The mental game

The Mental Game of Pickleball

Why the person who wins is usually not the person hitting it hardest.

9 min read · Updated 2026-08-11

You have watched it happen. Two teams warm up, one clearly hits the ball better, and the other one wins 11-6. Nobody is surprised, everybody says something about the soft game, and then everyone goes back to practising their drives.

The mental game is the least trained and most decisive part of pickleball at recreational level. It is also not one thing, which is why "be more mentally tough" has never helped anybody.

Most points are lost, not won

Count them for one game. Note whether each point ended with a winner or with an error. At most recreational levels the errors outnumber the winners comfortably, and it is not close.

That single fact should reorganise how you play. If most points end in a mistake, then the player who makes fewer mistakes wins, and hitting a spectacular shot is worth exactly the same as your opponent netting a routine dink.

The mental game is largely the discipline of accepting that. It is not exciting. It is why the annoying player at your club who never misses keeps beating people with better hands.

Part one: shot selection under pressure

The most common mental error in pickleball is not choking, it is choosing the wrong shot at the wrong moment.

Specifically: going for more when the score gets tight. At 9-9 people suddenly try the shot they have made twice all month. It feels like courage. It is closer to impatience.

Under pressure, default to your highest-percentage shot rather than your best one. Those are different things. Your best shot is the one that wins a highlight. Your highest-percentage shot is the one you can hit nine times out of ten with your heart rate up, and at 9-9 that is the only relevant question.

Part two: attention

Where your attention goes between points decides more than what you do during them.

The three places it commonly goes and should not: the last point, the score, and your partner. All three are outside the only thing you can influence, which is the next serve.

A simple discipline: between points, look at the ball in your hand or the strings of your paddle for two seconds. It sounds like nothing. It gives your attention a place to be that is not the argument you are having with yourself.

Part three: recovery

You will pop one up into the net from two feet away and it will be embarrassing. The question is what the next point looks like.

The reliable pattern after a bad error is that people either get tentative, dinking safely and losing the point slowly, or they overcorrect and hit the next ball much too hard.

Both come from the error still being live in your head. Have a fixed physical reset: tap the paddle on your shoe, adjust your grip, say one word. Same one every time. It closes the point.

Part four: patience

Pickleball rewards the player willing to hit one more ball than the other person wants to.

That is genuinely a mental skill rather than a physical one. Dinking is not hard to execute. Dinking for eleven consecutive shots while someone is trying to make you impatient is hard, and it is where most recreational points are decided.

The way to build it is to make it a target rather than a virtue. Count your rally length. Try to add two shots to your average. That is measurable and it improves faster than a general intention to be more patient.

How to actually practise this

You cannot drill the mental game by thinking about it. You need situations that create the pressure and then require a decision.

On court, play games from 8-8. Play games where an unforced error costs two points. Play a game where you are only allowed to hit soft until you get a genuine attackable ball. All three create the conditions where the skill matters.

Off court, work the decision itself: given this ball, this position and this score, what is the shot? Making that decision repeatedly, away from the physical pressure, is what makes it available when the pressure arrives.

Takeaways

At recreational level most points are lost rather than won. The player who errs less wins.
Under pressure, play your highest-percentage shot, not your best one. They are different.
Between points, attention goes to the ball or your strings. Not the score, the last point, or your partner.
Have one fixed physical reset after an error, the same one every time.
Patience is trainable if you make it measurable. Count rally length and try to add two shots.

Common questions

What is the mental game in pickleball?

It is four separate skills rather than one trait: shot selection under pressure, where your attention goes between points, recovery after an error, and patience in long soft exchanges. At recreational level these decide more matches than technique does, because most points end in an unforced error rather than a winner.

Why do I lose to players who hit worse than me?

Usually because they make fewer unforced errors and are more patient in the soft game. If most points end in a mistake, then consistency is worth more than shot quality, and a player who will hit one more dink than you want to hit will beat better hands regularly.

How do you practise the mental side of pickleball?

Create the pressure on court: play games starting at 8-8, play games where an unforced error costs two points, or play a game where you cannot attack until you get a genuinely attackable ball. Then work the decision itself away from the court, so the choice is available when your heart rate is up.

Should I go for more when the score is tight?

Generally no. Tight scores are exactly when people reach for shots they have made twice all month. High-pressure moments reward simplicity: the shot you can hit nine times out of ten with your heart rate up.

Train the decision, not just the read

Pickleballer gives you one point a day: read the situation, pick the shot, find out what the point was really asking. Free on the App Store.

Get the app on the App Store