How to Hit an ATP in Pickleball: The Shot Where the Net Stops Mattering
The ATP is the only shot in pickleball where the net stops being an obstacle. That is the entire idea, and almost everything else about the shot follows from it. Learning how to hit an ATP in pickleball is less about the swing and more about recognizing, half a second early, that the ball your opponent just hit has taken the net out of the equation.
Most players get this backwards. They practice the motion. They watch clips of pros ripping around-the-post winners at ankle height and try to copy the swing. Then in a real game they see a wide ball, sprint at it, and either clip the post or shovel it three feet out. The swing was never the problem. They ran to the wrong place.
Here is the short version. An ATP is available when the ball is going to cross the sideline before it would cross the plane of the net. When that happens there is no net to clear, which means you can hit the ball at shin height, flat and hard, and your opponents cannot do much about it. Your only real job is to get your body far enough outside and behind the ball to swing through it toward the court.
Watch: Hit An "ATP" In 3 EASY Steps! (Simplified) - Briones Pickleball
What an ATP Actually Is
ATP stands for around the post. It is a shot you hit from outside the sideline that travels around the outside of the net post instead of over the net, and lands in your opponents' court.
The rulebook does not require the ball to travel over the net. It requires the ball to land in bounds on the other side. That single detail is what makes the entire shot legal, and it is the detail most rec players have never actually read. You can hit an ATP at ankle height. You can hit it below the top of the net, below the bottom of the net, an inch off the ground. Height is irrelevant because there is nothing in the way.
That is why the ATP is such a brutal shot to receive. Every other put-away in pickleball has to clear a barrier, which puts a floor under how flat you can hit it. The ATP has no floor. A well-struck one arrives low, fast, and angled away from both opponents at the same time.
The only things that will get you in trouble are the ordinary ones. You cannot touch the net, the net cord, or the post at any point during the rally. You cannot reach across and take the ball on their side before it comes to you, though on a true ATP the ball has already left the court, so this rarely comes up. And the ball still has to land in. Nothing about the shot is a loophole. It is a consequence of the court being twenty feet wide and the net being exactly that wide too.
The Ball That Creates an ATP
You cannot manufacture an ATP. This is the part that frustrates players who want to add it to their game as a skill they can deploy on demand. The shot only exists when your opponent gives it to you.
What you need is a ball hit at a sharp enough cross-court angle that its path carries it past your sideline. Usually this is an angled cross-court dink that gets a little too greedy. Sometimes it is a wide drive or a sharply angled return that keeps drifting after the bounce. The common thread is lateral movement: the ball is still traveling outward when you reach it.
There is an irony here worth sitting with. Better opponents create more ATP opportunities than worse ones, because better opponents hit sharper angles. At 3.0, almost nobody hits a dink wide enough to leave the court, so ATPs basically do not exist. At 4.0 and up, players start using the extreme cross-court angle as a weapon, and every time they do it they hand over the possibility. If you have never hit an ATP, part of the reason may simply be that nobody you play against is angling the ball hard enough yet.
The practical takeaway is to stop hunting for the shot and start expecting it in one specific situation: cross-court dink rallies where your opponent keeps widening the angle. That is where it lives. Everywhere else you are guessing.
How to Read the ATP Ball Early
The decision has to happen at your opponent's contact, not at your bounce. If you are still evaluating the ball after it has bounced, you have already lost the two steps that make the shot possible.
Two questions, asked fast. First: is the path of this ball going to carry it past my sideline? Second: is it low enough that I cannot simply volley it out of the air? If both answers are yes, you are going, and you should already be moving.
The most reliable visual tell is the target the ball is heading toward. If it is aimed at the corner where the sideline meets the kitchen line, and it is still moving outward rather than dying, that is your ball. Angled dinks that die in the corner are not ATP balls. Angled dinks that keep going are.
There is also a simple check that will save you a lot of donated points. If you have to reach back into the court to hit it, it is not an ATP. It is a wide dink and you should just play it normally. Players talk themselves into ATPs on balls that never actually left the court, then swing around a post that is very much in the way. If your contact point is inside the sideline, abandon the idea and hit a normal shot.
