The third shot drop, and when to drive instead

A third shot drop is the soft shot the serving team hits after the return, arcing over the net into the other team’s kitchen so they can’t attack it while you move up. Drop when the return is low or deep, drive when it sits up, and if you drive, drop the fifth shot.

About 1 in 5

third shots went wrong at every level of charted amateur play: roughly equal to or greater than 20%, in the author’s words. For drops, that includes an estimate of drops that sat up.The Dink, 2024

66%

of fifth shots were drops after a pro’s third shot drive: 203 of 309, at the PPA Tour’s 2024 Orange County Cup.Jim Ramsey, PPA Tour, 2024

What is the third shot in pickleball?

It’s the serving team’s first shot after the return: the serve is the first shot of a rally and the return the second.

The two-bounce rule is what makes it hard. The serve and the return of serve must each bounce before being returned (rule 10.A in the 2026 rulebook), so the serving team has to wait near the baseline for the return to bounce, while the returner can hit the return and walk in behind it. By the third shot, the team that served is usually deep and the team that returned is usually at the kitchen line, and the net, in USA Pickleball’s words, is where most points are won.

That costs the serving team. In a 2025 study of 17 amateur doubles matches at about DUPR 3.0 to 4.0, it won 42% of 510 rallies, and the pros show the same pattern: in Prieto-Lage and colleagues’ 2026 study of 15 PPA Tour men’s doubles semifinals and finals, the serving pair won 44.5% of rallies. The Dink’s chart of almost 2,000 rallies at two amateur tournaments in 2024 found the returning team winning most rallies that reached a third shot at every level from DUPR 3.0 up, whichever shot the serving team chose.

The third shot is how the serving team gets that back, by getting both of you to the kitchen line without handing the other team a ball it can attack. Once a rally gets going, the edge moves: in the pro study, short and medium rallies favoured receivers, whereas long and very long rallies favoured servers.

Third shot drop vs drive

Neither has been shown to win more rallies, so choose by the ball. A drop goes soft into the kitchen so you can follow it in. A drive goes hard and low at the returning team, for an error or a weak reply. Or you can drive the third and drop the fifth, using the drive to draw a shorter ball that’s easier to drop from closer in.

The Dink’s chart was made by Jayan Gandhi, a high school student working with Scott Powers of Rice University. Of the 1,618 third shots he could classify, about 45% were drives and 55% drops, with 5.0+ teams dropping more often than the rest. He found no difference or even noticeable trend in win percentage between the two, at any level, and the depth of the return didn’t change that. With a few hundred shots per level at most, a modest edge either way could still hide in those numbers.

What did stand out was how often both went wrong: drives into the net or out ran from 18% to 33% depending on level, and drops from 22% to 33% once an estimate of drops that sat up is added to the ones into the net. Gandhi aimed his advice at the drive, since drives are thought to be easier to master than drops: Don’t Drive Erratically!

How to hit a third shot drop

Most of a good drop is taking pace off the ball, and that starts with a loose hand. USA Pickleball’s Andrea Fogarty suggests grip pressure of around a three on a scale of one to ten, because The tighter you squeeze, the farther the ball will fly. She keeps the backswing small too, and her picture for it is Imagine a brick wall right behind your legs, your paddle should never swing past that point. A pickleball.com lesson with pro Catherine Parenteau goes further, starting the paddle beside the back leg with no backswing at all, and names the usual miss as a short finish, where players don’t follow through with their swing, so the ball doesn’t get over the net.

Parenteau lets the ball fall past the top of its bounce before she hits it (My contact point is pretty low because I don’t want to hit it really high), and she usually goes crosscourt, because it gives you more time to get up to the kitchen line. The window for a drop that lands deep in the kitchen is narrow. In a 2024 physics preprint, Steyn and colleagues worked out that a down-the-line drop from the baseline has to leave the paddle at about 24 to 29 mph, and that spin matters far less to where it lands than its speed and angle do.

