Most successful players credit their skillful play on frequent drilling. Here are instructions for three drills, submitted by Shawn Krueger, a top contributor on Pickleball Forum (Facebook).
About 90% or more of my drilling with one other person is doing three drills. These three drills isolate all the important things in pickleball, give you tons more reps than you'll get in games, and are super fun.
Dinking Game
The first drill is a dinking game. We usually play to 11, win by 2, rally-style scoring. Start face on across from each other; complete 3 dinks before the point is live. Whoever wins the point changes sides on the court just like a real game so you get a lot of reps across from each other and a lot of reps cross court. We have a rule that you can only speed up when face on which more emulates a real game. ATPs are allowed all the time, mainly to keep the cross court stuff honest. This drill should teach you how to make dinks offensive and how to move people around the court.
Seven-Eleven
Drill 2 is 7-11. This is by far the best drill in pickleball. One person starts at the kitchen, the other starts at the baseline face on. The kitchen person feeds the ball and the back person battles to win the point, usually with lots of drops and resets to get to the kitchen line. However, you can drive or lob, really whatever you want to do. The baseline person must win 7 points to win the drill while the NVZ person must win 11, because they're starting with the position advantage. This drill can be easily modified to make it easier or harder, depending on skill levels.
Skinny Singles
Drill 3 is Skinny Singles. We usually play one game to end the drill session. Standard score only on serve, start cross court and if the server wins the point, they switch sides while the defensive person is fixed. This gets you full court reps straight on and cross court.
Other Drills
Hardball is fun, albeit a bit risky. One person stands at the kitchen, the other at the baseline. Baseline person rips drives and kitchen person is countering/resetting. If the response comes back to the driver, they drive again, and again until a response comes that they can't drive. This is a good way to learn how to deal with bangers. However, it's risky because the kitchen person can be hit in the face due to lots of fast and hard reps. Please wear protective eye wear!
Cooperative volleying teaches volleying from kitchen line to kitchen line. Hit volleys that both sides can reply to. Keep the ball moving. Speed things up as you can handle it. An added difficulty is doing this while both players move back and forth across the court.
Modifications
You can modify the Dinking Game to stay face to face where one person always speeds up and the other always resets, etc. You can modify 7-11 by having the back person start in the mid-court and face a nasty reset to start, etc. At the end of the day, make sure your drills are providing value to both players.
Thanks, Shawn! Do you have a favorite drill that you believe has helped increase your skills? Tell us about them in the comments.
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