I play padel tennis occasionally and a coach introduced us to a good drill and warm-up game called Dingle. There is a pickleball version called Dinkle which, in my opinion, is better. You start with 4 players on court dinking in pairs in their half of the court. As soon as one of the pairs makes and error (hits the net or plays a dink that doesn’t land in the kitchen) they shout “dinkle”. Immediately the pairs each side of the net play as a doubles pair with the ball still in play. The rally is played out until one pair has won the rally and a point. The process is repeated until one pair has won an agreed number of points, for instance 11 points. That’s it!

We introduced a couple of modification to the game to suit what we are trying to achieve with it and get longer rallies.

Change number 1 is no lobbing. More dinking is allowed along with speed-ups, passing shots, body shots etc.  After dinkle is called it’s a full on rally.

Change number 2 addresses a problem with the original game. When dinkle is called one or more players may be out of position. If dinkle is called when a player has been pulled wide then an immediate push through the gap will win the point. This can easily happen as up to then the players on each side of the net have not been playing as a doubles pair. However, if on the call of dinkle 2 more dinks have to be played with the remaining in-play ball, then both pairs have an opportunity to get into position to play out the rally, and battle can commence!