Return with Purpose

Pickleball is structurally unfair, and it's unfair in your favor when you're returning. The serving team has to start behind the baseline. Your partner gets to start at the kitchen. That's a built-in head start, every single point you receive.

The returning team's job isn't to win the point with the return. It's to not give the advantage back.

The advantage you already have

Think about what that means in practice. The serving team has to solve the entire court with their third shot, from the baseline, against two players at the net. That is the hardest shot in the sport, and you get to make them hit it every time you receive.

All you have to do is arrive.

The return has exactly two jobs

1. Make their third shot as hard as possible.
2. Get you to the kitchen line, next to your partner, before they hit it.

That's the whole list. Every decision about the return — where to aim, how hard, how high — should be judged against those two things and nothing else.

Job one: make the third shot hard

A hard third shot is one hit from deep, on the move, at an awkward height. You produce that with depth.

• Start deeper than feels natural. Two or three feet behind the baseline. It's far easier to move forward into a ball than to back up off one, and backing up is how returns get hit late and short.
• Hit it high and deep. A return that clears the net by four or five feet and lands near their baseline is close to unattackable, and the extra hang time is yours — it's the time you use to get forward.
• Deep middle is the default. Largest margin in two directions, takes away angles, and against a team it forces a "yours or mine" decision before they've even hit the ball.
• Go deep to the weaker player when one opponent's third shot is clearly worse. That's point construction, same as on the serve.

A high, deep return looks unimpressive. It is enormously effective. Nobody has ever won a point against me by admiring how boring my return was.

Job two: get to the line

This is the half that players skip, and it's the half that actually cashes in the advantage.

The return is the one shot where moving forward is part of the follow-through. Hit and go. Not hit, watch, then go. Your feet should already be heading in as the ball leaves your paddle.

1. Recover forward, not sideways. After contact your momentum should be toward the net, not back toward the middle of the baseline.
2. Split step before their third shot. Balanced beats deep. If you're still running when they contact the ball, you'll be hitting your next shot on the move — and that's how errors happen.
3. Get as far as your return earned. A great deep return buys you the whole distance. A short return means stop in the transition zone and get your paddle up, because a fast ball is coming.

What the return is not for

Three things I see players try to do with a return, all of which give the advantage back:

• Winning the point. Hard, flat returns aimed at sidelines generate errors far more than winners — and an error on the return is the cheapest point you can possibly give away, since they didn't even have to hit the hard shot.
• Sharp angles. An angled return pulls your own partner out of position and shortens the court, which gives the serving team an easier third shot. Exactly backwards.
• Being fancy. Drop shots and chips off a return look great when they work. They also let the serving team come forward, which is the one thing you were trying to prevent.

The drill

Simple, and it trains both jobs at once.

1. Depth with a marker. Put a towel three feet inside the baseline. Partner serves twenty. Count how many returns land past it. Record the number and beat it next session.
2. Add the run. Same drill, but every return must finish with you touching the kitchen line. If you can't get there, your return wasn't deep or high enough — that's the feedback.
3. Add the split. Partner hits a third shot every rep. You must be stopped and balanced when they contact it. Have them call you out when you're not.
4. Play it live. Return, get to the line, play the point out. Track how often both of you are at the kitchen when their third shot arrives. That percentage is the real score.

Get that number up and you'll win more points without hitting a single better shot. You'll just be standing in the right place, together, more often. Let's get into it.