What is the 7/11 drill?
The 7/11 drill is one of the most effective drills in pickleball to practice all of your shots. The game is called 7/11 because one person stands at the kitchen line and your partner starts at the other side at the baseline. The person at the kitchen line feeds the person the ball and a live rally starts from there. The person at the baseline’s objective is to win the point. In order for the person at the baseline to win the point, they must come to the kitchen to get at the same level as the person at the kitchen. They can drive, drop the ball, reset from the mid court, attack from the mid court if it’s high, get into a dinking rally, speed up the ball. Anything to win the point. The person starting at the kitchen needs 11 points to win and the person at the baseline only needs 7 points to win the mini-game.
Benefits of the 7/11 drill
The greatest benefit to playing this game is it stimulates a real game. It helps improve your consistency and control. Before I started drilling 7/11 I didn’t really have a good touch on my 3rd shot drops and resets. This drill exposes where your weaknesses are on the court. You typically want to start playing a 7/11 game at the end of a drilling session when you have isolated all of the other drills in pickleball, such as dinking straight, crosscourt, resets, drives, drops.
Variations
The beautiful aspect of this drill is you can do this drill with only 2 people if only 1 of your pickleball friends is available to play. You can play this with an odd number of people if you only have 3. For 3 people, 2 people would start at the kitchen and 1 person would start at the baseline. This drill is really advantageous for the 1 person because they are getting a lot of reps in + mimicking a real game scenario.
You can even play 7/11 if you have 4 people and want to work on your transition zone. The only downside to playing this game with 4 people is everyone will get less reps in. But since you have 4 people, it will feel like a game and will likely have more fun playing this way.
How to track progress and improvement
If you are finding yourself losing the 7/11 mini game a lot on both sides, it likely means you need to work on specific shots that you are getting beat by. I personally used to have a really weak backhand drop from the baseline and reset from the middle of the court. I would record your 7/11 gameplay and analyze where you are losing your points. Then I would drill those shots over and over in the next drilling session. Rinse and repeat this process and you will get really good. Really fast.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
The most common mistake I see people make playing this game is either not moving up when you hit a good drop or moving up to fast even though your drop is still attackable, giving up easy points. Unless you have really fast hands, then I would skew towards staying back and reseting.
Another common mistake in this drill is that once you do make your way to the kitchen, some people get really excited and want to speed up the ball because they finally made it to the kitchen. If the ball is shoulder high, then sure, speed that ball up all day. But if it’s not, engage in a dink battle to set up a higher percentage shot.
You want to treat this like a real life game. You want to gather data around what shots your opponent is doing well and not doing well. Be sure to target their weaknesses
The different shots to practice during 7/11
When you are the person who is starting off at the kitchen, you have more of an emphasis on hitting overheads, flicks, and rolls to keep the person at the baseline back. If you’re starting off at the baseline you have more of an emphasis of hitting good drives, and unattackable drops and resets to get into the kitchen. You will find that if you hit a poor roll and pop it up, then your partner will attack the ball. If you recognize that you popped up the ball, then you have to make sure you get ready for a counter or reset the ball.
Playing the 7/11 Solo with a Ball machine
While you can’t necessarily practice 7/11 with a ball machine, you can practice certain shots that mimic a 7/11. You can set a drill to hit a 3rd shot drop from the baseline, then come up to the transition zone and reset the ball, then come to the kitchen and hit a forehand roll, then have it launch a non attackable ball for you to dink.
Conclusion
The 7/11 drill is crucial and one of the most important drills to learn in pickleball. Its a great drill to do after isolating the different strokes that you want to work on. This drill is ideally the most effective with 2 or 3 people, simulating a real life pickleball scenario. Its one of the best rewards after isolating your game.
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