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Today in top pickleball news: PPA Finals has been full of upsets so far, and we expect today to be no different. A mega-thread on Reddit is bursting with your biggest pickleball pet peeves. And we further explore the gray area between making questionable line calls and just being a hook.

In This Issue:
— The best pickleball shoes for women
— The golden rule of patient dinking
— Why you’re stuck below 4.0

Weekend, here we come.

Hitting winners during warmups. Isolating players in rec play. Violent paddle taps. Not hitting the ball back to the server. These are just a few of your many, many pickleball pet peeves.

Teenager John Lucian Goins beat Hunter Johnson. Tina Pisnik/Lacy Schneemann defeated Jorja Johnson/Tyra Black. The Johnson siblings upset Hayden and Anna. And both Jack Sock and Christian Alshon withdrew from singles. Here’s how to watch day three of PPA Finals.

If your DUPR needs an update, you’ve got just over a week to get your games in for DUPR Reset. It costs $35, but there’s no risk in trying. Whichever rating ends up being higher is the one you’ll keep. Better get on it.

Ball-watching your third shot. Dinking without a strategy. Forgetting to split step. There are lots of reasons you could be stuck below a 4.0. Here are the most common.

There’s a common misconception around practicing patience at the kitchen line.

Most people think it means staying the course until your opponent makes a mistake.

It doesn’t. That philosophy is passive. True patience in the midst of a dink rally is anything but.

It looks a little something like this:

Think of it like this: You’re not biding your time, you’re meticulously building a point. You’re steering the action where you want it to go. That might take three shots. Or it might take 20.

The pressure zone concept in pickleball describes this perfectly: You want to be increasing pressure on each dink without escalating to an attack until the conditions are right.

Patience isn’t mindlessly sailing dead dinks back over the net — it’s goading your opponent into a mistake through consistency, angles, and depth, one intentionally placed shot at a time.

Learn this and dinking becomes the most exciting component of your game. And that’s when you start winning more, too.

➡️ Check out our full dinking guide, right here.

You’ve probably seen Chris Haworth ripping from the baseline.

What stands out isn’t just the power — it’s the control.

He can swing big without balls sailing long. Reset without losing feel. Stay aggressive without giving up consistency.

That’s the balance most players are chasing.

It’s also why he’s been using Luzz paddles like the Pro Blade 2—built to give you control at full speed, not just add power.

Because at a certain level, it’s not about hitting harder. It’s about hitting cleaner.

Shop Luzz and get 15% off with code THEDINK!

Pickleball shoes are having a moment, and we’re not mad about it. But with so many options, there's a lot you need to know before choosing your perfect pair.

We tested nine of the industry’s top options, looking at the following:

From the most talked-about new drop (the JOOLA R4LLY) to the best for all-out speed (the Mizuno Wave) to our top pick for comfort and stability (the Selkirk Courtstrike 2.0), here’s what our expert Emily Visnic is recommending right now.

➡️ Find your perfect pair.

Fake pickleball paddles, as you well know by now, are flooding the market from every direction. The appeal is obvious: they look and perform close enough to the real thing to justify the fraction of the retail price tag.

But do they, really?

The team at Enhance Pickleball is no stranger to knock-offs. Their popular Duo model is a prime target.

They recently hit the court to compare how counterfeits really stack up against the real thing. And not just for their own models — they tested the Selkirk Boomstik, Honolulu J6, and JOOLA Pro V.

Their findings shouldn’t surprise you — but they might: in the end, you get what you pay for.

➡️ Buyer beware.

We know we hype up Zane Navratil a lot in this newsletter. He is the host of our podcast, after all.

He’s also been playing pro pickleball for a long time. A highly respected OG. So much so, he was voted the president of the PPA Tour’s Pro Player Committee.

In sum, his opinion has sway. And he’s got a hot one right now on the state of questionable line calling in pro pickleball.

Consider this uncomfortable truth: When a player makes bad calls repeatedly, only in their own favor, across multiple tournaments and match situations, they're not making mistakes anymore. They're cheating.

If you're really making errors, you make them both ways. You call balls out that are in. You also call balls in that are out. That’s what separates an honest mistake from an intentional hook.

And that goes for amateurs just as much as it does for pros.

Yes, the PPA Tour is enforcing a stricter cheating policy, including $250 fines for violations. It’s also rolling out better video replay technology. That’s great.

But it might not be enough on its own, says Zane. Largely because the fines are happening behind closed doors, when they happen at all.

"We need to publish the fines," he contends. "Because to me, I think that the shame is more valuable than the $250."

➡️ Hear him out.

A review from the Dink Fam...

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