Main Points
- Straight-ahead dink game with controlled speedups to dominate the kitchen line
- Crosscourt dinking drill focused on consistency, patience, and shot variety
- Middle-coverage drill to improve positioning and handle speedups effectively
- Game-like drill for handling bangers and chaotic pace under pressure
- Defensive scrambling drill to transition from defense back to the kitchen
- Hand-speed drill designed to dramatically improve reaction time and hands battles

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Summary
This video breaks down a personal drilling routine that is specifically optimized to help players reach the 5.0 level as efficiently as possible. The focus is on purposeful, game-like drills that directly translate to match performance rather than generic practice. Each drill targets a critical skill that high-level pickleball players rely on every point.
The routine begins with a straight-ahead dink game that includes speedups, emphasizing kitchen control, taking balls out of the air, and making smart decisions under pressure. This drill builds confidence at the net and sharpens hands, touch, and pickleball IQ. From there, the video moves into crosscourt dinking with no speedups allowed, reinforcing patience, consistency, and the ability to sustain long dink rallies—an essential skill since most dink exchanges happen crosscourt.
Additional drills focus on covering the middle, handling aggressive dinks, and dealing with bangers who drive and crash the net. These drills are cooperative in structure but highly realistic, forcing players to move laterally, reset under pressure, and respond to fast-paced exchanges. The emphasis is always on match realism rather than scripted feeds.
The final drills prioritize defense, scrambling, and hand speed. Players are put in uncomfortable situations that require quick reactions, compact counters, and rapid decision-making. The closing hand-speed drill intentionally triggers hands battles, training players to read the ball faster and react instinctively. Altogether, this video outlines a complete, high-level drilling system that builds the exact skills needed to compete—and win—at the 5.0 level.
Source: tanner.pickleball | YouTube

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Tags: Defense | Dink | Drill | Hand Speed | Speed Up | tanner.pickleball