In my experience the read is the part that takes the longest to build, and it is almost entirely pattern recognition rather than athleticism. Once you have seen ten of these, you start moving before you consciously decide to.
Footwork: Run Past the Ball, Not At It
This is the single biggest technical error, and it is the reason most attempted ATPs hit the post.
If you run directly at the ball, you arrive with the ball beside you and the post directly in your swing path. There is no angle available from there. You either clip the post or you have to steer the ball on an impossible line to get around it.
Instead, run to a spot that is outside and behind the ball's path, then let the ball come to you. Aim your feet for a point roughly two to three feet outside the sideline and a step behind where you expect contact. From there your swing naturally travels back toward the court, around the post rather than into it. The ball does the hard part; you just have to be standing in the right place when it gets there.
Get there with a crossover step, not a shuffle. Shuffling sideways costs you at least one step, and one step is usually the entire margin on this shot. Turn your hips, cross over, and run. Then set your outside foot and stop, because hitting an ATP while still drifting sideways sends it wide almost every time.
One more thing that nobody says out loud: this is a hard lateral sprint that ends in a planted stop on the outside foot, on a surface you are not always sure about. It is one of the higher-risk movements in a rec game. Shoes matter here more than they do almost anywhere else on the court.
I play in Montis shoes, and this exact movement is why. The lateral hold when you plant that outside foot is what keeps a hard stop from turning into a slide, which matters a lot when the shot requires you to sprint outside the sideline and brake.
Contact: Swing Flat and Stop Lifting
Once you are in position, the technique is simpler than the highlight reels suggest.
Get low. Bend at the knees, not the waist, and drop the paddle head below the ball. Most ATP contacts happen somewhere between your ankle and your knee, which means the paddle has to be down there with it. Bending at the waist puts your head over your toes and your balance in front of you, and you will pull the ball wide.
Then swing flat. This is where the lifelong habit of clearing a net actively hurts you. Every other shot you hit in pickleball requires some upward path. This one does not, and the instinct to lift is exactly what sends ATPs sailing long. Level swing, square-to-slightly-closed paddle face, contact out in front, finish across your body toward the target rather than up.
Add a little topspin if you have it, because topspin gives you margin without lift. But do not chase spin at the expense of a clean, simple strike. A flat, firm, controlled ATP is a winner. A heavily brushed one you barely caught is a highlight you will not get.
And do not swing as hard as you can. The angle is already doing the damage. Seventy percent effort with clean contact beats a full rip that catches the frame, and on a ball this low the frame is a real possibility.
Where to Aim an ATP
Most players aim for the far sideline, chasing the most spectacular version of the shot. That is the wrong target and it is where a lot of ATPs die.
The highest-percentage target is the open court just past the kitchen line, roughly toward the middle. It gives you the deepest margin in both directions, and because the ball is arriving low and flat from an extreme side angle, your opponents still cannot reach it. You do not need to add angle to a shot that is already the most angled thing on the court.
The second target worth having is the feet of the nearest opponent. If they have shifted to cover the line, a firm ball at their shoelaces is nearly as unplayable as an open-court winner and requires far less precision from you.
Deciding between them is the same recognition skill that governs every other attacking decision in pickleball: what the ball and the position in front of you actually allow, rather than what you wish were available. If that read is the part of your game that keeps costing you points, it is worth reading when to speed up in pickleball, because the underlying question is identical.
What to avoid: aiming at the far sideline, and aiming deep. Depth is not a virtue here. The ball is already low and wide, so a target that is short and in front of them is more painful than a target near their baseline, and it carries a fraction of the risk.
The Backhand ATP and the One You Will Miss
Everything above assumes a forehand. The backhand ATP is a real shot and it is meaningfully harder, mostly because the contact point has to be further out in front and your reach is shorter.
For a right-handed player in the left-side position, the backhand ATP is the one that shows up most often, because that is the side the extreme cross-court dink pulls you toward. A two-handed backhand helps a lot here, since it gives you a stable face at a low contact point where a one-hander tends to open up and spray the ball wide.
