After playing Pickleball for a year and a few months, I have learned a few things that have helped me (and whoever my partner may be) quite a bit and one of them is to have someone on the team call every shot.

We have all seen a team watch the ball go flying by because each person thought the other was going to go for it; especially down the middle. This can be avoided most of the time.

When I watched the women’s doubles championship last year in Surprise, AZ, I noted that many of the winning teams called every shot or nearly every shot. When a player wanted to signal their partner to take the ball, they called “you.” When one of the players wanted the shot, they then called “me.”

Calling the shot is fine, but there is one caveat that goes with it. Whether or not it is a good call, if someone calls the shot for themselves, let them take it otherwise chaos will reign.

I like the use of the word “no” when a player wants to signal to their partner that they think a ball will be out. Some players shout “out,” but I am not sure how well using the word “out” for partner communication works in an official tournament.

One other call that is sometimes used is “bounce it.” If you think a ball may be close to landing out of bounds, this will announce to the person going after the ball to let it bounce first to see if it is out of bounds, i.e. a fault.

Partner communication can make the difference in close games!

What do you think? Are there any other ways you communicate with your partner?