[00:00:02.580] - Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. Hope you're having a great week. I'm the host of this weekly podcast, Tony Roig. I am actually at Nationals right now here in Arizona. So USA Pickleball Nationals in Mesa, Arizona, specifically. Got to play in one event, which I'm going to be using as the centerpiece for today's conversation. And today we're going to be talking about a secret to winning more games. And I'm going to use a match that I played in on Monday, or a couple of matches, to compare them. But one of the match in particular that I played in on Monday here at Nationals, to help you understand, or to help explain to you, I should say, a way of playing that gives you a much higher chance of success than you may currently have based on how you're approaching the games. Before we get into that, a couple of notes of housekeeping. We are in the midst of our subscription launch for our academy. So if you want to take advantage of that, make sure you check that out. If you're on email list, you're probably getting that already in your email.

[00:01:14.600] - Speaker 1
So take advantage of that if you're interested in that model or in that ecosystem, it's an academy where we basically have a bunch of courses that cover different parts of the game, whether it's lobbying, bangers, partner play on forced errors. We have some really good guest pro coach courses as well that are in there, so make sure you check that out. All right, so let's dive into the subject that I want to talk about, which is this idea of How do we play better pickleball? Everything else being equal, meaning you have your strategy, you have the way you hit the balls, you have your approach to the game. What can you do that you're going to see how simple this is. That's very, very simple that will greatly improve your chances for success. And what I'm going to use is a couple of matches that I played here on Monday in a hybrid division. I'll explain that in a second. That really illustrate how you can up your game, staying within the confines of everything else being the same. In other words, without radically changing where you're hitting the balls and things like that, you can do a couple of things that will really radically improve your chances for success.

[00:02:29.260] - Speaker 1
So on Monday, I got to play hybrid, which is one standing player, one player in a wheelchair. So it's a mixed an event, mixed doubles, if you will. So one standing player, one seated player. And I had played with my partner Ken before at the US Open, he asked me to join him at Nationals. I was happy to do so. So we come out and we play our first match against a very good team, against Troy and Ryan, and a solid team like us. It could look very similar us in terms of their abilities. And we won the first game against them. Then we were up 10-5 in the second game against them. They ended up coming back and beating us 12-10 in that game, and they beat us in the third game. So that So this is the first match of the day that knocks us down to the bottom bracket, which is the Bronze Metal bracket. And so we go down to that bracket, we win the next two games, and then we're in the Bronze Metal match, me and my partner Ken. And we're playing the exact same team again. So we're going to play Troy and Ryan again in the Bronze Metal match.

[00:03:35.890] - Speaker 1
So in that match, Ryan and Troy come out and they win the first game. Then we win the second game, and then we're in the third game, and we're getting hammered. We're getting destroyed by Troy and by Ryan. And so we do this... In case you don't play tournaments, you don't know this, I'll explain. So basically, at six, you change sides, change ends in a tournament in the third game. So we change ends in the third game, 6-1, down 6-1. Then we were down 7-1, we were down 9-4, ultimately ended up being down 10-4. So Ryan and Troy have us 10-4-2. We get a side out. We go to work. So I'm serving at the side out. We get that point, serve again, get that point, serve again, get that point. Now we're at 7, 10. They get a half a side out, so now it's 7, 10, 2. My partner Ken takes over serving, and this will become particularly relevant in a minute, but my partner Ken takes over serving at 7, 10, 2. We score a point at 8, 10, 2. They call a time out, and then come back, and we score at nine, we score at 10, we score at 11, and we score it at 12.

[00:04:54.010] - Speaker 1
So we came back from 4-10 down in the third game to win 12-10 and get the Bronze medal. So the reason I told you the first match was because I thought it was interesting that we had basically the exact same situation earlier, meaning we had been up really big in a 10-5, I think it was that game, in the first match, And they were able to come back and beat us that game. This time, we were the ones who were able to come back from being down significantly 4-10 and put on a run and beat them in the last game, in the last match. So what changed between when we were getting hammered and when we ended up winning? A couple of things I want to focus on here. One is I mentioned Ken serve. So Ken serve earlier on in that match had been a little bit erratic. Ken had been missing some serves. And during the day, he missed a few serves. So what we've been working on when he's missing his serves was for him to take more time to serve. And It's a tempo concept. It's an idea of when you're playing pickleball, trying to play the game at your tempo, trying to play the game in the way that makes the most sense for you.

