Embrace the Angle → Win the Point

There are few things in pickleball more satisfying than hitting a gorgeous angle.

You pull someone way off the court. The ball lands exactly where you wanted it. For half a second, you admire your handiwork.

And then they hit an even better angle back.

Greg Dedrick, manager at True Pickleball Club, reminded me of a phrase I wish somebody had drilled into my head sooner:

Angles beget angles.

That beautiful cross-court dink you’re so proud of? Against the right player, you may have just handed them an ATP. That wide return of serve? You might be opening up an angle that makes your partner’s life miserable. And if you keep feeding someone the shot they love simply because you like hitting it, eventually they’re going to make you pay for it.

None of this means we should stop using angles. Quite the opposite.

Greg’s point is that when you use them matters just as much as whether you can hit them.

Push your opponent around. Mix up your patterns. Hit the boring ball to their right foot. Give them something straight ahead. Then, when you’ve moved them or made them start anticipating something else, use the sharp angle.

And sometimes the angle isn’t supposed to win the point at all.

It’s there to create the next ball: the easier overhead, the open middle, the dink down the line, or the winner you can finally put away.

The goal isn’t to hit more spectacular angles.

It’s to hit smarter ones.

Angles are powerful, but they’re not automatically smart. The goal isn’t to hit the sharpest angle you can, it’s to use angles unpredictably to move your opponents, disrupt their patterns, and set up an easier next shot. Because as Greg puts it, “angles beget angles,” and the angle you create for them may be better than the one you created for yourself.

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