The Fourth Shot

 I ran across a video on YouTube by Jill Braverman.  She stated in one of her classes that the fourth shot is the most important shot.  I wanted to kick around this topic and pass on some of the other details she mentioned.

Firstly, and she didn't mention this, is that the fourth shot is the most important for the receiving side -- not the servers.  I think the third shot is their most important shot for the servers and that's a future post.

I've written about the second and fourth shot a couple of times.  I'm a big fan of returning the serve, the second shot, to the deep middle of the court.  That's the best, but anywhere is pretty good as long as the service returner starts moving to the kitchen.  And you need to move up even if you hit a horrible service return.  (I know it's scary, but you gotta do it!)

Why to the middle?  I like it because the servers frequently don't have any plan as to who will hit the third shot.  I like deep as a lot of unskilled players will move into the court after the serve and then have to back peddle to get to the ball.  Finally, hitting the ball into the middle forces the servers to hit the third shot towards the middle of the court.

Let's look at the returners' situation.  We will assume that you are the service returner and your partner, Bill, is starting the point at the kitchen line.  The servers have to let the second shot bounce and that allows time for you to move towards the kitchen.  Jill B. now points out two important principles: One, make sure you stop, split step with a lot of width, and prepare to defend the third shot.  Two, your partner, Bill, who started at the net, should work really, really hard to make sure he hits the fourth shot.  

Let's talk about why.  If Bill can poach the third shot it removes a lot of time from the opponents.  It also keeps the ball from going to you, since you might not have gotten fully to the kitchen line.  It also gets Bill engaged in the point and you want your full team to be part of the defense.  Bill is closer to the third shot and only has to move a few steps to cover most of the court.  Since you hit the service return to the middle of the court, the action should be in the middle of the court and Bill will be itching to get into position to hit it.  It may be that he will cross all the way across the court to return the shot.  This is fine and imagine the angst on the other side of the net.  The thought that all shots might be poached is very scary.  

Bill will move towards the center of the court as the service return is in the air and is thus able to just keep moving to cross deeply to your side to get the shot as he sees what the third shot looks like.  And that is the basic "How" portion.  Start moving early and don't be afraid to cross deeply in front of partner.

Some percentage of the time the ball will still get to the service return, that's you.  You are, of course, in a deep split step and are ready to defend the shot.  Since Bill has covered most of the court, you are required to only cover a very narrow section of the court.  So, paddle ready!

Let's assume it gets to you.  Are you going to drive, drop, block, lob(!), or dink?  To decide on the best shot we should think about what our goal is at this point in the point.  Bill is already at the net and the opponents should be pretty deep.  Your main goal is to get to the kitchen, secondly to keep the opponents near the baseline.  Your goal is not to try to win the point.  You have an advantage positionally and you want to exploit that in a couple of shots to win the point.  

What to do?  We would like to hit the fourth shot deep if possible, though I prefer to not let the opponents volley the ball.  You also want to have time to continue your movement to the kitchen.  If you hit a hard shot and it comes back, you'll have less time to move up.  So a deep, conservative, medium speed shot at their feet is probably the best option and I would hit the ball back to the middle of the court.

Hitting the ball cross court causes a couple of things to happen.  It opens up the court on Bill's left hand side.  That requires Bill to move his feet well over to cover the left side.  And when he does that, you will have to move over to the middle.  That's lots of dancing!  The cross court shots gives the opponents some angles they didn't have before and makes your play more difficult.  My advice is to do it occasionally, but do not fall in love with the shot.  It is also my experience that few players and teams will cover middle shots efficiently.  So don't worry about hitting three or four shots repeatedly to the middle.

One more thought on this.  If you are playing bangers they will drive from the baseline all the time.  They live for that shot, they need it and will do it until the point is over.  Since we will force them to hit to the middle of the court, they will often hit the ball out.  So as you are defending from the kitchen look for hard high shots, and shots with under spin, and let them sail long.

Jill Braverman has a great YouTube channel is well worth time to visit it.  https://www.youtube.com/@jillybpickleball/videos