The ATP Shot in Pickleball: When and How to Go Around the Post

The around-the-post shot — universally shortened to ATP — is one of the few plays in pickleball that draws a reaction even from players watching casually. A ball travels wide of the net entirely, outside the post, and gets redirected back into the opponent's court from an angle that looks impossible. It's rare, it's legal, and most players who could hit it never do, either because they don't recognise the opportunity or because they don't understand the rule well enough to trust it under pressure.

What makes the shot legal

The core rule that makes the ATP possible: the ball only has to land in the opponent's court — it does not have to cross over the net. If a ball bounces wide, outside the sideline extension, and stays below the height of the net post as it travels, you're allowed to play it around the outside of the post rather than over the net, as long as the return lands in bounds. This is different from most net-sport intuitions, where the ball is assumed to need to cross over the net structure itself. Pickleball's rule explicitly permits going around it.

The height restriction matters: the ball must travel below the top of the net post, not above it, for the shot to be legal. A ball that's climbed too high as it drifts wide can still be played, but it has to come back down and around at a height that stays under the post — which is part of why the shot is genuinely difficult rather than just unusual.

When the opportunity actually exists

The ATP chance appears almost exclusively off a wide angle shot — typically a cross-court dink or drive that an opponent has pushed too far, sending the ball beyond the sideline before it has a chance to cross the net. It's most common in doubles, where wide cross-court angles are already part of normal play, and rare in singles, where the court is narrower and balls are less likely to drift that far outside the lines before bouncing.

Recognising the opportunity in real time means tracking the ball's trajectory relative to the sideline and the post, not just chasing it. If you see the ball is going to land clearly outside the sideline and stay low, that's your cue to sprint wide rather than concede the point — many players give up on a ball the instant it looks like it's sailing out, without checking whether it's actually a live ATP opportunity.

Executing the shot

Once you've decided to go for it, footwork determines whether the shot is playable at all. You need to get fully around the post — past its outside edge — before contact, with your body facing back toward the court rather than square to where the ball is coming from. Most players find a low, wristy swing works better than a full driving motion, since the goal is control and placement into open court rather than power. Because you're contacting the ball from an extreme angle, the highest-percentage target is usually the open middle of the court or straight down the line closest to you — trying to go for a sharp cross-court winner from that position adds risk without much reward.

A soft grip and a relaxed wrist matter more on this shot than almost any other in the game, because you're making contact from an unfamiliar body position and need the racket face to do precise, last-instant work rather than relying on a grooved swing path. Players who habitually grip too tight — see our guide on grip pressure — tend to overhit the ATP attempt or mistime the angle entirely.

Why most players never try it

The biggest reason recreational players skip the ATP isn't lack of athleticism — it's hesitation about the rule itself. Players see a ball drifting wide and assume it's already a dead point, so they stop moving toward it before checking whether it's still in reach and still low enough to go around. That hesitation costs more points than the shot's actual difficulty does. The second reason is that going for the ATP and missing looks worse than not trying — but conceding a point you could have contested is a worse outcome for your win rate even if it's a less visible one.

You don't need to practise the ATP as a dedicated drill the way you'd drill a third shot drop or a reset. What's worth practising is the recognition: training yourself to track wide balls all the way through their trajectory instead of writing them off early, so that when a genuine ATP chance appears in a match, you already know it's there.