A Useful Observation or Two or Three

 So I'm playing a couple of days ago, when the courts were dry and God was in his heaven and the bodily heat rose as energy was expended in diligent play.  Ah, what a memory.

I'm play with the other Rich and we are up against some younger, more active, and, er, more bangy players.

We were holding our own and we played two games and split on scores.  Both game went beyond 11 as I recall.  So it's tight and the scoring and points went back and forth.  It was tougher to score than to return and win points on their service.  That's a built in feature of the game and the two bounce rule and I find that a feature.

As mentioned the others were more bangy that we were and when they could hit the hard shots, they were effective.

A lot of points got all parties to the net.  Pop ups were dealt with quickly and precision was the name of the game.

There were two items that presented themselves to me while playing and the first was when the others banged the ball, they were hitting a lot of them out.  A lot of them.  It might easily been 50% or so.  But the problem is that when you are  defending from the kitchen line, letting balls go that are coming in very hard but not necessarily high above the net, is difficult to do.  Your paddle is up and you are trying to return everything.  However a better "ready mode" is one that evaluates any hard ball and decides to let it go.   (You may need to duck too!)

When someone is about to hit it hard, they almost always will telegraph the bigger swing.  Watch the windups and length of backswing for these tells.  

Another important parameter in judging an out ball, is from where was it hit?  It they hit it below the net level, there is a much better chance it's going long.  Any ground strokes where the paddle is below the waist is another clue.  Finally, watch the spin.  If the ball has little top spin and is hit hard, it's probably going long.

I've mentioned in prior posts that looking and expecting out balls is a useful skill.  You can get a good feel for this frequency by watching other matches and see how many were going out and yet were played.

There was one more error that Rich and I were making and I didn't recognize it until the third game.  And that was center coverage.  In the third game, I was deliberate in spending a lot of time straddling the center line.  If not on it, then certainly shifted up to it.  Even with a very good partner, the center of the court needs to be covered thoroughly and I would suggest the even division or symmetrical positioning of defensive coverage is not the best way to play.  

Having one player squeezed towards a sideline and the other on the center is, IMHO, the way to play.  The players will alternate the center coverage based on from where the next ball is coming.  Another advantage of this coverage is that the down the line shot is fully defended.  (Random thought, you might not know where the next ball is going, but you know for sure, where it's coming from...)

This coverage is easily done if when you advance to the kitchen, usually after a service return, you move up and towards the ball, with the moving towards the ball being the important part.  Both defenders of the third shot will shift as required.  There should be a full overlap in the area between the players.  And thus effectively the down the line and the middle shot have been fully armored against attack.  Yes, the far sideline is deliberately left open for the perfect, semi-soft shot, but that's a more than reasonable price to pay.  If they can beat you there, you were not beating them with conventional defense.