YMCA

To the tune of YMCA by the Village People

 

Player, there's no need to feel down

I said, Player, pick yourself off the ground

I said, Player, 'cause you're in a new town 

There's no need to be unhappy

Player, there's a place you can go

I said, player, when you're short on your dough

You can Play there, and I'm sure you will find 

Many ways to have a good time

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

They have everything for you all to enjoy

You can hang out with all the guys

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

You can get a good dink, you can have a good drive

You can do what about you thrive

Player, are you listening to me? 

I said, Player, what do you want to be? 

I said, Player, you can make real your dreams

But you got to know this one thing

No banger does it all by himself

I said, Player, put your pride on the shelf

And just go there, to the Pickleball Courts

I'm sure they can help you today

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

They have everything for players to enjoy

You can hang out with all the boys 

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

You can let yourself dink, you can have a good drive 

You can do what about you thrive 

Player, I was once in your shoes

I said, I was down and out with the blues

I felt no one cared if I were alive

I felt the whole world was so tight 

That's when someone came up to me

And said, Player, take a walk up the street

There's a place there called the Pickleball Courts

They can start you back on your way

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

It's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

They have everything for players to enjoy

You can hang out with all the boys 

Pickleball Courts, you'll find it at the Pickleball Courts

Player, Player, there's no need to feel down

Player, Player, pick yourself off the ground

Pickleball Courts, it's fun to play at the Pickleball Courts

Player, Player, are you listening to me

Player, Player, what do you wanna be?

Pickleball Courts, you'll find it Pickleball Courts

No banger does it all by himself

Player, Player, put your pride on the shelf

Pickleball Courts, and just go to the Pickleball Courts

The GUP

Let me present another idea that Gregg Whitfield (see links previous post) brought to my attention, the idea that you want your opponent to hit from a low position.  

Let's think about that for a quick moment.  The concept is probably not new to you, think "hit to their feet"  and "a low dink is a good dink."

The power that comes from this is that our friendly opponent has to hit the ball upwards to clear the net.  If they don't do a good job with this shot, then we would smack it back to them on a downward trajectory.  Basically, once more, hitting to their feet.

How is this done on a general basis?  We want to target the depth of our shots to match the opponent's position.  That might be mid court or deep or even at the kitchen line.  We want the ball to bounce near that depth.

If you are like me, that generally means a shorter shot than you are used to hitting.  And it probably means a softer shot with less power than typical.  Gregg might mention another point, and that would be that some back spin would be ideal for its ability to control the shot and how difficult it is to return a back spun ball.  A shot with back spin will have a flatter trajectory than a top spin shot.

Back spin will tend to come off the paddle lower than no spin or a top spin shot.  Frequently a back spin shot is returned into the net.  It will also bounce lower than other spins, which helps with our interest in hitting a low shot.

Any short, soft shot will require our opponent to hit up on the ball.  We, of course, having hit a low shot, have our paddle up and ready to hit the next ball down into the court.

So, bottom line, on any shot, hit it so that the ball will bounce at the same depth or shallower than your opponent and don't worry about pace.  Then be ready to hit a high ball return!

An Informal Blocking Lesson

 As mentioned in an earlier post, I was invited to a drilling/playing session with Gregg Whitfield, the local pro at Cambria, CA.

We were hitting and then played some games with a emphasis of keeping the ball in play.

One of the deficiencies with my game is the tendency to hit the ball, rather than just block it back.  Swinging at a ball from the baseline is fine, but when moving in or at the kitchen line, the block is more controlling and accurate  -- or so I've been told, I've not actually tried it!

The technique is to hit the ball in front of your body, no swing, gentle hand to control power, and use the wrist to change ball direction.  The paddle face has to be open, aka facing the sky a bit, for all shots.  (Gregg mentioned to me was that even on a shot at my ankle, I was starting to roll it.  While a roll is a beautiful thing, it's maybe not proper for all occasions?)  You need to hit the ball very softly here.  The open paddle gets the ball over the net, but if you hit it hard you'll pop it up.  

What this added to my play, there were fewer net balls and fewer popups.  I was hitting dinks that were more difficult to attack, easier to control.  I was very happy with the shots.

