What can you do about an opponent who hits passing shots over and over? (Part 1)
Announcer : Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. If you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you. Whether it's technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now, here's Ian. Ian Westermann : Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast. Your place for free expert tennis instructions that can truly help you improve your game.
Thanks very much for joining me on today's episode of the Essential Tennis Podcast. I'm really happy to have you listening. Thank you for downloading the show.
Before we get started with today's listener questions, I'd like to make an announcement, and that is for the next upcoming Essential Tennis Clinic. And this clinic is going to be held on March 20th and 21st in Fremont, Nebraska, which is close to Omaha, Nebraska. This is going to be a 2-day clinic. It's going to feature instruction by myself on technique and doubles and singles strategy, and I'm going to have special guest instructor with me to aid with me on the court. His name is David Groemping.
And David Groemping you guys may recognize that name from the podcast. He's the mental expert and mental tennis coach that I often have on to answer mental tennis questions. He's going to be with me there and he's also going to be giving a workshop during the clinic about mental toughness during your tennis play. So you're going to get not only technique and strategy instruction on the court, around 10 hours of instructions on court, but you also going to get a mental tennis workshop. So you're really going to be working on all aspects of your game at this clinic. And again it's in Fremont, Nebraska March 20th and 21st. If you're interested in attending this clinic, you need to let me know quickly. The first two Essential Tennis clinics have run of both sold outs. So if you'd like to work with me on your tennis game and with David Groemping, definitely let me know. There's going to be a sign-up on the websites soon, but in the meantime feel free to send me an e-mail at ian@essentailtennis.com. Alright, let's get to today's questions. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction.
Alright, let's get started with today's show and our first question comes to us from Dropshot on the forums at essentialtennis.com. Dropshot wrote and said, ‘I have a question about being at the net. I'm quite comfortable positioning myself at the net, but I have problems. Not so much with players that selectable really hard of me, but it's those guys that take just a bit of pace of their passing shots and aim it really well dipping low just over the net with good top spin, and landing usually with an inches of the side line. Either I'm really slow in my old age or they've hit a really excellent passing shot for which there is no defense. Is there a way to train for this type of shot? Are there side lunges or some other high performance exercises that you can recommend to improve my odds here? Or it is just the inevitable being slowing or reflexes that comes with age?' And he says that he is 51 years old. ‘I returned to playing tennis 2 years ago after a 30 year hiatus.' Well, Dropshot that's a good question. And I don't think that most of these has to do with your age or conditioning. That's the good news. [laughter] No, I don't think that you're out of luck here due to your age. There's several things that are within your control that I think if you improve and focus on and do to the best of your ability you'll have a much better chance against these players. So let me go through my outline here answering your question. First of all, anybody who's able to hit the shot that you describe and hit it consistently is a very high level player. And yes, that's an amazing shot. And you don't say what's your play ability here is Dropshot. You don't say what level you play at or what level your opponents are. But the shot that you describe to be able to hit that shot a couple of times in a match would be awesome for most players. And you described several different variables. You talked about the ball barely making it over the net dipping low. So I'm assuming with some good top spin here. And you talked about being in angle. Has to and landing with an inches of the side lines. We're talking about a really high level shot here. Now if you're playing somebody who can do this consistently, then you're playing against somebody who's really high level of player. And it may be that they're just extremely good at this shot and yes, you're going to have a hard time winning, and coming up to the net is going to be difficult. But again, there's a couple of things in your control that you need to really pay attention to, and practice so that you can have the highest degree of success possible. Now when it comes to coming up to the net and approaching, there's a couple of things that you need to do and really keep track of. And the first one is the quality of your approach shot. And a big mistake that amateur players often make when they do come to the net is they decide to come forwards and approach off of a shot is not great. And it's not a shot that's really challenging their opponents much. Now I'm a big proponent of my students coming forwards and coming to the net, because it's a big pressure to their opponents. And gives you all kind of benefits. You're closer to your opponent side of the court so you have use your access to angles and it's easier to put the ball away the closer you are. A lso you take time away from your opponent, because you're closer to them. But the flip side is, because you're closer to your opponent you also have less time to react to their passing shot or to their lob, and so that means that you can't just wander up to the net on any old shot. You just can't do that. You can't hit an average shot to your opponent and just run up to the net and expect to be successful all the time, because if they're in balance and they're comfortable and they have plenty of time to react to your approach shot, the likelihood of them hitting a good passing shot against you increases exponentially. So we need to make sure that you're coming forwards on a good approach, especially against the player that you're describing that obviously has the skills to hit a great passing shot. You cannot risk coming forwards on an average shot. Now it may be that you plan to come into the net and you want to hit a good approach shot, but after making your swing, you identify that this is kind of going into them. It's not very challenging. At which point I would recommend that you just back up again and you just change plays. And just kind of throw that plan out of the window, because you can't afford to set yourself up over and over again for a passing shot from your opponent. Now what is the quality approach shot? There's two variables here that I feel are most important. First of all, I feel that depths is very important. And you need to place your approach shot deep in the court. And when you do this your opponent is going to have very little time–one or two things is going to happen. Either they're going to have to back up to account for the depth of your shot so that they have time to react and hit the ball comfortably in which case great. Your giving them more distance to have to carry the ball and to have to try to power the ball or angle the ball past you. And so the deeper the better most of the time.
Sometimes you'll see pros approach the net off a drop shot. That can be successful as well. But you're bread and butter should really be a deep strong approach shot. The second option that they'll have if you do hit a deep is to take it on the rise nd this can be very tricky, meaning to take it right off to the bounce assuming that they don't back way behind the base line to account for the depth of your shot. Either way here you're really pressuring them a lot. And so I think you should really practice pretty near approach shots to deep. If you come in on a ball that land around the service line. You're giving them plenty of time to react to the ball after it bounces and that time is going to equal a comfort level for them and probably a balance that they are able to be in and try to hit a quality shot. And we don't want that. So try to keep your approach shot deep.
