The ATP shot is completely legal in pickleball. It is one of the few shots in the game where the ball never has to travel over the net, and that is exactly what makes it work.
ATP stands for Around The Post. When a ball is hit wide and pulls you off the court past the sideline, you can follow it, get around the outside of the net post, and drive the ball back across, curving it around the post rather than over the net. If the ball lands in your opponent’s court, the shot is good. No net clearance required.
When does an ATP actually happen?
It is not a shot you set up. It comes to you.
The setup is almost always a sharp cross-court angle: a dink or drive that pulls you well outside the sideline. Once you are out there and the ball is low enough, you have two options: reach across and try to get it over the net from an impossible angle, or go around the post entirely. The ATP is the second option, and when it works, it is one of the most visually arresting shots in the sport.
Picture a club doubles game, second set, your team up 8-6. Your opponent rips a low cross-court dink that skids wide. You sprint right, end up a full step outside the court boundary, and the ball is dropping fast and low. No chance of clearing the net from out there. You swing around the post and drive it back, curving inside the sideline on their side. The court erupts. Nobody is sure what just happened or whether it counts.
It counts. Completely.
What the rulebook actually says
The relevant section of the USA Pickleball rulebook covers this directly. USA Pickleball specifically permits a ball to travel around the outside of the net post and states that the ball does not need to pass above the net when doing so. A player may return the ball around the outside of the net post rather than over the net. The ball does not have to travel over or above the net, and critically, the ball is allowed to travel below the level of the top of the net as it curves around.
This is why hitting the net post creates a completely different result from an ATP. A legal ATP travels outside the post entirely rather than contacting the net assembly. The post itself is not the boundary. It is just a piece of hardware holding up the net.
The non-volley zone rules apply normally. If you step into the kitchen during or after the ATP while volleying, it is still a fault. The ATP changes the path the ball travels. It does not suspend any other rule.
What makes it illegal
The ball has to actually go around the post. Not through the net. Not underneath it.
If the ball passes through the net on the way around (clips a gap, travels under the bottom of the net) it is not an ATP. It is a fault. The around-the-post rule applies specifically to the area outside the post, not the space beneath the net itself.
The ball also has to land in. An ATP that clears the post perfectly but lands out is still out. The shot earns no special treatment for degree of difficulty.
An ATP is a return shot created by your opponent’s angle. You are reacting to a ball pulled wide, not inventing a separate category of offensive shot.
The argument that actually comes up
Here is where it gets genuinely murky, and where both players arguing at the net after an ATP are often partially right.
Player A says the shot is legal because the ball went around the post and landed in. Player B counters that the ball was below net height when it went around, and that should not be allowed. On the height question, Player A is correct: the ball can travel below net height on an ATP. That is explicitly permitted. Both players are reading the rule through different lenses.
But Player B has a point in a different situation: if the ball passed below or through the net rather than around the outside of the post, it is a fault regardless of where it lands. The line is where the ball traveled.
Around the outside of the post at any height: legal. Through or under the net: fault.
The way to remember it: the key distinction is whether the ball traveled outside the post or through the net. Get your shot outside the post and bring it back in. Everything else applies normally.
What this changes if you’re playing against someone who can do it
Not much, honestly. The ATP is a low-percentage, situation-specific shot that most players will attempt once or twice a game at most. It requires the ball to be hit wide enough to give you the angle, which means your opponent already lost some control on the previous shot.
If you are on the receiving end, the best response to an ATP threat is to not hit the ball that wide in the first place. Like many tournament legal shots, the ATP is often a product of the angle created by the previous shot as much as the player’s skill in finishing it.
The shot looks impossible until you understand the rule. Once you do, it just looks impressive.
Shots like the ATP are exciting because they push the boundaries of what the rules allow. Our pickleball rules reference explores those boundaries in detail.