The hardest part of getting better at pickleball isn't finding the time. It's finding someone to hit with when you've got the time. The good news: you can run genuinely useful pickleball drills on your own, and most of the shots that actually win points (your serve, your third-shot drop, your reset off a hard drive) are things you can groove solo. This guide compares the five ways to practice without a partner, wall versus rebounder versus solo drills versus a hitting buddy versus a ball machine, tells you honestly what each one trains and where it falls short, and finishes with real drills you can run at your local court today.
Straight up: Pickld carries the brands featured here, including the PUSUN machines. Our picks are based on running the gear ourselves and on what customers actually buy, not affiliate incentives. We'll tell you where the cheaper options are genuinely fine, because they are.
The five ways to practice solo, ranked by how complete they are
Every solo-practice method trades off cost, convenience and realism. A wall costs nothing and is always there, but it lies to you about how the ball actually behaves. A hitting partner is the most realistic feed you'll get, but you can't summon one at 6am on a Tuesday. Here's the honest hierarchy, cheapest to most complete.
1. Hitting against a wall
The classic. Find a flat wall, draw a net line in chalk, and go. It costs nothing, it's available whenever a wall is, and it's genuinely good for two things: hand speed at the kitchen line and dink touch, because the ball comes back fast and forces you to reset your paddle quickly.
Where it lies to you: a wall returns the ball flat and low with no arc. Real pickleball is a game of arcs, the gentle float of a third-shot drop, the dropping trajectory of a reset, the loop of a lob. A wall can't reproduce any of that. Drill against it too much and you groove a flat, punchy game that gets exposed the moment someone floats a drop over the kitchen line. Great for reflexes, useless for the soft game.
2. Rebounder or backboard
A step up from a flat wall. A pickleball rebounder is an angled net-and-frame you set on the court that bounces the ball back at you, and the angle means you get a slightly more realistic return than a dead flat wall gives. Decent for grooving volleys, resets and a repeatable dink, and most fold down to fit in a car boot.
The catch: the return is semi-random. You feed it, it comes back roughly where the tension and angle send it, but you don't control speed or spin, and you can't ask it for a specific shot. It's better than a wall for the reset game, but it's still a bounce-back, not a feed you can program. Good middle option if you want something more court-realistic than a wall without spending machine money.
3. Solo drills (footwork, serves, shadow swings)
The most underrated option, and free. A huge chunk of improvement needs no incoming ball at all. Your serve is the only shot in the game you have complete control over, and you can hit a hundred of them into target cones with a bucket of balls and nobody else on court. Footwork ladders, split-step timing, shadow swings to groove a clean third-shot drop motion: all solo, all high-value, all free.
The limit is obvious: there's no live ball coming back, so you can't drill exchanges, reaction, or reading pace. Solo drills build the foundation (technique, serve consistency, movement) but they can't rehearse a rally. Pair them with one of the ball-feeding options below and you've covered most of the game.
4. A hitting partner or a coach
Still the gold standard for realism. A person reads like a person: they disguise, they vary pace, they put you in awkward spots a machine or a wall never will, and a coach can tell you why your drop keeps popping up. For tactics, live decision-making and match feel, nothing replaces hitting with someone better than you.
The friction is the whole reason you're reading this. A partner needs to exist, be free when you are, and be at your level enough to make the session useful. Coaching solves the quality problem but adds an ongoing cost, and even the keenest hitting mate can't do the 300 identical third-shot reps you need to actually groove the shot. Partners are for tactics and match feel. They're a poor tool for grinding repetition.
5. A ball machine
The most complete solo tool, and the reason this whole category exists. A ball machine feeds you a realistic ball, with real arc, real spin and a speed you set, at a repeatable interval, for as many reps as the hopper holds. That combination (realistic, repeatable, programmable, unlimited reps) is the one thing none of the options above can give you on your own. Want 80 identical third-shot drops landing in the kitchen? A machine does that. Want to alternate a soft dink and a fast drive to work your transition? A good machine programs that too.
The honest cons: it's the priced option, from AUD $1,399 to $2,249 for the two we stock, so it's a real purchase rather than a chalk line on a wall. And a machine doesn't move or think like an opponent, so it won't teach you to read a live human. It's the best tool for grooving shots on your own, and it works best alongside the occasional hit with a partner, not instead of one. If you're a committed improver who just can't always find someone to drill with, this is the option that changes your training.
The short version: a wall is fine for reflexes, a rebounder is fine for resets, solo drills build your serve and footwork for free, and a partner is unbeatable for tactics. A ball machine is the only solo option that gives you a realistic, repeatable, programmable feed for every shot in the game. It's the step up when you want to groove specific shots on demand.
