Been coaching beginners into this sport for a while now, and almost everyone assumes the biggest mistake is not hitting hard enough.

It's the opposite.

The single biggest predictor of whether a 2.0 becomes a 3.5 is how fast they stop trying to hit winners and start dinking with patience. Power feels good. It also loses you almost every point against anyone who's been playing more than a month, because they'll just reset the ball and you'll overhit into the net or past the baseline.

The fix that actually works: spend your first month almost entirely on soft game. Dinks, resets, and getting comfortable at the kitchen line. It feels boring. It is the fastest path to actually winning games.

If you're newer to the sport and want structure around this instead of guessing — I put together a coaching program (Dink Dynasty) built specifically for 2.0-3.0 players to fix this exact issue early. Happy to answer questions here either way, this game rewards patience more than any racquet sport I've played.