How to Hit a Putaway in Pickleball: The Complete Guide to Finishing Points

Every rec session in New England has the same moment. A dink rally at the kitchen goes six or seven balls, and then somebody pops one up around belly-button height. The whole court knows it. That is your ball — and if you have played a Tuesday-night drop-in anywhere from Leominster to Portsmouth, you have watched plenty of players wind up on that ball and hit it into the net, into the fence, or straight back at their own feet. The frustrating part is that they usually blame their strength. It is almost never strength. This is the complete guide to how to hit a putaway in pickleball: what actually generates the pace, where to aim it, why yours keeps missing, and the drills that turn it into a shot you trust.

What counts as a putaway, and what does not?

A putaway is an attackable ball at the net. Three things have to be true at once:

• You are at or near the kitchen line. If you are still in the transition zone, that same floating ball is usually a reset, not an attack. If you are not sure where you should be standing, start with court positioning.
• The ball is above the height of the net when you can reach it comfortably out in front. This is the single threshold that decides whether you attack or keep dinking.
• You can get to it without lunging. A ball you have to stretch and reach for is not a putaway, no matter how high it is.

It helps to separate the putaway from three shots people confuse it with:

• The overhead smash is for a ball above your head, usually off a lob. Different swing, different footwork — that one is covered in how to hit an overhead smash.
• The speed-up is when you take a ball that was not obviously attackable and change the pace anyway to start a firefight. That is a calculated risk, and the follow-up matters more than the first ball — see hands battles and speed-ups.
• The drive is hit from deeper in the court off a bounce. Different geometry entirely.

The putaway sits in the middle: a gift ball, at the net, that you did nothing risky to earn. Your opponent made the mistake. Your only job is not to give it back.

Why does your putaway have no power?

Because you are swinging with your arm. That is the honest answer for most recreational players, and it is worth sitting with for a second, because the instinct is so strong. The ball is sitting up, you want to end the point, so you tighten your grip and throw your forearm at it as hard as you can.

That does three bad things at once:

• A tight grip slows the paddle head down. Squeezing the handle locks your wrist and forearm, and a locked joint cannot accelerate. You feel like you are working harder and the ball comes off slower.
• An arm swing has a tiny margin. Your arm is a short lever moving fast, so a few degrees of face error becomes a shot that drifts wide or clips the tape.
• It pulls your contact point backwards. When the arm leads, you tend to hit the ball beside your hip instead of out in front, which sends it up and long.

The pace you are looking for comes from somewhere else entirely:

• Shoulder and torso rotation. Turn your chest away from the target, then rotate through it. This is a bigger, slower lever than your arm, and it is far more repeatable.
• Contact out in front. A ball struck in front of your lead foot can be hit down. The same ball struck beside you can only be hit up.
• A relaxed grip. Somewhere around five or six out of ten — firm enough to hold the face stable through contact, loose enough to let the paddle head move.
• A short backswing. At the kitchen line you have maybe half a second. A long takeback is how you arrive late.

This lines up with a coaching breakdown published by The Dink, drawn from a session coach Mari Humberg ran on YouTube: their read was the same, that players assume the fix is a harder arm swing when it is actually the opposite. Worth watching if you want to see it demonstrated rather than described.

Here is the part that changes how you play: on a chest-high ball seven feet from the net, you already have more than enough power. The net is 34 inches in the middle. You are hitting down into a court that is 20 feet wide. You do not need 100 percent. You need the ball to go down, and to go somewhere your opponent is not.

How to hit a putaway in pickleball, step by step

Six steps, and the first one is the one people skip.

• 1. Recognise it early. Read the pop-up as it leaves your opponent’s paddle, not when it is halfway to you. The tell is the paddle face opening up underneath the ball. Half of a good putaway is simply being ready a beat sooner than you are now.
• 2. Turn before you step. Rotate your shoulders so your chest points slightly toward the sideline. Your paddle comes up with the turn — it should not travel back independently.
• 3. Move so the ball is in front of you. One shuffle or a small step across is usually all it takes. The goal is to arrive early enough that you are hitting the ball at its peak, out in front of your lead foot, rather than catching it on the way down beside your body.
• 4. Set your grip pressure and leave it. Five or six out of ten. Do not squeeze on the way to the ball.
• 5. Rotate through contact. Drive with your torso, keep the swing compact, and let the paddle finish across your body. The feeling you want is through the ball rather than at it. Keep the paddle face slightly closed so the ball travels down.
• 6. Recover immediately. Paddle back to the middle, in front of your chest, before you find out what happened. Good opponents block putaways back, and the ball that comes back is fast.

That last step is the one that separates a 3.5 from a 4.0. A 3.5 hits the putaway and admires it. A 4.0 hits the putaway and is already set for the counter.

Where should you aim your putaway?

At people. Not at lines.

This is the highest-value change most players can make today, because the sideline offers you almost nothing. Hitting a putaway two feet inside the sideline instead of two feet outside it is worth one point. Hitting it at somebody’s hip is worth the same point with a fraction of the risk.