I tried hitting blocks as a fifth shot from mid court.  I usually would roll these as deep as the opponents, but I tried to just push the ball back, not much swing and mostly block.  Most of those shots came back, but were not difficult for me to return.  Note that none of these shots went out, which is maybe the entire idea of all of this, keep the ball in play, hit a conservative shot, attack when it's obvious.

As  I read this over, I think the main point here to choose to block rather than to hit out on a lot more shots than I typically would.  The philosophy is to reduce errors of two types.  The first being to avoid hitting an out ball and the second avoiding a long swing that makes it more difficult to return to a ready position.

And second change to my game is to not roll the shots much.  I've played with these changes for three sessions and I've found then quite effective.  I think in the last session I didn't hit any ball hard.  My win rate was as good as I get and didn't lose any game that I shouldn't have.  And if Randy had been on his game...  (Kidding!)

Back at Cambria: As the session proceeded, there were four of us playing and with that style there were some long rallies.  I'd guess one was over 20 shots.  Ah, Gregg could have put a couple of balls away, but that wasn't the point.

Then practice ended and there were a few final games with one of the heavy hitters.  I played with Gregg against an intermediate player and the other advanced player.  I found the game much easier to play when I blocked than with my usual roll shots.  Progress was made!

I appreciate Gregg spending time and knowledge with me.  His YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/@greggwhitfieldpickleballsh8164

His main web site is:

https://www.pickleballshotsandstrategies.com/

Ruby Paddle

 There were a couple of players in Cambria who had the new Ruby paddle.

I am interested in this paddle as it's supposed to be very spinny which fits my "roll every ball at all costs" hitting style.  It also has a modified shape, not elongated, but long with some head spread at the top corners.  I had this shape with a couple of other paddles and liked it.  Rumor has it that this shape provides more sweet spot.  I'll do anything for more sweetspot.

I was able to try out the paddle and it is more spinny than my "illegal" Diadem Vice.

One of the nice parts of the Vice is that it's quite easy on my wrist and arm, both of which are always sore and unhappy.

The Ruby felt pretty nice too.  It wasn't harsh, felt soft enough and was poppy too.  

It wasn't as quiet as the Vice, but it wasn't too loud.  I could play with it.  I would enjoy the extra spin.

The handle was quite a bit thinner than the Vice.  It felt comfortable to me.  It maybe that I'm starting to hold the bat looser -- not sure, but it was noticeable and comfortable.

Gamesmanship or What Would You do?

 An interesting thing happened when I was watching the better players in Cambria.

The server, Mr. S, objected to where the receiver's partner, RP was standing.  RP was standing at the kitchen line with a foot in the service return area.

The Mr. S suggested that this was way to hinder the server from trying to hit the corner by the center of the court.

RP suggested that there was an attempt at a Nasty Nelson!  

The exchange got a bit heated and the receivers walked off the court, quitting the game.

Hmm, well that didn't go well on a number of levels.  Since this was a social game, I would have just moved over the from the T if asked.  But in a tournament setting, I would reserve the right to stand where ever I wanted.  At that point I guess the Nasty Nelson issue comes up.  I would see the NN to be a valid tournament shot and the person at the net needs to be paying attention.

Any thoughts out there?

Cambria Part One, Challenge Court Rules

 Hi All,

I've been in Cambria for the last 10 days and played at the local club four times.

They have six nice courts and if you are a member or pay the drop in fee ($3), you have exclusive use in the morning.  Afternoon is open to the public with no fees.

They have two of the six courts set up for challenge play.  The rules were interesting to me, as the question of what to do about differing skill levels comes up frequently.  On Sundays, all courts are challenge courts, though there is a upper skill versus not so upper set of courts.

Their rule is that the folks on the challenge courts (CC) are expecting a competitive game and no one is expected to take it easy on anyone.  With that in mind, all are welcome to play at any level.   I thought this was a good way to do it.  Folks can find a comfortable level and the good players don't have to be gentle souls if it conflicts with their core beliefs.  :-)

I played with the good players for about four games and found my game was not up to it.  I was invited to play as it was early and they needed a player.  We swapped partners every game and I was never on the winning side.  

