Specialist vs. Generalist: Which Wins in Pickleball?

In my opinion, there are two main ways to become a great player:

  1. Be the best at one thing.

  2. Be really good at everything.

At first glance, both seem like solid goals. But if you ask me, option two is the more reliable and sustainable path—being well-rounded.

Let’s talk about option one first: being the best at one thing.

This can absolutely work—if you can consistently dominate a specific skill, like having elite hand speed at the net, then that one skill can carry you far. For example, if you win 90% of your firefights, you should try to turn every point into a firefight. Why wouldn’t you? You’re playing to your strength and forcing others to play your game.

However, unless your name is Ben Johns, you're eventually going to run into someone with equal—or even superior—skills. That’s why it’s in your best interest to have a wide variety of shots and strategies at your disposal. The more tools you have, the more likely you are to find the clearest path to victory.

This brings me to my next point: there isn’t just one way to win in pickleball. Success requires a deep understanding of four key elements:

  1. What you do well

  2. What your opponent does well

  3. What you struggle with

  4. What your opponent struggles with

The real key? Learning how to exploit that fourth one.

Don’t get me wrong—if there’s a part of your game that needs work, you absolutely should address it in your drilling and practice. But when it’s time for a competitive match, it’s no longer just about you. It has to become more about the players standing on the other side of the net.

What do they like to do? Your job is to take that away—unless what they like to do happens to be something you’re better at. In that case, trust your skills and lean into the battle.

Let’s say you’re up against someone with superior dinking skills. They’re steady, consistent, and can create offense at the kitchen line with ease. That’s a tough opponent, right? So, how do you beat them?

You keep them away from the net. You apply pressure before they get comfortable in the dink game. That’s where tools like drives, counters, rolls, flicks, and speed-ups come into play. And that circles us back to option number two—the more reliable path to becoming a great player: be really good at a lot of things.

Now, let’s say I’m in that same scenario, and dinking is actually something I take pride in. I could try to go toe-to-toe in a dink war—but we’ve already established they’re better at it. So if I don’t have the other tools in my arsenal, I’m probably going to lose.

Like I said before, there’s no clear-cut path to victory. There isn’t a universal blueprint I can hand out that guarantees a point every single time. What works against one opponent might completely fail against another, and vice versa. That’s exactly why it’s so important to constantly work on refining a wide variety of shots. You never know which one you’ll need in a given moment. The more tools you have in your game, the more adaptable—and ultimately, the more successful—you’ll be.

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