Protecting Partner - Play of the Third Point

There is a link to a John Cincola video below.  He talks about the play of the third shot.

He characterizes the play as "being a way to protect your partner" and "being a good partner."  Those are accurate descriptions, but I like to think of it as "blocking the shot your opponents want to hit."

I'm going to talk about how act when your partner is going to hit the third shot.  I've written about this before and my thinking has been in flux, but I've come to a conclusion and it matches what Cincola says.  I think I'm on solid ground here.  :-)

But John has a method and I think it's a great starting point with much flexibility.  OK, enough introduction, let's set the scene and run through the three cases.

General Setting: you are on the left of the court and the ball is coming to your partner to hit the third shot.  We will talk about what you should be doing.

John's rule of thumb: 

    Step ahead of partner by two or three steps forward and also one step closer to the center line and then stop.

    Rotate your feet a bit so that you can easily watch partner hit the ball.

    Case 1: best case, partner hits a good drop cross court in front of you.  You continue to advance to the kitchen line and be prepared to block a shot that will go through the middle of the court and at partner's feet.

    Case 2: Partner hits a bad drop shot, i.e., one that's too deep.  You take a step backwards and get ready to defend a shot at your feet.

    Case 3: Partner drives the third.  You want to face the player hitting the fourth shot, but you don't want to advance nor retreat.  But split step and be ready to defend or pounce depending on what the opponents do.

And that's about it.  You assume a moderately aggressive position, favor the middle a bit and then depending on partner's shot quality, you will stay, advance, or retreat.

What you don't do, is to advance all the way up to the kitchen before you assess the quality of your partner's shot.  This is a very common play of aggressive intermediate players.  It works well in most games, but it won't work as the skill levels get better.

And, worst of all, you don't sit back on the baseline and see what's going to happen.  PB is about moving to the kitchen and the third shot and how you play it is vital to the serving team.

I mentioned that I thought/think of this as blocking opponents' best shot.  And that usually means getting in as far as possible and blocking the direction of the shot that the opponents would like to hit.  This is usually at the feet of the player further back in the court.  Doing this makes the opponents do things they would prefer not to, for example trying to hit a sideline instead of a high percentage middle shot.  

Here is the link to John Cincola's video.  He has a lot of videos on YouTube and the content and delivery is very good, highly recommended.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swTf6jMACgQ

The Eight Actions of Good Players

 I don't think that PB is an incredibly complex sport that requires years of base knowledge to play well.  Its charm is that it's fairly simple.  But there are things that you must do as you play in better games.  Allow me to regal you with eight simple tasks -- know them and improve!

One: When you or your partner are serving, you stay behind the baseline and look for clues as to the quality/depth of the second shot.  You will not automatically advance into the court, unless your opponents are weak armed beginners, or there is a very strong wind at your back.

Two: when your partner is receiving the serve, you will be on station, fairly close to the center line, but faced a bit towards the active service court, to call out shots for your partner.  See item six, too.

Three: when returning a serve, you will proceed to the kitchenline every time -- maybe you'll not be able to get there, but you will advance as far as you should.  You want to be stopped and split stepped before the opponents return the third shot.  So if you are slow, then stop earlier; if you can sprint, then do that.  It's more important to be ready than all the way up.  It is, however, very bad not to advance into the court.  (My pet peeve.)

Four: Always get your serves in.  Aim for the middle of the service court.

Five: If you hit a short or drop shot or any shot that will bounce, always advance into the court.  You've hit a good shot, and you must advance to take advantage of that.  If you stay back the opponents will have the advantage.

Six: The closer you get to the kitchenline, the higher you must hold your paddle.  Having it near your feet is good when you are near the baseline.  At the kitchen, it must be held above the net height.

Seven: When your partner returns the serve, always move to cover the middle of the court.  This is a main responsibility of the player who starts at the kitchenline.  Note that there is only one player who starts there, though in a good game everyone will end up there.

Eight: Hitting a shot in the court softly is much more effective than hitting one into the back fence.  Though in a high level game, trying to body bag your opponent is often necessary.

I would add a couple more to this list, but in my opinion, I would expect a good partner to do all of the above, every point.  This is not 5.0 stuff, it's 3.8 stuff and at that level expected by all the players.

Note that none of the above is hard to do, it's almost all about moving to field the next shot.  Or, as in item one, it's about not moving to the wrong spot.

Once you do all of the above automatically, then we can talk about watching the opponents' paddles and swings for clues as to the next shot.  With that information, some of the above rules can be refined.  

Playing in the Wind

 It was windy on Monday and today at May Nissan, and I had a couple of thoughts on that.  Allow me to share...

Firstly, don't judge your play level on a windy day.  One of the delightful aspects of pickleball is that lack of weight of the ball.  When the wind blows, the ball gets blown around easily.  This mostly affects soft shots, touch shots, dinks, and drops. 

So if touch shots are harder and they are not easy to start with, a windy day might be a good time to work on third shot drives.  

Pro tip, pay attention to the wind direction when returning serves.  If the wind is at your back, you want to setup a step or two closer to the base line as deeper shots will be rarer and soft shots will die shorter.

And conversely if the wind is blowing into your face, move back further from the base line to receive a serve.  You'll also have to hit the ball harder to get the normal depth on your service return.  Now, there is a bonus to having the wind in your face, your opponents' shots are more likely to go out, so watch for hard shots and prepare to duck.

Strangely, I don't think that wind matters too much when serving.  I'm a big proponent of serving to the middle of the serving court, so with a tail wind or otherwise, my normal serve is usually fine.  

And then finally, dinking can be very difficult with a lot of wind, so dink carefully.  Should you bang on a windy day?  I'd suggest not, since if you are a better dinker you'll do better on a windy day then a lesser skilled opponent.  

While windy days are not as much fun, think of it as a training session and try to make solid shots that work and get comfortable with wind.  One more skill on the training path of pickleball!