🔥Stop Dinking So Much. You’re Playing Scared (Here’s What Winners Do)
- Tom Kiat
- Aug 9
- 2 min read
Let’s get one thing straight. Dinking is a tool, not a hiding place. But for too many rec players, it’s become exactly that, a safe little sandbox to camp in because they’re terrified of pulling the trigger.
You see it every day. Two players stand at the kitchen line patty-caking the ball back and forth like they’re afraid it might bite them. They dink when they should attack. They dink when they should lob. They dink when their opponent’s paddle is dangling at their knees begging to get speeded up on.
I love a good crosscourt dink as much as anyone. It keeps you in the point. It sets traps. It tests patience. But you’re not going to win championships by playing scared in the kitchen.
What winners do is different: they dink with purpose, to force a pop-up, to create chaos, to drag their opponent wide until the gap opens up and then bam, they strike.
They’re reading your feet. They’re reading your paddle angle. And when they see fear or laziness or a backhand floating mid-air, they take it.
If you’re dinking for ten, fifteen, twenty hits at a time (actually a lot less at the 4.0 level and below....... just saying) because you don’t trust your hands to speed up, you’ve already lost the point in your mind. And the guy across from you knows it.
So here’s what to do instead. Next time you’re in a dink rally, ask yourself: Why am I still dinking?
If the answer isn’t I’m setting a trap or I’m pulling them wide for a winner, then stop dinking and do something about it.
Lean in. Look for the shoulder or paddle hip. Pick your moment. Crack it with control. If they handle it, good, now you know what you need to drill. If they flinch, you own that line from now on.
Winners aren’t reckless. They’re calculated attackers who know when to turn a soft game into a knife fight. They trust their resets if it goes wrong. They trust their hands in the hands battle. They trust themselves.
Stop playing scared. Dink with intention or don’t dink at all. And when you attack, commit fully. If you’re going to miss, miss big, and learn. The next time, you won’t.
The day you stop dinking to survive and start dinking to kill is the day you stop being average.
See you at the line.
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