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Happy Halloween, pickleball nation. Before you start dishing out Skittles and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (the only candy that matters, if you ask us), maybe consider treating yourself, too.

How does an effortlessly powerful, more consistent serve sound? It’s simpler than you think. We walk you through it below.

In This Issue:
— The true cost of core crushing
— One tournament, 3,585 players
— What to know about the MLP Cup

You deserve it.

Zane Navratil hosted a Reddit AMA a few days ago and the people turned out to pepper the PPA pro with hundreds of brain-busters. From who he hates playing against most to how he’d make the sport more spectator-friendly, he covered it all.

The Pickleball World Championships get underway next week, a year-end celebration of all things pickleball featuring the best of the best across all levels. Imagine a sea of pickleball courts stretching across the horizon. Now, think even bigger: 3,585 registered players.

The Memes of Pickleball Instagram account has become an institution of the sport, gleefully mocking everyone and anyone bold enough to wield a paddle. After a couple of quiet weeks, we can all let out a collective sigh of relief. Memes is back. And roasting Christian Alshon.

Nobody is too old to dress up for Halloween. And something tells us you might be planning something pickleball-themed. If so, we want to know. Bonus points if you reply to this email with a photo.

The serve is supposed to be your most controllable shot. You're not reacting to anything. You're not scrambling. You've got all the time in the world to set up, breathe, and execute.

Yet somehow, it's the shot that we all seem to botch time and time again.

Why? It all comes down to three common mistakes. APP pro Kyle Koszuta is here to help.

✅ Your stance is too narrow. This hurts both your stability and power generation. Koszuta recommends setting up with your front foot (left foot if you're right-handed) at about a 45-degree angle toward the baseline, while your back foot stays roughly parallel to the baseline. Now you’re balanced and in great position to transfer power from back to front through your swing motion.

✅ You’ve got t-rex arms. Your elbow gets tucked too close to your body, and the ball ends up right on top of you on contact. You want the ball positioned far enough away that you have to reach a bit to get it. This promotes full acceleration and extension through impact.

✅ You’re forgetting your core. Instead of just keeping your body still and swinging harder with your arm to generate more power, you need to create a coil with your entire body. Remember: wide stance, full extension. Now follow through so your paddle-side leg lands on the court. Congrats: You’ve unlocked maximum power.

Notice that all three mistakes aren't isolated problems. They're interconnected. A narrow stance prevents rotation. A jammed release prevents extension. And without extension and rotation, you're stuck with only arm power.

Fix all three, and your serve transforms. You're not just hitting harder. You're hitting with more control, more consistency, and more topspin. You're generating power that feels effortless because it actually is.

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New this year and seemingly just for funsies, Major League Pickleball is squeezing one final event in before the World Championships.

The MLP Cup is underway at the Brookhaven Country Club outside of Dallas. Here’s what you need to know:

A few big stars are sitting this one out:

The tournament begins as pool play. Winners advance to single-elimination match play.

As for the prize for the winning teams? Nobody knows! Seriously, we’re told a bag of cash is up for grabs but nobody seems to know how much is in it.

All MLP Cup matches can be viewed on Pickleballtv.

One of the things we love about pickleball is that nearly anyone can pick up a paddle and play. And they do. All ages and skill levels. Serious athletes to serial couch potatoes. By the tens of millions every year.

It’s a wonderful motivator to be active. But it also allows for the possibility, however tiny, of on-court emergencies or sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).

At the Pickleball World Championships next week in Dallas, the UPA-A has partnered with AED.US to bring free hands-on CPR and AED training sessions to as many players and fans as possible.

“Pickleball brings people together and that means looking out for each other,” Jason Aspes, President of UPA-A, told The Dink. “If someone goes down on court, those first few seconds can mean the difference between life and death. We want every player and fan to be ready to act.”

AED devices like the one pictured above are becoming fixtures at more and more public pickleball courts. Since May, there’s been one at every pro tournament.

Aspes and the UPA-A are encouraging players everywhere to learn to use one. It might just save a fellow pickleball player’s life.

What’s the secret to staying ahead of the curve in the world of AI? Information. Luckily, you can join 1,000,000+ early adopters reading The Rundown AI — the free newsletter that makes you smarter on AI with just a 5-minute read per day.

Sign up to start learning.

The next time you’re getting unexpectedly lit up on the pickleball court, blame their paddle.

It’s been proven that paddles break down over time, mostly in two ways:

Both lead to what pickleball nerds call a “trampoline effect,” where the ball launches off the face hotter than it did fresh out of the wrapper. But just how much faster are we talking here?

Hardcore paddle testing site Technical Pickleball recently put some numbers to it, testing the same model (the Pickleball Apes Pulse V) in various states of use: new, slightly used, and heavily used.

✅ What he found is the heavily used (core crushed) paddle was able to produce 50% more power than the stock version when striking the sweet spot.

Fifty. Percent.

That is a massive, and dare we say fully unfair, advantage. Especially when it comes to counters and firefights in close quarters at the kitchen.

Knowledge is power, folks. If you see something, maybe say something?

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