Transitioning to a Better Game

 I watched a match at the Downs on Monday.  It was Jimmy and Sammy against Roger and Puneet.  On paper I would see this as a very even match.  There are some style differences between the players, but all of them are good players and not prone to excessive errors.  Both teams did some banging to start the game...

Jimmy's team builds rather quickly to a 5-0 lead.  Sammy and Jimmy tend to speed up play and they are doing it well.

But then Puneet starts to hit drop thirds instead of the drives that everyone else had been using.

Well, that changed the game completely.  The ability of Jimmy and Sammy to speed up was suppressed and they were forced to hit more touch shots and dinks.  More errors were committed and in short order, the score was tied.  It didn't take much longer and Puneet and Roger ended up winning by 11-8 or so.  Good play by Puneet to shift the speed of the points.

The solution to the puzzle was the soft game, which took away the main weapons of the other side.  Banging and speed ups work up to certain levels and after that you have problems.  As all skill levels rise, then counter attacks are more routine and being selective is more important than being aggressive.

Fast forward to Wednesday.  I'm playing and there is a lot of dinking.  Everyone is about the same skill level and I'm doing my usual speedy roll stuff but more balls are coming back than I'd like.  It was clearly another case of dink first, dink second, wait for an opening, and then selectively try for winners or faster shots.

As I mentioned in the post about style of play, this style is my favorite.  I like the dinking and the selective speed ups.  What I didn't like was my inability to be more selective as to when I did it.  Bad player!   I thought of playing a game and doing nothing but dinking.  I didn't try it, but I thought it might be worth a doing.

The bottom line on this is, that after a certain level of ability, you have to embrace the soft game or you are going to start losing.  There are upsides to being selective, your paddles will last longer, shoes stay cooler, you sweat less, and you don't have to run as much.