[00:06:11.670] - Speaker 1
And oftentimes, I would suggest you that you're rushing more than you should be. And if you slow yourself down and give yourself the time you need, your shots will improve. Your mechanics will improve because you're giving your brain time to get rid of whatever it's thinking about. And from the prior rally, get itself ready for the next rally, take a moment to acquire the new situation. I'm serving from the left or I'm serving from the right, and then acquire your target and then execute the shot. So when you think about When you think about your game, consider controlling the tempo better of the way that you're playing the game. And completing the story on Ken serve. So we had Ken serving a little bit erratic earlier, missing some serves here and there. Starts to slow down, starts to take more control over his time, and then is able to start to piece together his serve in a more constructive way, including at the end, because as I mentioned, we were down When I told you the story, we were down 7,10,2 because they had gotten a half-side out at 7,10,1. So now Ken has to serve at 7,10,2.

[00:07:25.860] - Speaker 1
And Ken is able to rattle off five straight service points, meaning no miss serves, and also serves that are putting pressure on our opponents. As I recall, I think they missed one return of serve during that sequence based on Ken's quality of Ken serve. And we also got a couple of short returns of serve that we were able to attack. So by taking his time, he changes from erratic missing serve to having the wherewithal or the confidence and the ability to then rattle off the five points we needed at the end in order to complete the and get the bronze medal. So tip number one step for success is going to be tempo. Play at a tempo that makes sense for you and just getting your job done. Not, I need to rush around, I need to go run and get the ball, I need to hurry up and serve. None of that. You play at your tempo, slow yourself down, and you're going to play better. The second piece of advice that I would give you in terms of improving your success relatively easily is smile. Now, I know that sounds so simple that it can't possibly work.

[00:08:36.300] - Speaker 1
Absolutely works. And I would say smile was actually a bigger factor in our comeback than even the time that Ken was taking on a serve. The time was super important because it got Ken more comfortable with his serving, and he got more reliable with his serving. But smiling is key. So what happened there was we were at 10:41, and I looked I looked at Ken and I said... And it had been a nice day. The sun was setting. It was the evening. All the other players from the bracket were watching because we were the last match in our division for the day. And we were It was just day of pick-up, right? And so I look over at Ken and I said, Ken, don't forget, you're playing in the Bronze medal match at the Nationals, right? So it's pretty cool. And so I said, we should probably smile smile about that, right? Smile about that. So Ken breaks out a smile, and we win that point. So then we win that point. I looked at Ken and I said, Ken, you smile the last one, and we won the point. I mean, might want to smile again.

[00:09:43.120] - Speaker 1
Smiles again. We win that point. Every time that we want to point, I reminded Ken of the fact that he had smiled the one before. So obviously, now you don't want to break the rhythm, right? Or you don't want to jinks it, right? You've been smiling and winning, smiling and winning. You don't want to stop smiling. So Ken starts to smile between rallies. We start, Ken and my energy gets more positive. We're more relaxed on our side. And that little thing, that smiling, takes us from down 10-4. Okay, we're going to lose in the bronze battle match, and that's it, right? We're done. To, okay, let's keep battling. Let's keep doing this thing. Let's keep playing one rally at a time and continuing to battle back with the understanding understanding that pickle ball is a game of swings and can be messy game. Sometimes it's just we'll be messy for a while and they get up big and then they get messy for a while, and then we were able to come back and tie up and ultimately win the game. But in the middle, it's this idea of smiling as we're playing and just enjoying each moment, taking a second to smile, taking a second to be grateful for the situation that you're in getting to play the sport.

[00:10:59.920] - Speaker 1
That act of smiling is going to then give you additional calmness, and that calmness leads to better play. What I haven't said happened because it didn't, was in terms of understanding the change in our results between getting killed and then ultimately winning the game, is we did not change anything strategically. So we did not. The The turnaround between 4:10 down to 12:10 winning wasn't something like, Okay, we're stacking, and then we didn't stack, or we started stacking, or we started hitting to the player on the left side's right foot, and whatever, and all that stuff, right? Nothing wrong with that stuff. That's fine, right? Everything was the same. We were playing the same, the same approach we've been using the whole time. The differences were Ken taking time on his serve so that he was more comfortable and reliable with it, and the smiling. The smiling is what took us from fourth place to third place, and a spot on the podium at Nationals on Monday. So if you want to improve your play, There's a lot of things you need to improve your play. So don't think there's not a lot of things you can do.

[00:12:19.370] - Speaker 1
That's fine. But all things being equal, meaning you've already done the other stuff to the best of your ability, consider taking your time and consider smiling, considering enjoying the situation more. You're going to play better. By definition, you're going to enjoy yourself more while you're playing this beautiful sport. So hopefully you enjoyed this week's podcast. If you did, consider rating and reviewing it. As always, that helps us reach other players just like you. And share with your friends. Remember, if you enjoy the podcast, they probably will, too. I hope to be in the studio next week for another regular episode of Pickleball Therapy. Until then, be well.