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.  :-)

Net Purchase

 I just bought a net from PickleballCentral.  They had a sale and I also used the TriValley Pickleball Club discount!  

The price was just a couple of dollars short of $200, delivered.

This is the middle net in re cost of the nets that were available.  The Swift net, which I've used and liked, as about $360 or so.  Here is the link for the one I ordered: https://pickleballcentral.com/rally-deluxe-portable-net-system/

As you will note, the is the "deluxe" version of the rally nets.  They have a couple of them.  

What is interesting about this net is that the tubes are oval, not round and are very heavy in weight and construction.  This is not a light net.  That makes it more of a burden to schlepp it, but ought to stand up to play and wind better.  

The issue I have with all the nets is the top wire and lack of wire on the nets.  This allows a lot of balls to hit the net and come over, thus rewarding bad shots.  Since hitting the ball hard will exacerbate this tendency, that promotes an "improper" style of play.  The solution to this is to elevate the net level above the official 34 inches to reject some of the balls that would have been stopped by a better top net edge.

I took a close look at the net as I wanted to put my own cord through it and add a means to tighten it to the side posts.  This net is fully sewn shut and there is no way to thread a cord unless I want to do some cutting.  I'll let that slide for the moment and see how it plays as is.

The tubes are about twice the weight of the round ones.  The center structure has a small piece to support the middle of the frame.  It looks like this will clip to the frame and doesn't have to be threaded onto a tube.  The center stick is not a rod, but more like a yard stick.  I've seen this on other nets, but have no experience with them.  I do like that it's sturdier.

The final issue is how tight the net can be stretched.  The vertical side posts are also oval and are aligned so that the long axis of the oval tube is on the place of the net.  Which should provide a solid foundation to tighten the net.  I'll add some markings or tape to allow easy location of the top level of the net connections at the preferred height.  

That's all I know for now.  It's yet to be setup or played on.  If there is any new information about that, I'll either edit this or create a new post.

Shot Selections

 I played with one of the intermediate players the other day, with whom I've never played before.  His shot selection was very different than mine.  I'm not saying worse, but different.

This is a topic that worthy of discussion.  Some of it comes down to style and what shots you're comfortable hitting, which probably means the ones you expect to return some value and not go out. 

I've touched on this before.  I see a lot of shots that would win the point, but go wide, which is fine for me, but not good for the guy that hit them.  First principle is make sure the ball is going to go in.  (I will digress a bit for the sake of completeness -- there are a lot of situations where your opponent is not in a good position to judge whether a ball is going out and if you recognize those conditions you can deliberately hit a ball that is not going to stay in, but you expect your opponent will have to hit it.  A lot of hard shots at someone in the transition area come to mind and a player a step or two into the court will swing at everything that is close.  I not studied it much, but this seems to be a useful area of understanding.  Perhaps another post down the line.)

Second suggestion would be to hit a shot that is safe.  Dinks that are deep in the kitchen (close to the net) can't be attacked effectively.    Also on service returns, a low shot that lands mid-court is usually a good one especially between opponents who may fight over the ball.

Third shots...  I will drop almost all the time.  That is my style and the game I like to play.  Not everyone plays like this -- shocking, I know.  My partner for this occasion, liked the third shot lob and he hit few of them.  That shot would never occur to me.  It was reasonably effective, but since it was done from deep in the court, the opponents had no problems chasing them down.  They didn't hit winners off the lobs, but I don't know if they allowed us to get to the kitchen either.  The shot selection was more a surprise to me than anything else.  I clearly don't have enough imagination for this game.

Generally, one of the other situations that I find a dink to be "the proper shot," is from near the kitchen line but not at it.  Or even from the kitchen line when partner is not at the kitchen line.  I see the dink as a tool to get to parity and it seems if the team is not at kitchen line, and I mean both players, then you are still at a disadvantage and a good dink is an effective way to achieve parity.

One other situation comes up on every point and that is where to hit the second shot.  The traditional target is a touch left of center and deep.  I have nothing against this target and I use it almost always.  There is another thought here.  Suppose a team decides to try and split the opponents - a worthy goal -- and to do that, hit the second shot to a sideline.  

A sideline shot requires that your team shift towards the sideline in question.  The down the line shot has to be fully covered and the other player needs to cover the middle and that usually means straddling the T at the kitchen line.  Yes, this opens up a cross court shot to the far sideline, but there is not much depth there as the sideline is at an angle to the shot.  It would also be a longer shot; if it's hard, it goes out and difficult to execute, all of which means it is not something to worry about excessively.

So the second shot is to the sideline and where will the third shot go?  The idea here is that angles may be opened that you wouldn't get from a center shot.  There are many choices.  You can drive the next shots deep into the same corner, or start moving the opponents back and forth, which may create a middle space if the opponents don't shift back to cover it.  I would expect that good partnerships will have discussed this sequence and maybe on a game by game basis if they are seeking to pound a single player exclusively.

Note that as the shots change from sideline to sideline, both of the teams need to adjust coverage.  If you watch the pros, they are always moving and shifting positions.

Also a fourth or sixth shot that is mid court and low may often be popped up and can be swatted away at an angle.  This would be the optimum condition.

I watched a couple of games looking for this variation.  The sideline shot was quite effective by itself, I didn't a lot of shifting by the receivers to take advantage of angle.  It wasn't needed much actually.  It didn't come up much and I'd like to see more of these points to evaluate its effectiveness.