Picklin Pickleball Mini Training Net Review
If you ever want to practice pickleball on the go or at home, this net can be really useful. It's basically a standard size net, but as if you chopped the edges off, so you only get a small sliver of the net. It's really good for things like skinny singles if the courts are really busy, or maybe you're at a rainy day and you can find a covered area that you can practice in. Maybe you want to work on things in the backyard or even hand battles indoors. This ends up being very useful.
In this article, we're going to go over the pros and cons of the net. The benefits of using a net like this, and how you can also use a net like this to improve your game, whether you're a beginner or experienced player.
If you decide to get the Picklin net or any of their accessories, you can get 10% off your purchase with the code “11pickles” at checkout. We were not compensated for this review, but Picklin did send over a trial net and kitchen lines to give an honest and detailed breakdown. You can get the net and accessories here.
Really easy to set up
When it comes to nets, one of the things I pay most attention to is how easy it is to set up because realistically if the net's extremely hard to put together, I'm probably not using that net quite as much as I normally would.
So let's start with the setup itself. The setup is actually so easy that you don't even need an instruction manual. If you've ever put together a Swift Net, it reminds me of that but much easier.
The moment the net arrived, literally the moment it was put outside the door, I got this email also explaining how to put it together. Again, it was so easy that you didn't really need it. The only thing that they emphasize is to make sure that you put the net on in a specific way so that it doesn't rip. That part maybe I wouldn't have known without the instructions, but overall very, very easy to put together.
The material did not feel cheap. It's hard to say how durable it is long-term, and we'll update the article if we do have more updates over time. But the materials do feel pretty solid, and when the ball hits hard at the net, it did not feel like the net was going to rip or anything like that. Everything felt pretty solid, like a normal pickleball net would.
While I'm mainly focusing the review on the net itself, I will say that the kitchen lines did take a little bit to figure out. There's nothing too crazy. You kind of use Velcro and you set them up and the edges are marked, but because the only thing that is marked are the edges, it did take a little bit of fiddling for me to figure out exactly which side was pointing which way, because the Velcro and the lines are pretty flexible and don't always hold shape perfectly. So I did need to figure out which direction was which. For example, which side is horizontal, which side is longer. Eventually fairly obvious once you have everything laid out. But it did take a second. I think this is true for all temporary lines, but you do need something to hold it down a little bit to make sure that it doesn't move and that it's straight.
Disassembling it was equally easy. You pull the poles apart, which is extremely easy. You take the net off, and then it comes with a nice little black bag that it fits snugly into. Didn't have to force it or anything. It was pretty easy to put together and tear apart.
One benefit is how flexible it is
One thing I didn't really realize is that in real life, when you see a pickleball court, it looks pretty small and it feels pretty small. But when you're in a relatively small apartment or house, a pickleball net (even a very small fraction of the real size) actually feels quite big. Same with kitchen lines. When you're spacing things out, when I thought a whole pickleball court could fit, it really became a lot tighter in space than I thought.
One of the nice things about the way it's constructed though is it's really easy to pull out poles where needed and stick them in when needed. So for example, if you want to do wall drills, the legs might normally be a prohibitor because they push the net too far away from the wall. However, if you just take out the leg from that side, you can actually lean the net extremely well against the wall, and voila, now you have a net for wall drills.
There’s surprisingly a lot of use cases for a mini net
A pretty obvious and common question is, "How frequently do you actually need a mini net?"
I actually found, surprisingly commonly, it was actually really useful.
Getting Reps as a Beginner
When you're completely new to the game, so much of improving is just getting a lot of touches on the ball. The more you hit, the more you feel the paddle, the more you get feedback live on the ball going over the net or not going all over. The faster you improve, especially at that 2.0-3.0 level.
This net makes it really easy for you to get those reps and have no excuses.
- You don't need to get to a court
- You don't need to get a group of people together
- You and one other person, or even you in the wall, can just get tons of touches, tons of reps
You get a feel for the ball, you get a feel for the net, you get a feel for the paddle. And this shortcuts that extremely quickly.
If I were a complete beginner I would practice fast hands and work on drops and drives with a friend to get used to the feel and get used to having fast balls being bulleted at you.
Also great for practicing dinks and touch shots!
Mobile Practice for Intermediate and Advanced Players
If you know what you’re doing you probably don’t need a net for wall drills. A piece of tape at the right spot is good enough.
But what it is great for is drills when courts are packed or it’s rainy or you don’t have the time to go to the courts but you want to get reps.
We played some adapted skinny singles with this and it worked great. There was no baseline but with the kitchen and the net, we could definitely get some practice in. The key for us there was to focus on 3rds, 4ths and getting to the net rather than serves and returns. You can go through the motions of drops, drives, resets, and 4th and it felt mostly like a normal court if you were playing straight up half court. We did variations of the 7-11 drill which worked well as well. You can’t practice great angles, ATPs, deep shots the same way without the base lines but for general practice it was great to get some touches on a day without much pickle ball otherwise.
For spacing purposes we couldn’t do a ton at home aside from fast hands (technically we could fit dinking but it was hard to get proper footwork in given our limited space. More of a thing to do with our apartment size than it is with the net). Fast hands worked fine with it though the ball will go flying into something at some point!
One use case we never tried but I imagine it’d be great for: the outdoor courts near us get super busy. There are tons of courts nearby but they are often packed. It’d be great to warm up or practice while waiting. There is space to set up the net to hit it around which might make the wait more palatable.
Conclusion: If you are a pickleball addict or want to practice more this is great!
At $59.99 (with an extra 10% off with code 11pickles) it’s not a bad price if you actually will be using it.
I think at the end of the day that's the biggest judgment call. The net can be very worth it if you actually are using it frequently and there are many use cases to use it. However, if you aren't into drilling or you have a lot of options for courts nearby that are really easy to access, then you may not need something like this. This is primarily a tool for drilling for more experienced players or for beginners to get a lot of reps. So if you aren't in either group, perhaps you don't like to drill, or perhaps you would rather hit around with friends, or perhaps pickleball is a very social sport for you and finding big groups of four or rotating around an open play is the main reason you play, this probably won't be for you.
However, if you're always looking for more ways to practice, get more touches on the ball, and like to do modified drills in all types of situations, whether you're waiting in line or during a rainy day or even at home, this is really useful.
If I were you, I'd measure out the spacing a little bit so you have a sense on where you can actually put the net if you are going to do it at home.
For me, I expect to keep this in my trunk for the opportunity to drill whenever and wherever. The flexibility, size, and ease of set up makes it an easy tool to pop up whenever we want to practice. Given it’s so small, it doesn’t take much trunk space either!
If you decide to get the Picklin net or any of their accessories, you can get 10% off your purchase with the code “11pickles” at checkout. We were not compensated for this review, but Picklin did send over a trial net and kitchen lines to give an honest and detailed breakdown. You can get the net and accessories here.
