Court Coverage

 I was playing today and watched a number of opponents move apart as they prepared for a return shot.  The usual movement was each moved up the center of their respective service box and often deliberately moved apart to do it.

This is the exact wrong thing to do.  And as I saw this I thought about court coverage in general.  We don't mention it in pickleball 101 lessons nor in the Skills and Drills classes.  Beginners and intermediate players seem lacking in what they should be doing.  Let's take a look in some detail.

Firstly, you don't want to cover the entire court.  The court is big enough that you really can't do it.  Even the pros don't cover it all and they have the quickness of the proverbial cat.

Secondly, you can and should cover about two thirds of the court.  And you and your partner must form a solid wall of coverage.  Which means that the middle is well covered.  The middle is defined as that space between you and partner.  It will move.  You must have coverage overlap in the middle.

The full width of the court is 20 feet and I've declared that you can cover about 12 feet of that, which leaves about 8 feet open for a target for your opponents.  And I'm absolutely sure that you want none of that 8 foot area between you.  So we provide a single alley for the opponents.

So where is this alley?  You want to provide it as a single cross court shot, or as two narrow cross court shots.  

Let me explain.  There are two cases you must understand.  Either the opponents are hitting from the middle of their court or from a sideline.  The sideline case is easier.  One defender must cover enough of the sideline to make it a difficult shot.  So you or your partner slides almost to the sideline and is directly in front of the guy about to hit the ball.  The other player will be in the middle of the court.  Which leaves a cross court shot which has no immediate defender.  Or does it?  Think about that cross court shot.  The outer sideline is only a few feet away and it's only a very good shot that crosses the width of the court and stays in bounds.  Let the opponents try for that.  Ha!

The only other case is when the ball will be hit from the middle of the court.  You and your partner will be defending the middle of the court and allow an opening to both sides of just a few feet.  You will have both paddles able to return an middle shot.  And this is the same case, if your opponents can hit a perfect shot that stays in, you are probably playing in the wrong game.  If they hit it up the middle you will have a good chance to return it and should certainly get a paddle on it.  

And this is 90% of playing pickleball.  You and your partner cover the percentage shots of the opponents and allow them open alleys to very difficult shots.  Note that a lot of those will go out and if they hit marginal shots you may be able to move into the alley to hit them.  As the ball moves around the opponents' court, you and your partner will adjust your defensive wall to block their easy shots.  Simple game really...

Pro Tip: if you play as advised above, you will observe that every opponent has shots that they like to hit.  Sometimes those are drives or cross court shots, or even, and you might not believe this, lobs!  As you play the opponents you want to sucker them into hitting their favorite shot and as soon as their head goes down to hit it, you can adjust your position to counter it.  It becomes a bit of cat and mouse and you'll soon be playing the player and not the ball.