Poaching The Third Shot Part II

 Let me finish up with describing a common scenario of the passing shot on your alley.

Let's assume that you took the last post to heart and you are now spending more time in the center of the court.  You are also providing a passing lane for your opponents.  

My solution to this is to play/hog/prioritize the center of the court until my opponent starts to hit passing shots.  When this starts to happen, the important question is how well can they do it?  It is not a large angle and they have to hit it with some pace or you can move back to the outside and defend it.

If they hit one in four attempts, I'm not going to move off the center.  I'm happy to take three points for every one I lose.  

But if the opponent is a tennis player and can hit that shot better than 50% of the time, then it's a bit more complex.

You can still move to the center and then move back when Op's head goes down - or at least be very expectant of the alley shot.

Most Ops will wind up when they are going to hit a hard third.  When you see this and you should be looking for it, you get into the ready position and get ready to... Duck!  Look for shots that will not stay in.  Unless the shot has top spin or hit close to the net, it's quite likely to go long.

The alley shot also requires some pace, so the wind up is your signal to cover the line a bit more.  About one less step the center is all that is required.  What is going to make you react quickly is that you are expecting a hard ball and it's likely it's coming down your alley.

The alley shots and the middle coverage thing can evolve into a cat and mouse type of battle.  You know, the Op knows, and the Op knows that you know, so there are some guesses and feinting going on as to who will do what.  These are fun points I think, and with the added middle coverage, make the game more interesting.

Thoughts on Poaching the Third Shot

Let's talk poaching of the third shot.  

A simple definition of a poach is a shot where you step in front of partner to intercept a ball.

Poaches are usually quite effective as they do three things.  They change the timing of a point.  A poacher will be taking time from the other team, though he is also taking time from his side too.

Secondly, a poach is usually done close to the kitchen line and if the ball is high enough, it's easy to sharply angle the shot.

Thirdly, if you poach, you provide your partner with some time to continue to the KL.  

The typical situations where poaches are expected are to hit the third shot, in dinking battles, any time the ball gets lofted and you and partner are separated in the net to baseline direction.

 I was going to go on at some length, but let me concentrate on the third shot poach.  This scenario is a frequent and important part of playing at any level.  I would make the case that Ernies and excessive poaching might not belong in rec games below 4+, but the third shot poach is fine, neh, required and expected at all levels.

So, assume you are at the net and partner is returning the serve.  If you look up "really good places to place the second shot" you will see that the "book" location is to the center side of the server.  If the server is right handed this will be his backhand.

There are good reasons to return to this area. it doesn't provide an easily angled third shot, it's usually to the server's backhand, and there is a good amount of court depth there to either hit the ball deep or low and soft.  Of course, the opponents may have trouble deciding who will return that shot, an added bonus.

The service ball is going back to the middle of the court and you, at the net, are looking something to do.  In my life philosophy, the guy at the net is responsible for middle shots.  It doesn't matter if they will have to hit it with a backhand, they are up there and don't have to move much to return any middle shot.  So they should be looking for it and they should be moving towards or onto the center line.

The key to hit this shot well, is to move your feet and be in a good stable position when the ball comes over the net.  The big problem I see is that the poacher will take one step and then stretch to hit the ball.  This leads to missed shots and bad hits.  It's important to understand that this shot is yours and you need to fully move to hit it.

I've had this conversation with a lot of partners and my line has been, "I have no problem with you taking that shot, but you need to fully step over and hit it."  I would probably change that to, "That's your shot, I'm expected you to hit it, move  all the way over and do it justice!"  

Where should the poach be hit?  I don't have any wisdom to pass on in re that topic.  I don't think it matters much.  Obviously if you can keep the opponents deep in the court while your side rules the net, that's the traditional strategy.  But angling the ball off or hitting a dink or angled shot is probably also effective.  But what you want to avoid is a middle ball getting to the service returner or, worse, hitting the third shot into the net.

This poach is most effective against a hard shot from the servers.  It is not as important if they drop the third shot.  

A lot of what happens at the third shot and what I'm describing here assumes that your partner was on the way to the kitchen line, as they should be regardless of the quality of their second shot.

There are other poaching scenarios, but for the sake of keeping this shortish, I'll forego that for time being.  I've been negligent in writing at all for a while and I'm trying to recover some enthusiasm!