Sometimes the reality of being in a defensive situation is very obvious and you can start to see it happening and prepare in enough time to properly defend the shots hit at you. However, taking the neutral shots and creating or setting up offensive shots is not only valuable but very necessary to your success during matches. Often you can find yourself in the middle of the point and for some reason everything you try either goes out or sets up your opponent for a winning shot against you.
It is really not as difficult as you think to create pressure from a neutral situation. Varying the angle, ball height, spin, speed and depth can have a positive effect on your ability to get your opponents in trouble an win more points. It would be great to play every match with good rhythm and hit the ball for a winner whenever you want to. The reality is you have to create the pressure and situation to force opponent errors as they just don’t happen by mistake most of the time. If they like to hit and receive a hard ball, give them slower softer balls. If they like the ball deep, give them short shots that will pull them off the baseline. If they like high balls, give them lower balls. If they don’t mind moving from side to side for shots then hit to one side and then right back to the same side or right at them.
This reminds me of a player I was working with that had been playing smarter and was improving his winning percentage quite a lot until he ran into a player he thought he figured out, but not quite. He knew his opponent’s backhand was weaker, but he just assumed that any ball he hit to his backhand would create a weak shot and he would be able to win by that one strategy. The problem was he did not know which types of backhands he didn’t like. So when he hit hard to his backhand and came to the net he was being lobbed or the balls were coming to his feet. His theory was partially correct , but the one flaw was that with a hard ball coming to his opponent’s backhand the opponent could still redirect it to get him in trouble. He did not realize this opponent could not generate the pace himself to get him in trouble. A slow and low ball to his backhand would create the kind of pressure to easily win points. So often a simple idea that is not that hard to execute can help you to create enough pressure to put your opponent on the defensive. The weakness is not always a shot, but a situation they have trouble with. This is why it is important to experiment in practice or warm up what they can and can not do. It may be something they just don’t like to do as much and will not execute in those situations as well.
Next in Volume IV of Playing Smarter we will discuss how to stay on the attack or on offense and not be neutralized into a defensive position. Until then, keep playing and playing smarter for more wins.
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