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

What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:

• What To Do When Playing With A Weaker Partner

• Train Like a Pirate to Sharpen Your Kitchen Line Reflexes

• DRILL OF THE WEEK: Pickleball The Serve Counter Drill:
  Who Controls The First Four Shots

• Fitness Expert Glenn Dawson: Secret Weapon For Joint Pain (Instant Relief)

• PPA Is Cracking Down On Bad Line Calls

• Got Elbow Or Heel Pain? Shockwave Therapy Can Help

• Road to Pro Guide For Pickleball: Transparency Around Finances

• MLP 2026 Draft Recap - Team By Team Draft Grades and Initial Power Rankings

• Anna Bright: The Most Expensive Pickleball Player Ever

• HUMOR: When Your Doubles Partner Takes All Your Shots

• Coach Mary: The 3rd Shot Hybrid

🥷SKILLS

What To Do When Playing
With A Weaker Player

It happens to everyone.

You show up for rec play, a mixer, or a round robin, and you’re paired with someone clearly less experienced. Maybe they’re new. Maybe they’re inconsistent. Maybe they’re just having a rough day.

The instinct is predictable. Take more balls. Cover more court. Speed things up. Win the points yourself.

That instinct is usually wrong.

Playing with a weaker partner isn’t about hero ball. It’s about structure. If you handle it correctly, you can stay competitive, protect your partner, and even raise the level of the match. If you handle it poorly, you create chaos — and everyone feels it.

Start by changing the goal

If your only goal is to win the game, you’ll probably overplay. If your goal is to play smart, controlled pickleball, the game becomes clearer.

You’re not there to hide your partner. You’re there to build predictable patterns so both of you know your roles.

Strong players who struggle in this situation usually struggle because they abandon structure.

Control the tempo first

When one partner is weaker, fast chaos favors the other team.

Slowing the game down does three things:

• gives your partner more time
• reduces unforced errors
• increases neutral balls

💪 Health & Fitness Section

Train Like A Pirate To Sharpen
Your Kitchen Line Reflexes

You see the ball coming. You even start moving. But your hands still don't get there in time. 

It's one of the most frustrating feelings in pickleball and most players assume it's just part of getting older.  

But here's what's actually happening: reaction time isn't a muscle problem. It lives in your brain. Specifically in the pathways that connect what your eyes see to what your hands do. 

And those pathways can be trained. In fact, there's a drill — one borrowed from a completely different sport — that targets this exact problem. It takes less than two minutes. You don't need a court. And the first time you try it, you'll feel slightly ridiculous. 

But it works. 

The Drill That Fooled Our Brains Into Getting Faster 

Here's what you do. Grab a reaction ball — a six-sided rubber ball that bounces unpredictably — and stand a few feet from a solid wall. Then toss the ball underhand against the wall and catch it after it bounces.

But while you’re doing this, put an eye patch over one eye. Yes, an eye patch. Like a pirate. 

Here’s why the eye patch is important. When you take away one source of information, your brain scrambles to fill the gap using everything else it has available. 

🥷 DRILL OF THE WEEK

The Serve/Counter Drill
Who Controls The First Four Shots

Most rallies feel random. They’re not. The first four shots decide who gets to the kitchen in control and who is scrambling to survive. This drill isolates the serve, return, third, and fourth so you can see exactly where pressure is built or handed away.

Run the first four shot sequence and find out who really controls your points.

 🏋️ STAYING FIT with
GLENN & BRIANNA

Secret Weapon For Joint Pain
(Instant Relief)

⚕️ HEALTH NEWS

Got Heel Or Elbow Pain?
Shockwave Therapy Can Help

As more older, active adults deal with nagging heel and elbow pain, one treatment is showing up more often in sports‑medicine clinics: shockwave therapy.

This NPR piece looks at how it’s used for stubborn plantar fasciitis and tennis elbow, alongside the evidence, costs, and limits that keep it from being a magic bullet.

🗞️  NEWS

Road To Pro Guide For Pickleball
Transparency Around Finances

“Should I go pro?” It’s the question almost every high level player asks at some point. The dream is real. So is the bill. Travel, entries, training, weeks without guaranteed income, it adds up faster than most expect.

See the actual numbers behind a season on tour before you decide to chase it.

 🏓 PRO NEWS

Anna Bright: The Most
Expensive Pickleball
Player Ever

Anna Bright sat on YouTube clutching a teddy bear while her MLP price climbed past $1 million. By the time the St. Louis Shock locked in the No. 1 pick for $1.23 million, she was the most expensive draft selection in league history, watching it unfold in real time and joking about the pressure that comes with a seven figure tag.

Watch the final seconds of the bidding war and hear what Bright said as the number kept rising, click here…

🏓 PRO NEWS

MLP 2026 Team By Team
Draft Recap: Grades &
Initial Power Rankings

Major League Pickleball’s 2026 draft got wild fast. Anna Bright went back to St. Louis for a record $1.23 million after a bidding war that stretched more than 20 minutes, and New Jersey followed by snagging Jorja Johnson for $800K in a move that could reshape the title picture.

The full running diary tracks the biggest surprises, the steepest bids, and the value picks that could matter later in the season.
Read more here…

🤣 HUMOR

RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS

WHATCOM COUNT, WA: Pickleball Settles Into Lynden Barn That Was Once Part of 1000-Cow Dairy Farm
ST PETERSBURG, FL: High School Goes All In On Pickleball
HENRICO COUNTY, VA: Mom Speaks At St. Jude Pickleball Event In Henrico: 'Thank You For The Gift Of My Daughter'
BLOOMINGTON, MN: Pickleball Event At Mall Of America Raises Money To Fight Child Hunger
LONG ISLAND, NY: Labriola Announces Spring Pickleball Lessons And Pickup Games
KENNEWICK, WA: Tri-Cities Pickleball Tournament Draws Top Players And Community Fun
PLANO, TX: Cardiac Crusade Returns to Allen for 2nd Annual Pickleball Palooza to Save Lives


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

  💪 5 The 3rd Shot Hybrid 

Zane Explains His favorite 3^rd Shot:  The Hybrid Drop/Drive.

Are you listening to the pros who say the third shot drop is dead?  Wrong!  For older players, or those with mobility issues, the third shot is critical for you to execute so you can move to the net.  Instead of just talking about the third shot drive or the third shot drop, let’s look at the third shot hybrid, or the third shot ¾ shot.

 I covered this a few months ago, but it feels like a good time to circle back.  Why do we need to execute an effective 3^rd shot?

· You are the serving team, and you must let the return bounce, and then hit a shot that is not attackable.
· If you hit a 3rd shot drive, and it does not have topspin, you are giving them a chance to attack you as you come in.
· If you are having trouble with the 3^rd shot drop, which is a “long dink” that lands in the kitchen, perhaps you need a new option.

He explains that if he drives, Sammy can just attack and keep him back. If he hits a normal drop, Sammy has plenty of time to attack off the bounce.

When Zane executes the hybrid, the ball gets on Sammy quickly, and is low, so Sammy cannot attack.  This requires topspin!

Check of the 30-60-90 drill. 
· 30% - drop
· 60% hybrid with topspin
· 90% drive with topspin

In Zane’s second video, he shows target areas to aim for your third- shot hybrid.  He demos, explains, and shows how important it is to put topspin into your game.  60% is the key number.