Thanks to the cold weather, most pickleball will be heading indoors this November. The Fort Monmouth Recreation Center offers open play hours at its indoor Tinton Falls facility most days of the week. The Fort will be closed on Thanksgiving, but open play will be available the following Saturday and Sunday.
As always, check the CALENDAR to find the open play schedule.
Skill Levels at the Fort
Open play at the Fort is available to players of all skill levels. Beginning in November, open play will be scheduled to accommodate four different levels.
- Beginner (Self-rated 1.0-2.0)
- Beginner Intermediate (Self-rated 2.0-3.0)
- Advanced Intermediate (Self-rated 3.0-3.5)
- Advanced (Self-rated 3.5-5.0)
What Level Am I?
Rating yourself and your pickleball skills can be difficult. This is particularly true if you’re an intermediate player. There’s a big difference between a player who has recently surpassed the beginner level and a player who is just on the cusp of being an advanced player. Open play at the Fort now has open play sessions for:
- Beginners & Beginner Intermediates, and
- Advanced Intermediates & Advanced.
How can you know if you’re a beginner intermediate or an advanced intermediate player? Number ratings aren’t always helpful…particularly when they keep changing. Here are a few of the skills that you should have if you rate yourself as a “beginner intermediate” or “advanced intermediate” player. This is not an exhaustive list, but simply a guideline to help you determine your level of play.
Beginner Intermediate
Beginner intermediate players should:
- Know how to keep score
- Have a firm understanding of the rules (e.g., stay out of the kitchen, two-bounce rule)
- Execute a legal serve and get more than half of those serves in
- Regularly try to return serves deep to an opponent
- Understand and use the dink
- Move forward to the kitchen line
- Maintain rallies
- Control the direction and angle of the ball, and.
- Slow the pace of play, when necessary.
Advanced Intermediate
Advanced intermediate players should:
- Demonstrate all skills of a beginner intermediate
- Consistently use a backhand stroke, when appropriate
- Understand and use the dink effectively
- Begin to use lobs and drop shots effectively
- Use a third-shot drop regularly
- Instinctively move forward to the kitchen line
- Know where your partner is on the court
- Maintain longer rallies
- Anticipate spin and ball location
- Understand and employ different service strategies (e.g., deep to the backhand; short and angled), and
- Handle fast-paced volley play at the net.
Skill Levels Aren’t Static
Skill levels change. In fact, they can change overnight. We all also have bad days where we don’t play up to our full abilities. Do your best to rate your skill level based on what you can do on an average day.
Is your group winning all the time? Try moving up a level to improve your game.
Is your group losing all the time? You may want to move down a level for more competitive games to help you continue to grow as a pickleball player.