Firstly, what IS “Shadowing”? Shadowing is defined as “lateral movement with your doubles partner so that you always stay around 10 feet (or 6-7 feet depending on your strategy) apart to maintain maximum court coverage.” That’s fairly clear, but let’s explain it better and detail why it’s so important.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably had your fair share of pickle balls get past you. I’m not talking about the ones that fly over your head, or way out-of-bounds. I’m talking about the ones that shoot between you and your partner, or down the line. If you’re a lot like me, then you’ve had a LOT of them get past you! Lucky for us there’s good news. And that is “shadowing”.
The average pickleball player can cover around 7 ft (2.1 meters) of horizontal space without needing to move. Standing still, if you reach as far as you can toward your forehand direction (right for most of us), and as far as you can toward your backhand direction, your paddle will cover 7 ft. If you have longer arms, that could be up to ~8 ft, but for most of us, 7 ft is a good average.
That seems pretty impressive. Covering 7 feet without even moving your feet! So with you and your partner, you can cover around 14 feet of the court. Again, that seem pretty good! But a pickleball court is 20 feet across!
So what do we do about the extra 6 feet we’re NOT covering? What if I told you to just ignore it? “What, that’s crazy-talk!”, you say. Well I’m here to tell you it’s not (completely).
Between yourself and your partner, you can cover 14 feet without moving. That’s roughly two-thirds of the court width. Nice! But that leaves 6 feet of space for your opponents to hit through. Let’s take a look at one example of the space left by teammates standing in the center of their side, and the vulnerabilities it leaves.
While that’s not a LOT of space, it’s certainly enough for many players. So what can we do about it? Well first of all, the top partner can move up to cover his/her line. But if they do, and the bottom partner doesn’t move, it just leaves more room in the middle, and just as much space to hit through.
That’s not much better. But if the bottom partner moves up far enough to cover the area next to their partner, it reduces the amount of space available to hit through AND makes it a tougher angle for the shot.
Now we’re getting somewhere! You’ve created a solid wall of paddle in front of your opponent and forced them to either hit directly to you, or attempt a sharp-angled, lower percentage shot.
As the ball moves to the center, your wall-o-paddles moves with it. Both you and your partner shift with the ball and more importantly, shift together!
As it moves to the right, you continue moving and shift together, keeping your wall intact and forcing your opponent to make a more difficult shot.
This is called “shadowing”. You move left and right with the ball, and you move with your partner. Constantly shifting left and right to create your wall in front of your opponent and the ball. You are their shadow, and they are yours. Give it a try, and I promise you’ll be amazed at how much better you’ll do.
The Magnet Ball
This is not technically a pickleball term – just something I like to use to explain the movement while shadowing your partner. If you think of the ball as a human-magnet, you and your partner get pulled left and right, back and forth as the ball moves from side to side on the court. If the ball goes to the left, you both shift left together as if pulled by the magnet ball.
Giant Rubber Band
This is another common way to explain shadowing. Imagine you and your partner are connected by a giant rubber band. If they shift left to cover their line, you get pulled along by the giant rubber band and shift with them.
Two-Thirds / One-Third Tactic
Shadowing is also called the “two-thirds/one-third” rule, which basically describes what I showed above. You and your partner can cover only two-thirds of the court. There’s really no way around it. With some fast footwork, you can increase it slightly, but there will always be some space for your opponent to make a shot. The question really is, which two-thirds do you want to cover.
Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts, comments, and feedback below!
Interested in other pickleball terms? See more pickleball terms here.
I think assuming a player can cover seven feet is generous. I would have to cover the same amount of territory with my backhand as I do with my forehead to make this a real number.
Thanks for your comment, Don! The measurement of 7 feet was actually a measurement I did of myself standing still, reaching forehand out on one side and backhand out on the other side without moving my feet. I’m 5’8″, which I believe is pretty average, and my measurement for coverage was almost exactly 7 feet. If you have a chance to check your measurement, I’d love to have the additional data! I want to be accurate, so I’m always happy to be proven wrong! 🙂
Another great post. After reading all four of Rigg’s articles, I am truly amazed of how he is able to explain fundamental concepts in a manner that anybody should be able to grasp. I have some thoughts on this article I feel like throwing out. One thing I found is that most people, being that the game is still growing find themselves playing a lot at “open courts.” This means many strategies are good ideas but aren’t practical when a person is always switching partners, and partners’ skill levels vary sometimes widely. So a caveat to shadowing is that many players do not do it, and they do not recognize forehands generally take middle balls, and often times poor players are curiously not afraid to let an accomplished partner know that “that ball was mine” despite the much better player having a much better chance of hitting a shot that may be nearer in proximity to the novice. Essentially, this led to me (4.5) basically just giving my partner a lot of space. Expecting partners to play “right” will drive everybody insane, and I have seen this happen over and over. Nonetheless, I shadow albeit ready to let unpredictable players have room to do their wild play. Anyways, this comment was only loosely related to the article but since the original two articles were closed for commenting I was desperate to share any and all thoughts on this one. Thanks!