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.