The less skilled folks were below the typical Downs levels by a little bit.  I would have been happy to play somewhere between the two levels, but that game didn't exist.  But I was very happy to play with social folks and enjoyed the play level.  I played with a lot of folks across four days and probably three hours a day.  The club has a monthly fee of $10, which is what I paid.

On Wednesday they had a drilling group going and that sucked all the players from the social side.  I was about to go home, when I started to watch the local pro, Gregg Whitfield drilling a bit with his wife.  I had played a few times with Gregg in the advanced side.  He had also remarked on my "need" to roll all my shots and hinted that something better might be in order.

Gregg has a web site up and has some of his videos on YouTube.  His general approach is a defensive one, with control being a big part of how he plays.

I was invited into the drilling session.  Yeah for me!  They were working on blocks as a method for hitting about 80% of shots.  Now, I have long recognized my lacking in this area, so this opportunity was of great interest and value to me.  Which leads us to the next post as this one is long enough and I want to talk about some of technical details in my "lesson."

Cambria is a nice place and the PB makes it a good destination and chance to meet new folks.  I ran into several players around town in the course of the time there and it was nice to have a local connect.

One more point...  So Sundays are when the heavy hitters come from all over the county.  I wandered down to watch a bit.  It was a quiet day and not much action.  While I was hanging about, Rich Rutan and Ada show up!  I watched some of their games and they were quite competitive. 

OK, I'm going to work on the next couple of posts!

Odds and Ends

 I had an hour and was in San Ramon on a Monday morning.   I found the courts off of Alcosta Blvd.  They have four courts with lights and the same kind of fencing as found at the Downs, i.e., the aisles open for balls to run lengthwise.

I was in luck and they needed a fourth.  It was a beginners game and I was happy to bat it around with the folks.  Everyone was wonderfully friendly and we chatted a bit after the games.  They scattered and some of them were off to take lessons.  They had been playing for a year or so.  

They play Monday mornings around nine, so if you are in the area, it's a nice place to play with friendly folks.

I played the other day with a new partner and found it a struggle.  Partner was of reasonable skill level in terms of hitting the ball, but what was difficult for me was that he stayed on his side of the court.  Middle coverage is required by both players as the ball moves around.  I watched a pro match the other day and the players were shifting like little crabs and so quickly that I checked to make sure I was playing the video at normal speed.

There are a couple of PB techniques that I'm trying to incorporate into my game.  The big one is to try to hit balls from a small space around my body.  In other words move enough so that I am not stretching.  If I can get close to the ball there is more time to hit it and the stroke is much shorter.  I'm finding the accuracy and pace control is better with this.  The second item is when hitting drives from the kitchen line do not swing at the ball, just block it back.  My usual practice is to swing at it, which makes for a longer stroke with more difficult timing.  It also makes it more difficult to get back to "ready" if the shot comes back.  More on this in the upcoming Cambria post.

I think that's it.  The weather has been tough to get out and play.  The blog is not dead, but I really don't have much more to say.  Any suggestions, guest posts, etc., are welcome.

Grips - Both of them

 When we teach beginners, we suggest that the continental grip is the way to go.  Frequently I've seen players who come from tennis and have a stronger grip.

The continental grip (it used to be call "English" back in my tennis days, when rackets were wood and Jack Purcell shoes ruled.) -- think of shaking hands with the paddle.  Your first knuckle should be pretty much on the first flat area "down" from the top of the paddle.  When you hold the paddle out in front of you, its face will be perpendicular to the ground.

When you take the paddle back to hit a forehand, you will see that the face is now pointing skyward a bit, or open.  When you hit a ball, you'll need that openness to get the ball back at a good height to clear the net.

When you swivel around to hit a backhand, you'll find that the backhand paddle position is also open a bit.  Welcome and required for almost all shots.

And that is the magic of the continental grip, you don't have to adjust your grip as you go from forehand to backhand shots.  Where this is very evident and important is at the net when you get into a volley battle or speed up.  You don't have time to shift your grip.

Now, there is an advantage to having a western grip.  You can produce top spin more easily with it.  Top spin is a wonderful thing and I can understand the lust for more of it.  But let's talk about net play with this grip.

There are  a couple of good players with this grip who play at the Downs.