Then decide whether to follow it in. USA Pickleball’s advice is After a quality third shot, move forward to the line. If it sits up, hold back, play defense, and use your next opportunity (often the fifth shot) to get in.

When to drive the third shot instead

When the return gives you a ball to drive, or the other team isn’t at the net yet. Coach Austin Hardy’s rule, as The Dink puts it: if they’re deep and not established at the kitchen line, you drive, and if they’re already up and established, you drop.

USA Pickleball adds the bounce, saying to drive when Your opponents hit a short return with a high bounce and drop when You’re pushed deeper in the court and need time to move up. For most players, The Dink says, if the ball is high in the transition zone, drive it. If it’s low, drop it, because a high ball lets you hit down and a low one makes you hit up. Slice pushes some players toward the drive too. Liam Duffin, a three-time national champion, says When I see that slice, I’m more prone to drive that ball.

Coaches split on the hard, deep return that has you on your back foot. USA Pickleball’s advice for being pushed deep points to a drop, to buy time, while coach Tanner Tomassi drives that ball to get an easier one to drop next, as our strategy guide describes. Neither has data behind it, so it’s worth finding out which you make more often.

In singles the drop is rarely right while your opponent is still back; our singles guide covers what to hit instead.

The fifth shot drop and the reset

After a drive, the fifth shot is usually a drop. In Fogarty’s words, If your opponents return your third shot drive, the best shot to follow it up with is usually going to be a fifth shot drop, since a drive often forces a shorter return and Typically it is easier to hit a drop the closer you are to the kitchen.

The pros play it that way. Jim Ramsey charted the semifinals and finals of all three doubles events at the PPA Tour’s 2024 Orange County Cup and found the serving team dropped 66% of the fifth shots that followed a third shot drive, with most of the rest firm volleys. In his words, A third shot drive sets off a chain reaction that more often than not leads to a fifth shot drop.

The fifth shot is also a second chance for a drop that sat up. If you’re caught between the baseline and the kitchen with a hard ball coming down at you, reset it softly into their kitchen with a loose grip, no backswing and your feet still, as our strategy guide’s section on the reset explains, and move up a step each time one lands soft.

How to practice the third shot drop

Start without a paddle. The pickleball.com lesson with Parenteau builds up in steps: toss a ball underhand from the baseline into the kitchen, straight ahead and crosscourt, following through with the toss; then drop a ball in front of you and hit it with no backswing; then take returns fed by a partner at the kitchen line; then do it all again on your backhand.

For practice with a score, our drills guide has Tug of War, which costs you more for a drop into the net than for one too deep, and the Slinky, which works you from the baseline to the kitchen with drops and resets.

Then check it in games, since a drill only tells you so much. For a session or two, have a partner or a friend on the bench mark each of your team’s third shots as a drop or a drive, and whether your team won the rally. It’s The Dink’s chart for your own games, and it answers the question their data can’t: which one works for you. A few dozen rallies are a hint; it takes many more to separate two choices this close.

How do you know if your third shot is getting better?

Watch the share of rallies your team wins on its own serve. The third shot is the serving team’s shot, so that’s the number it moves, and small changes there add up: in our model of side-out doubles, a team that wins 47% of its serve rallies against a team at 45% wins 55.5% of games, as our guide to the stats worth tracking shows. Your win-loss record catches up too, but far more slowly.

Rally Trace Pro keeps that number for every game you score: the rallies you won on your serve and on theirs, with points per service turn and your win rate month by month, so a month of work on your third shot has something to move. The scoring underneath is free. Tap the side that won each rally on your Apple Watch, or keep score on your iPhone, and every game is saved with its score and momentum, plus heart rate and effort when you wear the watch, and your record builds with every partner and against every opponent. Rally Trace records who won each rally, not how it ended, so it can’t tell a drop from a drive; your tally does that part. Download Rally Trace and score your next session.