A dink is a soft shot hit from up close to the net. You lift the ball in a small, gentle arc so it barely clears the net and drops into the kitchen — the 7-foot zone on the other side. Because it lands in the kitchen, your opponent has to let it bounce, and because it stays low, they can't smash it. The dink is how good players slow a rally down and take control of it.
When you use it
Almost every rally between good players becomes a dink rally. Once all four players are standing at the kitchen line, nobody can hit hard without the ball flying out or getting blocked — so they trade dinks, waiting. Each soft shot asks the other side a quiet question: can you stay patient, or will you be the one who pops it up? The player who answers wrong loses the point.
What it looks like at each level
At 2.5, dinks are accidents waiting to happen — they clip the net or float up high enough to get smashed.
At 3.0, a player can trade a few dinks in a row before impatience or a shaky hand ends it.
At 3.5, dinks stay low and unattackable for long stretches, and they start moving opponents side to side on purpose.
At 4.0 and up, the dink is a weapon of placement — aimed at feet and backhands, spun, disguised, and used to set up the one ball that can finally be sped up.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Treating the dink like a tiny drive. Players step back from the line, take a swing, and wrist the ball — and it pops up for an easy put-away. A dink is not a swing. It's a lift: paddle open, body quiet, ball pushed gently from the legs and shoulder. If your dinks keep floating, the fix is almost never your hands — it's backing off the line and giving yourself too much shot to hit.