They hit a lot of net shots with a forehand because of the grip.  In fact they will attempt to hit all of the shots with the forehand.  You will see the forehand move from their right, to their shoulder, to above their head and then down to the left shoulder.  

If you use the "Normal" grip you would have changed over to a backhand when the ball gets to your backhand side.

But the strong gripper can't do it.  So there a point where they must switch, and it's low on the backhand side.  And they then have a paddle attitude problem, usually the paddle very open and if they don't hit the ball well, they will pop it up.

If you use a strong grip, you need to spend some time hitting backhands with it to avoid disasters.

Tip!  If you are playing in a tournament, you are of course looking for left handed players, but it's also useful to look at the grips they use.  If it's strong, expect a heavy top spin serve and ground strokes.  You'll want to play to their backhands and evaluate from there. 

Dinking Paddle Attitude

 I've gotten to practice dinking with Robo the last couple of weeks.  He has some back issues that preclude play, but dinking and such is fine.

Robo has a very nice dinking motion and he has a very open paddle face at impact.  Being of open mind and always willing to experiment a bit, I've adopted this style.

When I say "open face" that means the paddle face faces the sky.  A neutral face would be parallel to the net and closed would face the court surface.  Obviously if you are hitting a high shot towards someone's feet, the paddle is closed.  Most other shots require that the face be open.  This is due to having to lift the ball over the net.  A lot of shots are hit from below the net level, and this is when the open face is required.

Getting back to dinking...  Of course it is easy to get the ball over the net and hit it up to do that, but the big fear is hitting a pop up.  Surprisingly,  a face that is opened 45 degrees or more will produce less pop ups than expected.  I tend to put some cut on these shots, which reduces the efficiency of the strike, and out comes a soft, arcing shot, that doesn't carry very far.  Since it arcs quite high, it's very easy to get over the net.

Give this a try, it's made a large difference in my dinking game.  

Poaching The Third Shot Part II

 Let me finish up with describing a common scenario of the passing shot on your alley.

Let's assume that you took the last post to heart and you are now spending more time in the center of the court.  You are also providing a passing lane for your opponents.  

My solution to this is to play/hog/prioritize the center of the court until my opponent starts to hit passing shots.  When this starts to happen, the important question is how well can they do it?  It is not a large angle and they have to hit it with some pace or you can move back to the outside and defend it.

If they hit one in four attempts, I'm not going to move off the center.  I'm happy to take three points for every one I lose.  

But if the opponent is a tennis player and can hit that shot better than 50% of the time, then it's a bit more complex.

You can still move to the center and then move back when Op's head goes down - or at least be very expectant of the alley shot.

Most Ops will wind up when they are going to hit a hard third.  When you see this and you should be looking for it, you get into the ready position and get ready to... Duck!  Look for shots that will not stay in.  Unless the shot has top spin or hit close to the net, it's quite likely to go long.

The alley shot also requires some pace, so the wind up is your signal to cover the line a bit more.  About one less step the center is all that is required.  What is going to make you react quickly is that you are expecting a hard ball and it's likely it's coming down your alley.

The alley shots and the middle coverage thing can evolve into a cat and mouse type of battle.  You know, the Op knows, and the Op knows that you know, so there are some guesses and feinting going on as to who will do what.  These are fun points I think, and with the added middle coverage, make the game more interesting.

Thoughts on Poaching the Third Shot

Let's talk poaching of the third shot.  

A simple definition of a poach is a shot where you step in front of partner to intercept a ball.

Poaches are usually quite effective as they do three things.  They change the timing of a point.  A poacher will be taking time from the other team, though he is also taking time from his side too.

Secondly, a poach is usually done close to the kitchen line and if the ball is high enough, it's easy to sharply angle the shot.

Thirdly, if you poach, you provide your partner with some time to continue to the KL.  

The typical situations where poaches are expected are to hit the third shot, in dinking battles, any time the ball gets lofted and you and partner are separated in the net to baseline direction.

 I was going to go on at some length, but let me concentrate on the third shot poach.  This scenario is a frequent and important part of playing at any level.  I would make the case that Ernies and excessive poaching might not belong in rec games below 4+, but the third shot poach is fine, neh, required and expected at all levels.

