Order On The Court Blog: Poor positioning means lost opportunities to build points and win games

Written By Doug Brenner

Footwork Masterclass on footwork and positioning by Enhance Pickleball is worth watching for technique

Before you start reading my blog this week, I want you to pause and take a moment to take a breath and clear your head. Forget for a minute about how to hit the pickleball, leave aside the technique of hitting the top spin drive, the backhand slice, the block volley.

Leave that technical information alone for a moment to percolate in the recesses of your memory.

Because I want to talk this week about how to build points on the court and win games against competitively paired team, right from the start of the 0-0-2 game score.

Let’s get into it — proper pickleball set up and proper positioning. This make or break it tactic puts you in position to win points consistently.

We over-rely on our groundstrokes, hitting harder, using more spin, mad dashes to retrieve a well-placed shot when if we set up and position properly, we can hit better, place accurate shots, and, importantly, WORK HALF AS HARD!

This point was made painfully clear to me in the midst of a 4.0-45 skill fundamentals boot camp. Points were only being allocated during the drill by the Drill Sergeant when the ball was hit at the correct court location. No matter how hard, effective or well-placed.

How unfair!

I kept losing points, even after winning them with a hard put away, or soft drop, because I was hitting the balls from the wrong location on the court — consistently.

This was an Ah Hah! Moment for me.

I would return a hard top spin return serve and linger from mid-court and attempt to win points using brute force, only to have points subtracted because I wasn’t putting myself in the best place to hit my shots.

Brutal, and effective.

I had grown complacent about using drives and slices instead of court positioning to play for the next shot, after the one I was making. I wasn’t moving my feet, which is a polite way of saying, I was being lazy.

This feedback changed my game and made me a better player. Because I learned, from constantly foot movement to close the gaps in anticipation of the opponent’s shot, I could predict play and control it by being in the correct position to make the shot.

I could start using the soft game, poach to cross the centre and put away an easy volley.

Now, I’m always edging over to the centre line, always shuffling my feet a step or two during set up, in anticipation of the next shot.

It’s remarkable how effective this simple technique is, in building an effective offence with a focus on a defence first strategy.

This technique of court positioning isn’t shown on training videos or talked a lot about, because players need feedback and correction by someone who is observing their game play.It’s difficult to self-correct positioning, because in the heat of battle, we can’t really see where we’re lagging behind. Our focus is on the success or failure of our shot making, the output of stroke generation, not the important input of proper positioning.

This is something you can practice with your partner using a simple drill and targets.

Put three targets on the court. Red, Yellow, Green. Red behind the baseline, Yellow in the Transition, middle part of the court, Green at the Kitchen Line. Practice with your partner first with rally, followed by playing games, of moving from the baseline Red, to Transition Yellow, up to Kitchen Green.

Repeat, over and over, so you can get comfortable putting yourself in the right spot to hit the ball with the objective of reaching Green for the winning volley.

This works for the north/south axis of the court — the longest part.

For the east/west axis, side to side, you’ll need to work with a team. Rally with the pair, feeding them underhanded balls, progressing to hit balls from paddle. Centre line, middle, then pull one player wide. If they leave a centre gap (they always leave an empty hole initially) because their partner hasn’t stepped over to fill the gap, hit a medium hard drive between them. Try it again, explaining what they can expect.

Over, and over again.

Soon, the partner reacts instinctively by covering their partner’s wide retrieval, closing off the centre court and putting pressure back on the other side.

Very effective learning.

These drills build on my recent blog about using Team Tethering to improve court positioning on the court.

Proper Positioning.

Good stuff, and the foundation to build your groundstroke, volley game.

Ok, now open your eyes. We can continue to talk about how to stop popping up your Third Shot Drop next week.

 

Order On The Court Blog: Archive

Doug Brenner

Doug is a NCCP-Certified Pickleball Instructor in Ottawa. He offers adult private and group lessons, including a free 45 minute Introduction and Assessment. He builds a custom 6 week lesson plan for each new student.

https://playtowinpickleball.com
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