Mastering Doubles Strategy In Pickleball: Stacking The Odds in Your Favour

Pickleball is a fun and accessible sport that I enjoy playing with friends and family. Being from a very competitive sports family, when it comes to doubles matchplay, we tend to take winning pretty seriously. Therefore, a solid doubles strategy is crucial for increasing chances of victory! Here I will be sharing a useful strategy called “stacking”.

Understanding Stacking

Stacking involves a doubles pair both standing on one side of the court in order to manipulate who hits the next shot. This means, with effective stacking strategy, a team can have their strongest player hit the opponent’s return, even if the opponent is trying to hit their shot to the opposing team’s weaker player. 

Offensive Stacking

Offensive stacking is focused on utilising the strongest player’s forehand shot to exploit weaknesses and angles on the opponent's side. For example, when a team is serving from the right side of the court, the other player can stand on the right side with their teammate who is serving. Once the server hits the ball, they can move across to the left side, putting their stronger teammate on the right (forehand) side, ready to execute any shots that come to the right side of the court. The right side/forehand side of the court tends to be more popular for stronger players as the majority of players are stronger on the forehand/right side of the court.

Offensive stacking is the most fundamental part of doubles stacking strategy. However, there are also other strategies such as defensive stacking. If you are keen to learn more about matchplay and pickleball strategy, do check out our group training sessions with our dedicated pickleball coaches.