Where a ball machine fits, and the two we'd actually recommend
We only stock two machines, both PUSUN, because after running them ourselves they're the two we'd put our name to. Both are Sydney-stocked (so you're looking at a 10 to 15 day lead time, not 2 to 3 weeks from a US site), both are app and remote controlled, and both are backed by warranty we handle here rather than an overseas support queue. Which one suits you comes down to how you'll use it.
Solo player who wants portable and best value: the PUSUN PP-Mini Pro at AUD $1,399. It weighs 8 kg, folds flat, and you carry the whole thing to the court in one hand, which is the whole point if you're driving to a public court a couple of times a week. It throws 8 to 60 km/h with real topspin and backspin, holds 45+ balls, and you set speed, spin and feed frequency (1.8 to 8 seconds per ball) from the app or the remote. For fixing your dink consistency and your reset without dragging a mate to the court, it's the sweet spot.
Serious trainer, club or coach who wants the full-featured machine: the PUSUN PP Smart Pro at AUD $2,249. It throws 20 to 120 km/h, holds 80+ balls, reaches out to 26 metres, and its trajectory adjusts from 4 to 45 degrees, so you can drill everything from soft kitchen-line dinks to fast fourth-shot drives. The bit that earns the "Pro" name is the targeting: 12 preset modes plus 20 programmable landing points, so the machine moves the ball around the court instead of feeding the same spot 80 times. The 25.6V lithium battery runs 4 to 6 hours, a full club evening.
If you want the full head-to-head with the spec table and the "which one for me" breakdown, read our how to choose a pickleball ball machine guide, and you can see both side by side on the pickleball ball machines collection.
Solo pickleball drills you can run today
You don't need to buy anything to start. Here are real pickleball drills you can run on your own with nothing but a paddle and a bucket of balls. Each one names what it trains and its honest limitation, so you know when to graduate to a feed you can program.
- Serve targets. Put two cones or a couple of ball tubes in the corners of the service box and hit 50 serves at them. The serve is the one shot you fully control, so this is pure free improvement. Trains: serve depth, placement, consistency. Limit: none, this is as good solo as it gets.
- Wall dinks. Stand a few metres from a wall, draw a net line, and rally soft dinks into it, resetting your paddle between each. Trains: hands, touch, paddle reset speed. Limit: the flat return isn't a real dink arc, so don't let it become your only touch practice.
- Drop-and-hit third-shot drops. Drop a ball, let it bounce, and hit a soft third-shot drop aiming to land it in the kitchen. Do 30 from the baseline. Trains: the single most important shot in doubles. Limit: you're feeding yourself a dead ball, so it grooves the motion but not the shot under a real incoming pace. This is the drill a machine transforms, because it can feed you a realistic drive to drop off.
- Shadow footwork. No ball. Split-step, move to a spot, shadow the swing, recover. Two minutes on, one off, five rounds. Trains: movement, balance, the split-step habit that separates 3.0s from 4.0s. Limit: no ball, so pair it with a feeding drill.
- Rebounder resets. If you've got a rebounder, stand at the kitchen line and work continuous resets off its return. Trains: soft hands under pace, the reset habit. Limit: the return is semi-random, so it builds the reflex but not a specific, repeatable shot.
- Self-feed groundstrokes. Toss a ball out in front and drive it, focusing on clean contact and a full follow-through. Trains: drive mechanics. Limit: a toss isn't match pace, which is exactly the gap a machine closes.
Notice the pattern: the free drills are brilliant for the shots you initiate (serves, drops, footwork), and they hit a wall on the shots you have to react to (drives, dinks under pace, resets). That reactive half of the game is precisely where a programmable feed earns its keep. Run the machine that you play with the same pickleball balls you compete with, too, so the bounce and flight stay consistent between practice and match day.
So which should you actually use?
Stack them, don't pick one. The players who improve fastest without a regular partner tend to do all of this: free solo drills for serves and footwork, a wall or rebounder for reflex and reset work, a hitting partner when they can get one for tactics and match feel, and a ball machine to grind the repeatable reps on the shots that actually win points.
If you're just starting out or you only play socially, a wall and a bucket of balls will genuinely take you a long way, and we'd never tell you otherwise. If you're a committed improver who's stuck because you can't find enough court time with the right people, the ball machine is the piece that removes the bottleneck. It's the only solo tool that gives you a real, repeatable, programmable ball for every shot in the game, and both of ours are stocked and warrantied right here in Australia.
Not sure whether the portable Mini Pro or the full-featured Smart Pro is the right fit for how you train? Have a look at both on the ball machines collection, or reach out and tell us how you play. We've run both, and we'll point you at the right one.
Ben + Chris, Pickld