So, assume you are at the net and partner is returning the serve.  If you look up "really good places to place the second shot" you will see that the "book" location is to the center side of the server.  If the server is right handed this will be his backhand.

There are good reasons to return to this area. it doesn't provide an easily angled third shot, it's usually to the server's backhand, and there is a good amount of court depth there to either hit the ball deep or low and soft.  Of course, the opponents may have trouble deciding who will return that shot, an added bonus.

The service ball is going back to the middle of the court and you, at the net, are looking something to do.  In my life philosophy, the guy at the net is responsible for middle shots.  It doesn't matter if they will have to hit it with a backhand, they are up there and don't have to move much to return any middle shot.  So they should be looking for it and they should be moving towards or onto the center line.

The key to hit this shot well, is to move your feet and be in a good stable position when the ball comes over the net.  The big problem I see is that the poacher will take one step and then stretch to hit the ball.  This leads to missed shots and bad hits.  It's important to understand that this shot is yours and you need to fully move to hit it.

I've had this conversation with a lot of partners and my line has been, "I have no problem with you taking that shot, but you need to fully step over and hit it."  I would probably change that to, "That's your shot, I'm expected you to hit it, move  all the way over and do it justice!"  

Where should the poach be hit?  I don't have any wisdom to pass on in re that topic.  I don't think it matters much.  Obviously if you can keep the opponents deep in the court while your side rules the net, that's the traditional strategy.  But angling the ball off or hitting a dink or angled shot is probably also effective.  But what you want to avoid is a middle ball getting to the service returner or, worse, hitting the third shot into the net.

This poach is most effective against a hard shot from the servers.  It is not as important if they drop the third shot.  

A lot of what happens at the third shot and what I'm describing here assumes that your partner was on the way to the kitchen line, as they should be regardless of the quality of their second shot.

There are other poaching scenarios, but for the sake of keeping this shortish, I'll forego that for time being.  I've been negligent in writing at all for a while and I'm trying to recover some enthusiasm!

Wrist Stiffness During a Shot

 I watched a YouTube video on dinking and how specifically to do the backhand dink.  I'm aways open to another view on technique and took a look.

The recipe was to lock the wrist joint and then move your arm in a horizontal motion with the paddle going toward the target.

If you want to produce top spin, then you move the arm more vertically.

They didn't mention back spin, we can assume that that motion will be more vertically, but starting from a high point and swinging downward.

I have no problem with the advise in this video and agree with all of it.  What I found useful was the idea of locking the wrist.  This is not news per se, but these things are always useful to think about because as recreational players, a bit of reminders of good practice are useful.  It's easy to fall into bad habits.  And things that work at one skill level may not work at another.

As some of you know, I fighting a lot of wrist and arm pain.  I thought that locking my wrist a bit more might help.  So today I warmed up dinking with a firm wrist and found it fundamentally useful with nice solid, controlled strikes.

Then as I was moving back from the kitchen line, I kept the stiff wrist as an experiment.  I found that worked pretty well too.  

Rackquet ballers like to flick the wrist for most shots.  There are times when this is perfect for PB, but other times when it's wrong or makes a short more difficult, for example dinks.

Where to Hit the Ball

Hi all,

Sorry for the long time period between posts.  I've not stumbled across any new thoughts and old thoughts, already written, are boring!  So here are a couple of things that popped up recently.  Maybe they will provide succor!

Rich

 While I've been trying to play with a very sore forearm, I've realized that there are a couple of swing changes that create no additional arm pain.

If I keep my right elbow close to my body and then use a torso motion to hit the ball I can take any strain off of my arm and hit the ball very solidly.

-----

When I noticed this, I realized that a lot of ground strokes and serves were solid and consistent if I got close to the ball and then did more arm than body.  The key being that the arm is not extended far from the torso.

Another note about serves...  I like to see a small step with the left leg, then a motion to hit the ball (assumes right handed serve).  When I teach the classes, I suggest this.  Now, where should the ball physically be when you are hitting it?  I would suggest that it is inside the left knee and fairly close to the body.  The error is to have it too much in front of you (towards your target).  You don't want to be reaching for it.  It also needs to be fairly low, as the service stroke is upward in motion, so if the ball is low, it's easy to hit it upwards.   It's basically in the way of the swing path.