• The dominant-side hip of the closest opponent. For a right-handed opponent that is their right hip. It is the hardest place on a human body to defend from — they have to decide between a forehand and a backhand while getting out of the way, and there is no time to do either well.
• The middle seam. In doubles, the gap between two opponents creates a moment of hesitation. Middle balls also give you the lowest part of the net and the most court to work with. If your partner communication is shaky, that same seam is where your team leaks points too — worth reading up on calling the middle.
• At their feet, if either opponent is back. A ball at the shoelaces of someone in the transition zone is nearly unplayable.
• Sharp angle only when the ball is genuinely high. If you have a ball at shoulder height and you are close to the net, the angled putaway into the kitchen is there. If the ball is at belly-button height, the angle is a trap — the net is higher at the sidelines and you have less court.

And a number worth remembering: somewhere around 70 to 80 percent pace wins more points than 100 percent. The extra 20 percent buys you very little on a ball that is already a winner, and it costs you a lot of control.

What are the most common putaway mistakes?

• Attacking a ball that was never attackable. This is the biggest one by a wide margin. If the ball is below the net when you reach it, there is no putaway available — you have to hit up, and hitting up hard is how the ball ends up in the fence. Keep dinking and wait for a real one. Learning what a genuinely attackable ball looks like is most of reading pop-ups.
• Letting it drop. Players watch the ball float, wait for it to come to a comfortable height, and by then it has fallen below the net. Take it at the top of its bounce or out of the air.
• All arm, no rotation. Covered above, but it is worth naming again because it is the default failure.
• Aiming at the line. Low reward, high risk.
• Standing up out of your ready position to hit it. Rising through contact opens the paddle face and sends the ball long. Stay in your legs.
• Assuming the point is over. Balls come back. Reset your paddle.

Which drills build a putaway you can trust?

Four drills, in the order I would teach them. None need more than a partner and a bucket.

• The hand-feed ten. Stand at the kitchen line. A partner stands across the net and tosses ten balls to your chest, one at a time, no rally. Your only target is deep middle. Keep 8 of 10 in before you add anything. This is where you build the rotation without any time pressure.
• Dink-to-attack. Cross-court dink rally, and your partner deliberately pops one up somewhere in the first ten balls without telling you when. You dink until it comes, then attack it. This trains recognition, which is the actual bottleneck — if your dinking is not steady enough to get to ball ten, start there first.
• The counter drill. Same as above, but your partner blocks your putaway back at you and you have to handle the next ball. Play it out. This is the one that fixes the admiring habit.
• Target cones. Put a cone at each opponent’s likely hip position and one in the middle seam. Score yourself out of ten. It reframes aiming as hitting at something rather than away from the lines.

Ten focused minutes of the hand-feed drill twice a week will do more for your putaway than a month of open play, because open play gives you maybe four of these balls a night. If you want more structure, there is a fuller set in our pickleball drills guide, and New England being what it is from November onward, our indoor courts guide is how you keep drilling through the winter.

Which levels does this skill help?

• 3.0: The win here is restraint plus recognition. Learn the above-the-net threshold and stop attacking balls that are not attackable. That change alone cuts unforced errors noticeably.
• 3.5: Build the rotation and the out-front contact point. This is the level where players have the pace but spray it, and where aiming at bodies instead of lines pays off immediately.
• 4.0 and up: Everything is about the ball after the putaway. Your opponents will block and counter, so the standard becomes hitting a putaway that is heavy enough to finish while staying balanced enough to handle what comes back.

Not sure which of those is you? Our pickleball ratings guide breaks the levels down honestly.

Frequently asked questions

How high does a ball need to be before I attack it?
Above the height of the net at the point where you can comfortably reach it out in front of your body. The net is 34 inches in the centre and 36 at the posts, so roughly waist height for most adults. If it is below that, keep dinking — there is no putaway to hit.

Should I hit a putaway flat or with topspin?
A little topspin is better, because it pulls the ball down into the court and gives you a bigger margin over the net. Get it by brushing slightly up the back of the ball as you rotate through, while keeping the face closed. Do not chase heavy spin on a putaway — on a ball this close to the net, a compact swing with a stable face wins more points.

Where should I aim my putaway in doubles?
At the dominant-side hip of the closest opponent, or into the middle seam between the two of them. Both are far higher-percentage than a sideline, and both create a hesitation you can win the next ball off.

Why does my putaway keep going into the net?
Usually one of two things: you let the ball drop below net height before hitting it, or you closed the paddle face too much while swinging down at the ball instead of through it. Take the ball earlier and drive forward with your rotation rather than chopping downward.

Is a putaway the same as an overhead smash?
No. An overhead is for a ball above your head, typically off a lob, and it uses a throwing motion with different footwork. A putaway is for an attackable ball roughly between your waist and shoulders at the kitchen line, and it is driven with shoulder rotation and a compact swing.

The putaway is the most winnable shot in pickleball, and it is the one most people practise least. It is not a strength problem. Take the ball earlier, turn your shoulders, aim at a hip instead of a line, and get your paddle back up. Do that and the easy balls stop being the ones that get away from you.

If you would rather work on it with someone watching, I run lessons and clinics around central Massachusetts, and our New England court directory will find you somewhere to drill this week.

Reporting note: the coaching points behind this piece were prompted by a putaway breakdown published by The Dink on 19 August 2026, based on a session by coach Mari Humberg. The instruction, drills and targets above are our own.