let's pull back the curtain and dissect one of the most important yet under talked about shots of pickleball the fourth shot and I'm fired up about this because it took me a long time to realize how many errors I was making on this one shot and I don't want you to make those same errors let's do this together come on that's that's silly I'm gonna keep that let's go so what is the fourth shot well when Jack Hits a serve that's the first shot when I hit this that's the second shot when he hits the ball that's the third and Tyler's shot right here is the fourth let's start big picture and raise our pickleball IQ one of the biggest advantages you can have in pickleball is the kitchen Advantage which essentially means you want to be at the kitchen line a lot to increase the percentage chances that you actually win points Baseline bad up at the kitchen good so let's establish some language we'll use over the course of this video plus one advantage and a plus two Advantage a plus one advantage essentially means if we have one person up at the kitchen line and they have zero up the kitchen line that's a plus one advantage if we have two people up at the kitchen line and they have zero at the kitchen line that would be a plus two advantage or let's say say we had two people up at the kitchen and they had one person up at the kitchen and one person back that'd be a plus one advantage the third language we'll use is neutral neutral just means that all four players are up at the kitchen line and nobody has an advantage yes when you were the returning team you have an advantage over the serving team a plus one advantage that can quickly turn into a plus two Advantage but look what just happened the moment they hit the ball and I stayed back they brought two people up and we have only one person up we just went from having an advantage to losing an advantage you want to return run to the kitchen line where you're the greatest threat against your opponent so yes occasionally you might be able to hit hard ball after Hardball and win some points but I promise you as you move to a higher and higher level you won't win those points don't be a player that just gives up the kitchen be a player it makes it hard for your opponent on their third shot drop to get into the kitchen I'm gonna show you how ah we're gonna identify all the different reads that come with four shots quick interruptions tell you that this video is sponsored by Selkirk from the way they run their business to the quality of their their paddles these are my favorite paddles to use if you want to get a sell Kirk paddle go to selkirk.com or go to selkirklabs.com find the paddle you like and I got you use my code inserted in at checkout and you will get a digital gift card towards a future purchase back to the video so when our opponent goes to hit their third shot there's really two options they have they might hit a third shot drive or a third shot drop what we do on our fourth shot is dependent on what they do on their third shot so this fourth shot there's no one answer it's all about reading their shot and then deciding what are we going to do based on what they did so let's first talk about what do we do on our fourth shot when our opponents Drive their third shot so right now we have a plus one advantage we have one person at the kitchen and they have zero people at the kitchen our whole goal is to either move our plus one advantage into a plus two Advantage after I hit my return and then we want to keep the advantage for as long as we can if Jack comes to drive the ball boom he drives the ball at the moment he drives we have to be aware of what's often called a shake and bake so the moment Jack drives the ball to me Mike is looking to poach that ball so my first option is level one is I want to just keep the ball away and I'm going to try to block the ball back to the person who hit the drive here's level two if Jack drives the ball at me this is a little bit more advanced and I know that Mike is gonna try to poach that ball the level two read is I'm actually gonna bring the ball behind Mike knowing he's going to the middle so notice I'm going behind him because he's trying to anticipate so I'm gonna predict what he's gonna do and I'm gonna go behind those are the two reads quick technique and oftentimes when someone's just hitting a third shot drive over and over they call that a banger I have another video if it's not out yet it will be soon about how to beat bangers but here's the quick technique the biggest mistake is people take really big swings when they get driven at them and if you take a really big swing especially with the ball coming fast there's more room for air and two with the ball coming really hard every action has an equal and opposite reaction there's a good chance that I might miss that ball along because I'm adding so much force back at it here we go oh instead what we want to do quick to you is just shorts compact swings right piles out in front ball comes out hard to me people are ripping at you boom boom boom out let out balls go out you don't need to do too much in order to keep them back you just want to hit a short compact swing down at their feet could you point out the camera what I'm doing really well right now Tyler's what he don't even nothing now here's the second read on our force that we need to be aware of it's when our opponent hits a third shot drop now remember what their goal is their goal on a third shot drop is to get to the kitchen so they can be their greatest threat so their job is they want to get here our job is this is the principle we want to make them earn it we don't just want to allow them to get to the kitchen line so here's the