If you only take one adjustment into the backhand version, make it this: get lower and get further outside than feels necessary. The margin for error on the backhand side is smaller, and the most common miss is not the post, it is a ball pulled wide because the contact point drifted behind the front hip.
The other ATP you will miss is the one where you were a half step late and reached. Reaching flattens your swing path into the post rather than around it. When you are late, the right play is to shovel the ball back cross-court and stay in the point. A missed ATP is a lost point on a rally you were probably winning.
How to Avoid Giving Up an ATP
Since ATPs are handed out rather than created, the defensive side matters just as much.
The main rule is simple: do not hit the extreme cross-court angle against someone who moves well and is already leaning that way. That greedy last inch of angle is what converts your good dink into their winner. Against a fast opponent, keep the angle sharp but inside the sideline, and make them beat you with a shot they have to invent.
If you do hit a very wide angle, both you and your partner need to move immediately. You shift outside your own sideline to cover the ATP line, and your partner covers the middle. Standing still and watching is how the shot looks unreturnable when it usually is not.
And if one is coming, get low, split step, and block. ATP returns arrive fast, flat, and below net height. The instinct is to swing, and swinging at a low fast ball with no net clearance available on your own side is a guaranteed error. A firm paddle face and a short block gets a surprising number of them back.
How to Drill the ATP
Three progressions, in order.
Shadow footwork with no ball. From the kitchen line, crossover step out to a cone placed about three feet outside the sideline, plant the outside foot, and come back. Ten reps each side. You are teaching your feet to arrive outside the ball rather than at it, which is the whole shot.
Fed ATP balls. Have a partner stand at the opposite kitchen line and deliberately feed sharply angled dinks that bounce and carry outside your sideline. Do ten forehands, then ten backhands. Feeding these accurately is harder than hitting them, so give your partner a few minutes to find the angle.
Live cross-court dinking with the angle unlocked. Play out cross-court dink rallies where both players are actively trying to widen the angle. This is the only drill that trains the read at game speed, and the read is the actual skill. You will also learn a lot about how often you hand one over.
Do not skip straight to the live version. The footwork pattern has to be automatic before you try to execute it while also making a decision.
Key Takeaways
The ATP is a recognition shot dressed up as an athletic one. Read it at your opponent's contact, not after the bounce. Run to a spot outside and behind the ball instead of at the ball, get low, swing flat with no lift, and aim at the open court just past the kitchen rather than the far sideline. If your contact point is inside the sideline, it was never an ATP, and the highest-percentage play is the boring one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is an ATP legal in pickleball?
Yes. The rules require the ball to land in bounds in the opponents' court, not to travel over the net. Going around the outside of the post is completely legal as long as you do not touch the net, the net cord, or the post.
Can you hit an ATP below the height of the net?
Yes, and you usually will. Since the ball never has to cross over the net, there is no minimum height. Ankle-height contact is normal on this shot, which is exactly why it is so hard to defend.
Can you step into the kitchen to hit an ATP?
The non-volley zone rules only restrict volleys. On an ATP the ball has already bounced, so being in the kitchen is not a fault. In practice you are usually standing outside the sideline entirely, which is not the kitchen at all.
What is the difference between an ATP and an erne?
An erne is a volley taken out of the air from beside the kitchen, outside the sideline, before the ball bounces. An ATP is a groundstroke hit after the bounce that travels around the outside of the net post. Both come from an opponent being pulled wide, but they are different shots with different setups.
Why do I keep hitting the net post on ATPs?
Almost always because you ran at the ball instead of past it. If you arrive with the ball beside you, the post sits in your swing path and there is no angle available. Take your feet two to three feet further outside the sideline and let the ball come to you.
Keep reading
- Pickleball Dinking Strategy: Dead vs Aggressive Dinks - the cross-court dink battles where almost every ATP chance is born.
- Pickleball Footwork: The Real Reason You Miss Shots - the crossover step and set-feet habits that get you outside the ball in time.
- Two-Handed vs One-Handed Backhand in Pickleball - why the two-hander is steadier on low, wide balls like the backhand ATP.