I think a lot of service errors come from dropping the ball too far in front of your swing path, stretching to hit it and then hitting a serve higher than it needs to be.  Also it's difficult to get reasonable spin on the ball if it's too far in front of you, because spin is created by brushing against the ball with a bent wrist.  An arm reach with a bent wrist is shorter than a straight wrist...

-----

This works well with ground strokes and dinks too.  The problem is that it requires a lot of foot movement to get your body close to the ball.  When you can, there are a lot of advantages to it.  Emulate the pros, who always move their feet except when hitting a shot!

-----

Dinking...  I've been testing a dink where I don't move the paddle towards the net, but only vertically.  The face must be open.  I think this has been written in the blog before.  I was watching the mixed doubles match with Johns, Waters, Bright and Ignatawitz.  This stroke was in evidence there too.  It creates a soft shot with a modest amount of top spin.  It also keeps your arm close to your body.  That's useful for quickly getting back into the ready position.

-----

Played a few games last week with some new (to me) players from Pleasanton.  They were good players, but didn't dink.  If you dinked, they would hit.  This is not my favorite style of play and with a sore arm, I really do not enjoy backhand blocks.  What is a good answer to this?  Call the PB Police and have them escorted off the court, or don't play with them, or get ready to block after every dink.  I'm still thinking these choices over.

4.5 Games

It's national pickleball day and I thought a blog post would be appropriate.  Here are some thoughts that I've had lately.

 

A couple of days ago I was just minding my usual business and playing in the 3.5 to 4.0 arena at the Downs, basically where I belong.  But the day's play was winding down and I found myself part of the 4.5 crowd.

And basically got my hat handed to me every game.  I've thought about those three games for a couple of days.  There are some lessons to be learned here and hopefully I'll be a better player for it.

What are the differences between the 4.5 folk and us lower players? 

Their court coverage was very good.  It was hard to hit a ball that they couldn't hit back.

Consistency, firefights were fine and I can usually hold my own, but these typically went beyond my ability to get the ball back.  Why?  Good question.  Maybe I'm just not fast enough, or my strokes are too long and I'm not getting back to a good ready position every time.  If my limit was three shots, their limit was four or five and I didn't win a lot of mano a mano battles.  Resetting means getting back into a balanced position too.

Accuracy, a lot of shots were hitting lines for winners.  There was a lot of play on the edges of the court rather than the middle.  What to do about that?  I've considered the possibility that I'm getting caught moving and then they can hit the ball behind me.  That, if true, would suggest that I want to stop earlier and be ready for side and middle shots.  I'm not sure about this theory.  It might be better for me to cover the line fully and trust partner to watch the middle.  I'm leaning to this theory as a better one.  As per the last post about middle coverage, it requires a partner who does this.

An example of this last point.  It was a dinking battle and I hit what I thought was a good dink, in the middle and fairly low.  Noah easily puts it away through the middle.  I mentioned the quality of the dink and was surprised how easily it was exploited.  I was assured by the opposition that the dink was fine, but Vince suggested that Scott and I were setup too far apart and thus the middle coverage was insufficient.  

All of this leads to a different model for court coverage.  The two players stay close enough to overlap paddles in the middle.  And they will move in tandem for all points from side to side.  I've play some with Angel and noticed that he and I were very close together during the play.  This requires a good partner and very active movement.

I think they hit the ball harder, but I don't remember that it was a factor.  It might be that they are hitting balls at a comfortable pace and trading speed for accuracy.  Did I mention how many lines were hit?  

I think that's about it.  And as I look back on the prior text, this post ends up back where many posts dwell, that being movement and court coverage.  

Playing at these levels, you have to have a partner who is playing this same style.  And with that partner, you have to trust them to take middle shots and such, rather than stretching for a middle ball.  

I appreciate playing in these games, but not being particularly competitive makes more of a grind than a fun time.  I also feel I'm letting down my partner by not being up the task.

Things to work on: getting ready for shots earlier, making sure my paddle ready position is good, make sure my strokes are short in order to reset the paddle quickly, better court coverage of the lines, stay closer to partner, and moving more for all shots.

