor drop. Or I was not moving up after hitting a decent drop. You have to take advantage of situations where you hit a good shot, or else you are bailing your opponent out.
A common mistake I see players make is beginners will often try to just swing with their wrist and not use the full kinetic chain of their body. You need to be bending your legs using your arms as if you’re hitting a groundstroke but have a softer touch.
When to hit a 3rd shot drop vs 3rd shot drive
I asked myself this question a lot of when I first started playing rec games. I was taught that you should be hitting a 3rd shot drop because that neutralizes the point.
You should be dropping the ball anytime the ball is returned really low. Whether the ball is returned short in the kitchen or going on long on the baseline.
Paddle Angle, Grip, and Touch: The Mechanics of a Perfect 3rd Shot Drop
The best grip that I was taught when I first started learning how to play is the continental grip. Continental grip is when you grip your paddle like you’re giving it a handshake. You want to drop your paddle with an open face and hold your grip loosely.
If you’re gripping your paddle too hard, you might mess up the shot because you’re not giving yourself the ability to hit the ball with finesse.
The Role of the 3rd Shot Drop in Doubles Strategy
The ultimate role of any 3rd shot in pickleball doubles is to get to the kitchen line to neutralize the point. You can be successful in this by driving the ball or hitting a drop. The drop is more of a defensive shot that throws off players who can block drives effectively
Using the Third Shot Drop to Set Up Offensive Plays
Believe it or not, the 3rd shot drop is a tool that can be just as effective as attacking the ball. Dropping the ball middle can cause confusion for the opposing team on who should take the ball.
If you drop the ball cross court, your partner can move forward to the kitchen and poach the ball for a more aggressive play. This mimics a typical shake n bake play
3rd Shot Drop Adjustments for Playing Against Aggressive Opponents
If you find that you’re playing against more aggressive players, and your drops aren’t quite perfect, then you have to prepare to stand back more and hit a couple of resets before moving up the kitchen.
Sometimes it takes a 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th or even 13th shot to neutralize the point and get back to the kitchen.
Once you’re engaged in a dinking rally with aggressive opponents, it neutralizes the game because it may expose their weakness which is dinking. Then you can wait for a pop up and expose your banger opponents.
How to Read Your Opponent’s Position to Hit the Best 3rd Shot Drop
The person you should be targeting when you’re trying to win a tournament, or even recreational game is the weaker player or the person who is returning the serve. The person who is returning the serve is on the move so they may be out of position to hit a 4th ball back.
It’s also about reading your opponents typical positioning. If your opponent is not covering their line, drop it there. If they have poor communication, hit it to the middle.
A lot of the beginning of a pickleball game is data gathering. Maybe you find out someone isn’t good at blocking drives, or can’t handle your drops because they have too much top spin. Or most commonly, maybe their backhand is a weaker shot for them.
Once you identify a weakness, you need to continuously be targeting that weakness. I used to play in an advanced league and my opponents tested returning shots to my back hand. I did not have a good back hand drop and I would either hit the ball into the net, or pop up the ball really high.
This resulted in us losing a fair share of rallies when my opponents executed that shot.
What if you don’t have a partner to drill 3rd shot drops with? (Pickleball Machine)
Drilling 3rd shot drops is tough if you don’t have a partner. You can’t really show up to the courts and drill 3rd shot drops on your own because there’s no one hitting it back to you. Also, you can’t hit wall drills to practice your 3rd shot drop. So, a way you can practice 3rd shot drops is by investing in a pickleball machine.
You can literally go to a court and get fed 100’s of balls of varying speed and spin working on your forehand and backhand drops.
TitanOne, Spinshot, and Simon X even have pre-made drills that you can enable on the application.
Concluding Wisdom for the 3rd shot drop
There are many shots in pickleball that are imperative to learn. The 3rd shot drop is one of the most important shots to learn in the game because of the ability to neutralize the point and bring your team to an advantage in the rally.
You will win more rallies, games, leagues, and tournaments if you master the 3rd shot drop. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions!