Pop Up Dink: Why Your Dinks Keep Floating (and 2 Fixes That Work)

If there’s one thing I see on every open-play court from Leominster to the Cape, it’s a patient, well-intentioned rally that ends the same way every time: someone’s dink floats a few inches too high and gets crushed. The frustrating part is that the player who popped it up was doing everything they thought they were supposed to. They were low, they were soft, they were patient. The pop up dink is the most misdiagnosed error in the sport, and once you understand what’s actually causing it, it’s also one of the fastest to fix.

What is a pop up dink actually costing you?

More than you think. At the 3.0–3.5 level, points are lost, not won — and the pop-up is the single most common way they get lost. Consider what happens in the two seconds after your dink floats:

• You hand over the initiative. A dink that stays below net height forces your opponent to hit up. One that rises above the net lets them hit down. That’s the entire game, decided by about four inches.
• You lose the point roughly 70% of the time. Not a measured statistic, just what I count in my own clinics — but watch any rec session and tally it yourself. The number is brutal.
• It compounds. Once you’ve been punished twice, you start steering the ball, which tightens your grip, which produces more pop-ups. The error feeds itself.

So it’s worth spending real practice time on. And the good news is that the cause is mechanical and specific.

The real cause: you’re adding energy the ball didn’t need

Here’s the mental model that changes everything, and it comes from coach CJ Johnson of Better Pickleball, whose breakdown of this error is the clearest I’ve heard.

When the ball bounces off the court, it leaves the surface carrying energy. That energy doesn’t vanish instantly — it decreases as the ball rises, and it’s essentially gone at the very top of the bounce. Think of it as a battery draining on the way up, empty at the peak.

Now think about what your dink stroke does. It adds its own small amount of energy to send the ball back over the net. That’s fine — if the ball has nothing left in the tank.

But if you make contact while the ball is still rising, you’re catching a ball that still has upward energy in it, and then you’re adding yours on top. Two energies, one shot. The ball sails longer and higher than you planned, and it lands at the perfect height for the guy across the net.

That’s it. That’s the whole problem. You aren’t swinging too hard — you’re swinging at the wrong moment.

Fix #1: Where should you contact the ball?

Let the ball reach the top of its bounce. Contact at the peak, or a hair after it, when the ball’s own energy has drained to nothing and the only energy in the shot is the energy you choose to add.

In practice, that means doing something that feels deeply wrong at first: waiting. Most players who pop up dinks are reaching forward and taking the ball early, usually because they’re anxious about being late. Some specific cues that work:

• Let it come to you. Set your paddle, hold your position, and let the ball travel into your contact zone rather than going out to fetch it.
• Watch the apex, not the net. If your eyes are already tracking where you want the ball to go, you’ll rush contact. Watch the ball peak.
• Stay out of no-man’s-land on timing. Taking the ball on the way down is also fine — often better for a defensive reset. The one window to avoid is the rising ball.
• If you’re constantly early, you’re probably too close. Back your feet off half a step so the ball has room to complete its bounce in front of you.

This one change fixes the majority of pop-ups on its own. But there’s a second offender.

Fix #2: What should your paddle do after contact?

The second way players add energy is with the follow-through — a small upward popping motion at and just after contact. It’s usually unconscious: a flick of the wrist, a lifting of the paddle face, a scooping finish that tries to “help” the ball over the net.

The ball doesn’t need help. The dink only has to clear a 34-inch net from a few feet away.

What to do instead:

• Push forward, not up. Think of the motion as sliding the ball across a table toward your target, not lifting it over a wall.
• Finish low. Your paddle should end no higher than chest height. If your follow-through is finishing near your face, you’re lifting.
• Quiet the wrist. The wrist should be firm and stable through contact. Most pop-ups have a visible wrist flick a frame after the ball leaves the paddle.
• Let the shoulder do the work. A dink is a small push from the shoulder with a stable arm and wrist — not a wrist shot.

Combine the two fixes and you have the whole cure: take the ball when it has no energy left, and add only as much as it needs, forward.

Is grip pressure really the problem?

Partly. Grip pressure is the most-repeated advice about the pop up dink, and it’s not wrong — it’s just downstream of the real cause.

A tight grip does two things. It makes the paddle face rigid so the ball springs off it, and it recruits your wrist and forearm into a shot that should be a shoulder push. So yes: keep your grip around a 3 out of 10, loose enough that someone could twist the paddle in your hand.

But if you loosen your grip and still contact the ball on the rise, you’ll still pop it up — just a little softer. Fix the timing first, then the grip refines it. Players who go straight to grip pressure often plateau at “my dinks are slightly less terrible,” which is exactly where I was for a full season before someone explained the energy piece to me.

What about your legs and paddle position?

Two setup faults quietly cause pop-ups before the swing even starts:

• Standing tall. If your paddle is below your hands and your body is upright, the only way to get under the ball is to scoop. Sit into your hips, get your chest over your toes, and bring your eyes closer to ball height. Height comes from the knees, not the paddle.
• Paddle tip pointing at the ground. When the tip drops straight down, you have to lift and roll simultaneously to get the ball over, and that combined motion is very hard to control. Keep the tip up and the face slightly open, so a simple forward push does the job.

The second one is worth checking on video — almost nobody knows they’re doing it. It’s the same setup fault that shows up in the half-volley, where a dropped tip turns a routine ball at your feet into a pop-up.

How do you drill the pop up dink out of your game?

Three drills, in the order I’d run them. All of them work with one partner and ten minutes.

Run these as a warm-up before games rather than a separate session and you’ll get far more reps in. For a wider set, see our full library of pickleball drills.

How long does it take to fix?

Faster than most technique changes, because you’re changing when you swing rather than how. Realistic expectations:

• One session: you’ll feel the difference in a controlled drill, and it will feel uncomfortably slow.
• Two to three weeks of games: it starts holding up under mild pressure, in rallies where nobody is attacking you.
• A full season: it survives a fast hands battle and a windy outdoor court, which is the real test.

That middle stage is where people quit, because waiting for the top of the bounce feels late and passive in a live game. It isn’t. Give it three weeks.

Does any of this change outdoors in New England?

Yes, and it’s worth a paragraph because most of us play outside from May to October.

Outdoor balls are harder and lighter, and they come off the court with a lower, faster bounce than an indoor ball. That shortens the window between “rising” and “peak” considerably, which is why players who dink beautifully in a winter gym suddenly pop up everything at an outdoor session in June. The fix isn’t different — it’s just tighter. Get lower, get set earlier, and accept a slightly lower contact point.

Wind makes it harder again. A headwind holds your dink up and turns a good one into a floater; a tailwind pushes a perfect dink long. On a breezy court — and anything near the water in New England qualifies — aim lower over the net than feels safe and take pace off. Our guide to playing pickleball in the wind covers the rest.

Frequently asked questions

Why do my dinks keep popping up?
Because you’re adding energy the ball still had. Contacting the ball while it’s rising means you absorb its leftover upward energy and then add your own stroke on top, so the shot floats. Take the ball at the top of the bounce and finish forward rather than up.

Should you hit a dink on the rise or at the top of the bounce?
At the top of the bounce, or slightly after. That’s the moment the ball’s own energy has drained to nothing, so you control exactly how much energy goes into the shot. Contacting on the rise is the most common cause of a pop up dink.

Is a pop up dink caused by grip pressure?
Grip pressure contributes but isn’t the root cause. A tight grip makes the paddle face springy and pulls your wrist into the shot, so keep it around a 3 out of 10 — but if your contact point is still early, you’ll keep popping the ball up regardless.

How high should a dink go over the net?
As low as you can manage while still clearing it. The goal is for the ball to be below net height by the time it reaches your opponent, which forces them to hit up and takes the attack away from them.

How do I stop popping up dinks in a real game?
Warm up with the drills above before you play, and give yourself one simple in-game cue — usually “wait” or “top.” Trying to think about grip, knees, wrist and contact point all at once mid-rally guarantees you do none of them.

Go fix it this week

The pop up dink is a timing habit, and habits change with reps, not with reading. Take the “top” call drill to your next session — find a court in our New England directory — and give it five minutes before you start playing games.

If your dink fundamentals need a full rebuild rather than a patch, start with our complete guide to how to dink in pickleball. And if you’d rather have someone watch your contact point in person, I run lessons and clinics here in Central Mass — the soft game is my favorite thing to teach.

The energy framework in this article is drawn from coaching by CJ Johnson of Better Pickleball, as reported by The Dink. Drills and New England notes are my own.