Post 55, Hard versus Soft Shots - The Value of Moderate Pace

 I'm playing on one of the last days of the year.  The opposition was reasonable, but as it turned out the game score was quite uneven.  As I thought about that, it seemed to me that the opponents were hitting the ball too hard and that led to their missing shots, and partner and I were able to counter hit most of the hard ones.

There were few dinking points; another symptom of hitting the ball too hard.  

A generalized rule of thumb came to me.  It has some caveats, but I suggest this:

Don't hit the ball hard unless you can hit down into the court

Exceptions: I'm willing to leave serves out of that as long as you always get them in play.  If not, then you are hitting them too hard, too.

How about third shot drives?  Well, I've seen a lot of them hit out too and if you are hitting them to a person waiting to duck, you're probably in trouble.  Hard third shots that hit the net are a real thing too...

The one exception is when trying to hit a ball with a lot of top spin, you might have to generate a lot swing speed.  Note that the ball might not be moving real fast as you are trading spin for speed.

So much for exceptions, let's look at a generalized point.

Serve: get it in - servers stay back

Service return: get it in - move to KL

3rd shot: either drop or drive - move in a step or two

4th shot: moderate pace, keep it/them deep or if they are up, dink

5th shot: if not at the KL, then a softer shot that allows forward movement.

6th shots and beyond: If no one has erred, then let the dinking begin.  Obviously almost all soft shots.

Where are the shots struck with pace?  I don't see a place for them through the "get to the net" area of a point.  

Then everyone dinks and errors are greeted with a speed up, counter hit, reset, errors...

Now a quick word on hitting down into the court.  We want to hit popups hard and since they are close to the net the angle available for a good shot is at its most generous.  As you move back from the KL, the angle shrinks and the space between the net and the back line gets smaller.

That basically leaves overheads.  If you played tennis, probably an easy shot and you won't think about letting them drop.  The higher above the net you can hit the ball, the better the angles.  Letting it drop and then whacking it is a tradeoff between angles and ease of shot.  But if you want to hit this shot hard, I have no real problem.  Note that even the best will miss them on occasion.

Speed up counter shots are a topic on their own.  I like more of a block than a counter hit, but I'm not a good enough player to slow down the shots I'd like to.  What I do see is that a sped up ball tends to keep accelerating until there is a miss of some kind, net or long or body shot.  A reset is a real nice shot to have, bit tough to do with all the adrenaline flowing.  Something upon which to work.

Update:  I played today in the rain and was interested in not slipping and breaking something.  I also tried to hit the ball with a moderate pace, even at times when it would have been an easy shot to hit it hard.  I enjoyed the points more, the rallies were longer, movement and shot selection became more important, all in all a nice way to play the game.  Give it a try.