Health, Fitness, News & Fun for Picklers of All Ages

What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:

• Two Easy Patterns For Winning Cross Court Dinks

• The Free "Drug" That Drops Blood Pressure

• DRILL OF THE WEEK: The “Wrong Shot” Discipline Game

• Fitness Expert Glenn Dawson: Emergency Lower Back Pain Relief

• Strength Training for Injury Risk Reduction in Women Over 40:
  What We're Really Trying to Protect

• 10th US Open Pickleball Championship Ends in Naples with Epic Final

• Agassi & Blake Top Waters & Bouchard in Battle of the Sexes

• 82 Year Old Un-Retired Pickleball Coach

• HUMOR: When Your Doubles Partner Takes All Your Shots

• Coach Mary: 5 Shots To Help You Adapt To How Pickleball Is Evolving in 2026

🥷SKILLS

Two Patters For Winning
Cross Court Dinks

Cross‑court dink rallies often feel like a trap. You hit a safe ball, they hit it back, and suddenly you’re ten shots deep, waiting for someone to make a mistake. The ball drifts wide, your feet get stuck, and the first person to get impatient or lazy hands the point away.

Most players treat cross‑court dinks as a waiting game. The players who win more points treat them as a setup game. They aren’t just keeping the ball alive; they’re running simple patterns that force a weak reply or create a clean put‑away.

You don’t need exotic spin or lightning hands. You need two repeatable patterns you can run in your sleep.

Pattern 1: Wide–Middle–Put‑Away

This pattern uses the width of the court to open a gap, then attacks it.

Step 1 – Draw them wide
Hit a cross‑court dink that lands just inside the sideline, around the opponent’s outside hip or shoulder. The goal isn’t to win the point here; it’s to pull them off the middle and make them reach.

Step 2 – Hit behind their momentum
As they recover toward the center, hit your next ball slightly back toward the middle, but still cross‑court. Aim for their hip or body, not a sharp angle. Because they’re still moving from the wide ball, this one feels like it’s chasing them. They often:

💪 Health & Fitness Section

The “Free Drug”
That Drops Blood Pressure

You've probably heard that deep breathing helps with stress. Most of us nod and move on. 

Here is a reason to actually start. Researchers analyzed 13 clinical studies on slow breathing and blood pressure, and the results came back the same across every one of them. Systolic pressure, the top number on your reading dropped by nearly 8 points. Diastolic pressure, the bottom number, fell by 4 points, and heart rate dropped too. 

That puts slow breathing in the same range as a standard low-dose blood pressure pill. But breathing is free, and you can do it on the bench between games. 

What Happens to Your Blood Pressure During Play 

During a hard rally, a specific part of your nervous system takes over. Doctors call it the sympathetic nervous system. "Sympathetic" here has nothing to do with feelings. It is simply the name for the part of your nervous system that puts your body on alert. 

When it fires, your heart beats faster, your blood vessels narrow, and your blood pressure climbs. Your muscles get the blood they need to move fast, and they get it right away.  

After the game ends, a different system should take over. Doctors call it the parasympathetic nervous system. When it runs, your heart rate slows, your blood vessels open, and your blood pressure falls. So your body recovers. 

The problem is that the shift from one to the other takes time on its own. 

🥷 DRILL OF THE WEEK

The “Wrong Shot”
Discipline Game

You get a ball you’ve hit a hundred times before, and without thinking, you hit the same shot again. This drill breaks that loop, forcing you to go somewhere else, change pace, or pick a different option entirely, right when your instincts want the familiar one.

See how quickly your patterns show up, and which “other” shots start winning you more points.

 🏋️ STAYING FIT with
GLENN & BRIANNA

Emergency Lower Back Pain Relief

⚕️HEALTH NEWS

Strength Training For Injury Risk
Reduction in Women Over 40

Most injuries here don’t come from one bad move, they build from repeated load your body isn’t quite prepared for yet. The key idea is “tissue capacity,” how well your muscles, tendons, and joints actually handle the volume of play you’re putting in, not just how fit you feel.

See how hip strength, calf strength, and load tolerance quietly determine whether you keep playing or start managing pain.

🏓 PRO NEWS

10th US Open Pickleball
Championship Ends In Naples
With Epic Final

Down 10–4 in the third, Anna Leigh Waters and Jay Devilliers still needed a 16th match point to finally close it out in Naples. What looked finished turned into a grind, with Sewing and Diamond saving 15 straight before Waters ended it herself to seal a wild reverse sweep at the US Open’s 10th anniversary.

Watch how that third game unraveled, and how long it actually took to land the final shot. Click here…

 🏓 PRO NEWS

Agassi & Blake Top
Waters & Bouchard
In Battle of the Sexes

Anna Leigh Waters handles business in singles, but the night still comes down to doubles and a $1 million finish. That’s where Andre Agassi and James Blake lock in on Genie Bouchard, applying steady pressure that ultimately swings the match their way.

Watch how that targeting strategy unfolded and decided the final. Click here…

👏 COMMUNITY NEWS

Un-Retired 82 Year Old
Pickleball Coach

At 75, he was told his health was heading in the wrong direction. Now he’s 82, coaching pickleball six days a week, three to four hours a day, and chasing another medal at the Huntsman Games.

See how he went from retired chef to full-time coach, and why he says he’s happier now than ever, Click Here…

🏓 HUMOR

Me Describing My Pickleball Group

RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS

LACKAWANNA COUNTY: Medical Students Host Tournament to Support Families of Pediatric Cancer Patients
SPOKANE, WA: Spokane Badgers' Debut Marks New Era For Pickleball in the Lilac City
SCOTTSDALE, AZ: World's Largest Indoor Pickleball Facility Clears Major Hurdle in Scottsdale
KINGSPORT, TN: Rally for Roofs: Pickleball Tournament to Raise Money for Holston Habitat for Humanity
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL: South Florida Wellness Network Raises Over $11000 at its 2026 Battle of the Paddles Pickleball Tournament
ABILENE, TX: New Pickleball Complex PickleTex Approved in Abilene Aiming to Open in July
PHOENIX, AZ: A.Q. Shipley Participates in Charity Pickleball Match at Phoenix Children's Hospital Championships
SEATTLE, WA: Pickleball Players Protest Seattle Plan to Remove Dozens of Courts


DO YOU HAVE LOCAL NEWS TO SHARE? REACH OUT TO US AT
[email protected] and send us a link to your story!

  💪  Short Hops

 Callie Smith offers four short but informative videos on short hops.

·    In the first video, her paddle is behind her, and her weight is back.

·    In the correct video, Callie drops her paddle down in front of her, without any backswing.

·    When should you execute a short hop?  Callie says when you are pulled out of position, and you do not have time to get your feet in the proper place.

·    Soft hands.

·    It is a defensive shot, no backswing.

·    Take it right off the ground.  Think, “Ba, bump!”

·    Check out the great demo.

·    Short hop versus topspin dink.

·    The short hop occurs in front of you, no backswing, just down and up.

·    The topspin dink involves stepping back and moving low to high to create topspin.

Susannah Barr from The Flying Pickleball Academy offers a good video on executing short hops on your serve return.

·    Susannah explains that she often uses a short hop on her service return when the ball is deep.

·    Open quickly and contact as the ball is rising.

·    This will be a better return than waiting until the ball gets deep and trying to move back.

·    Often, Pickleball courts are tight in the back and on the sides.  You will need the short hop return when the back wall or fence is too close.

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