scenario I just hit the return and now Tyler and I turned our plus one advantage into a plus two advantage two people at the kitchen line zero people with the kitchen line so if Jack when he hits his third shot drop hits it extremely high which tends to happen a lot actually above my head I just want you to smash it as hard as you can and boom boom right it's as easy as one two three so let's talk about the next scenario when the ball is around net height up to say forehead height right so Jack go ahead boom yeah so the ball's around this area right here then the question is what do I do well remember the goal of their third shot is to get to the kitchen my goal hitting the fourth shot is to keep them back and make it difficult taking those pit stops to come up to the kitchen which person do you hit the ball back to after they've hit a third shot drop here's the secret the player that's not as good now here's the third one and this is the one where I see and truthfully I've made the most errors on I call it a pretty damn good drop but I'm not sure if I should hit it out of the air or let it bounce say that three times fast so I hit my return I come to the kitchen and Jack goes to hit his drop it's judgment time and you need to judge two things number one I need the judge should I take it out of the air or should I let it bounce and then I need to judge on both of those should I attack out of the air or conceive the kitchen light out of the year or if it bounces should I attack or if it bounces should I concede concede just means they've hit a good shot and I'm gonna just allow them to come to the kitchen line because if I try to do something too aggressive based on the ball they gave me I'm probably going to get myself hit or my partner hit occasionally you are gonna take one where you're you know you're just out stressed and when you do don't try to be aggressive from down here if you make the wrong decision and you can't pull back don't try to go for an All or Nothing shot you should just concede if you let it bounce which is that second read I have an email newsletter I write to once a week and one of my subscribers as I wrote an article about the fourth shot drop told me something that he learned from Ben Johns Ben John says if your contact point off of the bounce boom right this would be my contact point right here is gonna be higher than my contact point if I take it out of the air then you should let the ball bounce so that you can apply pressure off the bounce boom boom right that's a more threatening shot than me reaching in and essentially doing nothing threatening rather I'm only allowing them in right and you also look at the kitchen but here's the thing for like six months I used to try to take everything out of here because remember what the goal is the goal is I want to keep them back so in an effort to keep them back take balls out of the air that's what we say right well if you find yourself reaching and hitting up a lot of times what's gonna happen is you're going to fall into the kitchen you're going to concede the kitchen on a ball that you don't necessarily have to or and this might be the most common mistake that I see on Fourth shots You're Gonna Pop the ball up and they're gonna come smack it at you avoid that by judging the moment he makes contact with the ball what is the trajectory of the ball and if you find yourself leaning you have time even if you're leaning here you could step back and apply pressure at the very last second you don't just have to give up the kitchen or pop it up which is often the most common mistake but how about if they hit a more offensive drop it's either a lower trajectory coming in or they hit it with a lot of topspin or say you don't have time to back off the line and hit or it's just too low and you don't want to attack from that low or let's just say they hit it to your backhand and you don't actually feel confident on your backhand ever attacking that ball when you let it bounce then what do you do concede and this is one of the most I think mature decisions that you can make that is not made enough because we know our goal is to push them back keep them back make them earn it all the stuff I said earlier in the video but a mature player recognizes when do I push them back and when do I say actually you just hit a really good drop recognize that and just allow them to come in because if you attack something that's too low or you pop one out of the air they're just gonna crush it and what I like to do is take one step back and hit my Cross Court dink one step back and I'm gonna hit that ball cross if I hit that ball middle again I've less margin for error that's Jack's forehand it's also a shorter distance if I hit that ball wide more distance less offense boom right and I put my partner in a tough position it's funny how pickleball Works typically you make the mistake your partner pays your partner gets pissed and you're never friends again are we still friends no no no no five bucks if you get to the kitchen here we go go foreign hard to get to the kitchen four shot pressure baby here we go ah not quite almost now hey you gotta you gotta get to neutral go hey no no on that card I deserve that based on my love of net chords I just earned five bucks so I'm gonna recap when it's in this area you just notice right I'm trying to roll the ball and apply pressure pressure their goals to get here my goal is to keep them back don't just let them get here of course I read under talked about extremely important if you want to get better at hitting a third shot drop one of the hardest shots to pick a ball to get better at I have a video that you can watch right here start now be a beast body bag