Sunday, March 19, 2017

Today, I had some social obligations that prevented me from playing pickleball at Derby Park this morning. To top it off, rain is predicted this week. There’s a 40% to 60% change of rain on Wednesday morning. I may not get to play for another full week.

An Odd One: A Return With No Hit

Last week, while playing at Derby Park, there was an instance of a woman opponent hitting a ball with such backspin that it landed in our kitchen only to bounce back over the net onto her side of the court. This puzzled a number of us—including myself—but my partner in that game knew exactly what the rule was. Coincidentally, this exact rule was brought up in an episode of The Pickleball Show podcast that I listened to that very night! So what is the rule? A ball must be hit by a paddle before returning back over the net to be a legal return. Therefore if a ball bounces back over the net of its own accord, it’s a point for the team that last made contact with the ball. So in our case, the woman who hit that ball with the crazy amount of spin won the point, even though the ball ended up on her side of the court after she was the last one to hit it.

Doubles Tracking

One thing that occurred to me is that I’m doing a much better job tracking the ball during matches. I’ve been moving back and forth along the kitchen line toward the side of the court with the ball. I’m sure I’m not perfect in this, but I know I’m far improved.

What the Pros Do

Speaking of The Pickleball Show, I was listening to Episode 40: How To Prepare For The 2016 USAPA Nationals VIII last night where the host, Chris Allen, interviews Mark Renneson—yes, the Canadian player/coach I emailed last week.

Mark shared that the top players at last year’s Nationals hit very hard on the serves and the return of serves. Lots of speed, spin, depth on those hits. Some people say the first two hits are routine and relatively unimportant—that is, just getting them out of the way so the real action can begin—but Mark said that at the Nationals, the players are seeking to create an advantage beginning right with the serve.

Mark also said that in singles a 3rd shot drop is rare—maybe 5%-10% of the time—since players are driving passing shots with the more open space available in singles. In doubles however, a drop was maybe 50% of the 3rd shots. The other half of the 3rd shots were hard hits down the middle or right at the opponent in order to force a weak return volley that can then be put away for a point. He went on to talk more about this “2-step passing shot”, this 2-hit combination that he saw at that Nationals. He talks about it in this video:

What interesting is that covers exactly what I was talking about yesterday in my post. You can only reliably slam “up” only when you are hitting directly at your opponent. Recently, when I was playing Tom and Ileana, Tom said, “You can’t hit hard up” after I missed such a shot. Later when I hit hard from the net right up into his chest, I said, “See? You can hit hard up!” (I just don’t have the skill yet to do it reliably all the time as Tom was mostly likely pointing out!)

Videoing Myself

One thing that I’ve been meaning to do is bring our old GoPro video camera to the courts and video some of my games so that I can critique myself. It’s one thing to make adjustments on problems that you become aware of during a game. But there are ones that you are going to miss and that your partner may not catch or share a correction with you.

Singles

I do have to say that part of me is intrigued by the idea of playing singles pickleball. I’ve never done it. There’s no communication that has to happen with a partner. It’s not as social and it requires more running, but it would be fun to try. There is definitely different strategies involved so there’d be a learning curve. Maybe I’ll get the opportunity to try it out.