Middle Coverage - A New Take

 Middle coverage has been an ongoing topic in the blog.  I make most of my PB money by hitting the ball in the middle.  Someone on your team (making it more personal, ;-)) has to be prepared for the middle ball at all times.

However, there are times when you don't want to cover the middle.  As a partner of mine said during a point last week, "Sorry for that, I forgot who (sic) I was playing with."

We shall ignore case and word order for the moment and talk about the "that" portion of the quote.

The main idea is that there is responsibility for the middle and there is an important case that's not been mentioned in the blog and I've not seen it anywhere else.  If both partners are at the same depth in the court, then middle responsibility depends on from where the next ball will be coming.  For example, if the ball is on your right side of the court, both players should (must) shift towards the right and the middle of the court should be covered by the team mate on the left.  If the ball comes into the middle and is easily in reach of the right most person, then they should both feel free to take it on.  More on this later.

But the case where the team is split, one up and one back, is different.  Assume we still have a shot to the right.  let me talk about something else here.  If you as a team are split, then you want to play the ball towards the opponent who is in front of the forward team mate -- don't hit it cross court!  So if your side is staggered with the forward player on the right, then you really, really want to only play to the right.  Because if you play left, the broad alley between your side is exposed to a cross court shot -- point over.  This is important.

Assume you've done this correctly, so the ball will be returned from in front of the forward player (FP).  The FP should slide some to cover the down the line shot.  And the back player, BP, needs to cover the middle.  However, due to the angles involved, the BP usually doesn't need to move much to the middle, though may need to move more into the court.  Note that there is a coverage angle (or shadow) from the FP that is in play.

Now, we come to the important bit.  The FP should be very leery of stretching to hit a middle ball.  Let the back player handle it.  Because of the BP's location, they have more time to properly return that ball.  The rule is: do not stretch in front of your partner.

When you've reached a certain level of play, you will have the ability to stretch those arms, move the feet a bit and can reach shots that beginners will just watch fly by.  The next skill to develop, is when not to go for those marginal shots.  And that is when partner is/will be/should cover the ball.  And to be redundant a bit, it's usually when you've advanced ahead of partner.

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A Couple of Things from Today's Play

 Item One:

My partner served from the left court.  The service return came slightly to my side.  It was mishit and popped up and it was going to bounce about middle of the transition area and bounce high.  There was no confusion about who would take the shot and I moved to hit a forehand.

The opponent was a couple of steps into the court from the baseline.  He is a reasonable player and if his return were deeper he would have advanced all the way to the kitchen.  

I was able to hit the shot I wanted, not very hard, but it landing just outside of his backhand foot and he wasn't able to return it.  So, end of point.

He asked about what he could have done with the point.  It was a good question and I hadn't thought much about it.  My answer was that since his shot was pretty weak, he would be better placed to stay fully back, or to make sure he was in a very low crouch as that was the likely location of the shot.  Staying upright was wrong as the ball has to be hit quite low to stay in the court.  Whether he could play the shot well from a low position is another question, but he would have had a better chance.

Rather than retreating, how about coming in deeper and trying for a volley?  With his shot short and bouncing high, I think that would a more difficult shot to return.  He would have less time, though the shot might have been higher in the air and easier to hit.

Let's think about a different service return that might be short, but was not going to bounce very high.  This is actually an effective return as the ball has to be hit upwards to clear the net.  With that return, I like the play of moving in aggressively and looking for volley and perhaps a put away if the third shot is poor.

"If the ball will bounce high, stay back.  If it's going to be low, then come on in."

Item Two

I played with a couple that were new to the game.  There were some tennis skills there and there could some very nice shots.  The problem was they didn't know how to play pickleball.  Where to stand and where to move were unknown to them.  So, basic knowledge of the differences between PB and tennis were the missing element.  

On the good side, their ability to hit the ball will allow them to get pretty good quickly.  

Some of the commentators on the pro matches have mentioned the transition of pro tennis players to pro PB and have talked about this.  

There is enough material in positional play for a full class.  It not too complex, but there are some patterns and situations that are not obvious.  Good play also requires both players to be aware of the same things.   I'm reminded of Angel discussing these things for multiple hours with his partner.  The curious reader will find a lot of info on this in prior posts.  :-)