Doubles pickleball is a team sport. No different than football. Two players instead of 11, but the same dynamics apply: your team plays its best when both players are in sync.

Most of us know this. And most of us still spend a decent amount of time on the court frustrated with our partner. They fall into frustrating and predictable patterns that you disagree with. They apologize after every miss. They don't see the game the way we see it.

We've been getting a lot of questions about partner play lately. So we wanted to work through three ideas here. None of them is about controlling your partner. All of them are about things you can control.

Control the controllable

It's an old saying, but it holds. Learn what you can control and control that. Let the rest go.

On a pickleball court, you can control you. You cannot control your partner. Period.

That doesn't mean you can't talk to your partner. You can. But how you do it matters.

Tony was playing in a group recently, 16 players across four courts, and after one game he noticed something a younger player was doing that he wanted to point out. But he didn't just tell them. He first asked: "Are you open to me sharing something?" They knew Tony is a coach, so they said yes. But the question gave them room to say no. And "no" would have been a perfectly fine way to respond. Asking permission before giving advice set the stage for a constructive path forward.

Where control really shows up, though, is in how you adjust your own play. A while back, Tony played with a partner who drove the third shot every single time. Drive the third, drop the fifth. Every rally. That's a limitation in their understanding of the game. You don't always have to do it that way.

But Tony knew he couldn't change it. So he changed himself for that game. The drives weren't aggressive enough for Tony to crash and create offense, so he stopped looking to poach after the third. Instead, he waited for the fifth and then moved forward. That was Tony's adjustment to make. Not his partner's.

Sonder

Sonder is the realization that every person around you is living a life as full and complicated as your own. They have their own journey, their own path.

You're entitled to walk your path. Your partner is entitled to walk theirs.

This matters most in small moments. Take the reflex of saying "sorry" after a miss. Most of us do it sometimes. It's like sneezing... a reflex action. Some partners seem to say it after practically every rally.

Players sometimes ask how to get their partners to stop apologizing. The answer: don't tell them to stop. That's adversarial. Instead, give them something better. "Nothing to apologize for." "Good try, you'll get the next one." Or take it on yourself when it's honest to do so: "That was on me. I put the ball there and put you in a tough spot." Or: "Don't worry about it, I'm going to miss one of those too."

You're not correcting them. You're diffusing the moment. And you're respecting that they see the court through their own eyes, not yours.

Give your team its best chance

Go back to the team sport idea. When you step on the court, you want to give yourself and your partner the best chance for success in that game. Not "I must win." That's too extreme. Just the best chance.

Part of that best chance is your responsibility. Part of it is your partner's. And the way you treat your partner directly shapes how they play, which shapes how your team plays, which shapes your chances.

So the highest level of play for your team means the highest level of play from both of you. Not flawless play. Just the best each of you can bring in the moment. And the way you get that from your partner is by giving them what they need to play freely, instead of looking over their shoulder wondering whether you're going to be mad at the next miss.

If you're the "lower level" player on the court and you feel the pressure of letting your partner down, understand that good partners don't need an apology. In fact, the more of an issue you make of it, the more uncomfortable the dynamic gets. For both you and your partner.

Saying "sorry" feels like the nice thing to do. But it's counterproductive.

Instead of apologizing, try asking your more experienced partner a question. "Hey, next time should I have hit that over there?" That's constructive. On the contrary, saying, "I'm sorry, I should have made that" puts the other player in an awkward spot. What are they supposed to say? "Yeah, you should have. That was awful." Play it out, and you'll see why it doesn't work.

To be sure, some players are going to look down on you no matter what. Win, it was their skill. Lose, it was your mistakes. That's how they're built. Nothing you say will ever change them, so there's no reason to apologize.

If you're the "higher level" player, your job is the positive version. "Good try, you'll get the next one." Not to make them feel better for its own sake, but because a partner who feels supported plays better. And a partner who plays better makes your team better.

 Partner play is a skill. You can hone it. And the better you get at it, the better your partner plays, the better your team plays, and the more you'll enjoy the game.

Original content made by humans. This blog post was adapted from Coach Tony Roig's Pickleball Therapy podcast episode #312 - "Optimized Partner Play" with the help of AI, then edited by hand before publishing. Listen to the full episode here.