RacquetWorld's Newsletter Racquetball Tip of the Month

Too Close for Comfort

I see players skip the ball up front within five to ten feet of the front wall all the time. I have a couple theories on why this happens. Most of the errors deal with timing, spatial relationships, and angles. Read on and see if you fall into these patterns.

Let's take the case when you are charging to get to the ball up front...you get there and push it right into the floor....aka - skip. In this case, what I see happening is many players drop their hands while making their dash up front ...they arrive at the ball location and then think about their hand/racquet orientation. Next they try and adjust to hit the ball. Many of you may think you are seamless with foot movement and racquet orientation...but you're not. The combination of breaking your feet movement and your hand/racquet orientation into two distinct motions, one after the other, throws your timing off. 

This situation is further hampered because as you usually judge your ball distance/relationship at the time of contact, you usually have your feet set when the ball is coming at you...or you have a set shuffle into an approaching ball you use and this repetitive motion has been calculated into your mental ball meeting equation as a default...in either case you are usually only worrying about the balls motion at you. However, this dash up front is out of that set norm. You are continually moving forward as the ball continually moves at you creating a quicker than anticipated meeting...as you mentally calculate your meeting place...you don't correctly coordinate both movements (you and the ball) and the ball has carried beyond your anticipated contact point. At this "deeper" meeting point, the ball meets your racquet as it's angled down towards the floor farther back in your swing before your racquet has flattened out to the front wall producing the disappointing SKIP.

Another small piece to this puzzle is that many players think this shot is so easy because they are so close to the front wall that they try and make it a perfect roll out shot. There is very little room for error in perfection. When your goal is perfect and you are a hair off...you skip. (well 1/2 the time - the other 1/2 you leave it up and get rekilled)

For this situation I like to think about ping pong. While playing ping pong you never bring your racquet back into a swing motion so it is always flat to your opponent (or in our case the front wall). All you simply do is punch at the ball. If you are looking to rip a full swing from up front it is a little different...but if you're dinking...think ping pong as you're dashing up there and get your racquet in position as you move not after you get there. Simply redirect the ball with a little punch of the flat racquet.

If you are swinging away, consciously see yourself starting your arm swinging motion on your way to the ball...not once you get there. So my feet are not planted, they are moving and I'm swinging. I won't have a set power base with my feet, but I'll use my upper body and arm to rip this ball. You’re so close to the front wall, you don’t need your legs to power the ball by or at your opponent.

A second situation which is often asked about is why I skip more when balls are coming at me in center court? There are a couple reasons that this seeming easy shot is actually difficult. 

The first as mentioned above is that the ball and you are both moving in opposite directions. This means its a much more difficult shot than when you move in the same direction with the ball. You have the timing consideration and chance of swinging late and catching the ball on your downward swing driving it into the ground.

A second issue is that you are forced to completely change the direction of the ball. This is not a simple case of redirecting a ball or slightly changing the angle of the ball....this shot is taking the full energy of the ball and changing it by 180 degrees...this requires more perfectly controlled energy on your part. Since the ball if full of energy, if you don't hit the center sweetspot of your racquet, that energy will dissipate on contact by twisting your racquet in your hand...if you hit the lower portion of a flat swinging racquet, the racquet will twist slightly downward and you get a skip.

The third consideration is angle...most of us get used to playing at a certain depth on the court. In many of our swings, even the seemingly flat swings, we have built in a little angle to roll out that ball. When we get closer than what we are used to, we tend to overcompensate on the slight angle we use. We're always looking for that roll out and by overcompensating, we skip.

If you're having trouble with this type of shot, early racquet prep is one key thing. Have your racquet up and ready to go as you shuffle to meet the oncoming ball....don't shuffle and then get the racquet back and then swing....the fluid looking players combine all these separate motions into one continuous swing motion. You can tell the choppy guys from the fluid guys...it's the seamless overlap of motion and not the cold hard distinct steps of motion that creates fluidness.

As you get closer to the front wall, allow the ball to drop lower so you're hitting line drives as opposed to trying to aim the ball with an angle towards the baseboard. This requires that you actually flex your legs to get low so your racquet has a level swing path.

Such simple questions about seemingly easy shots and I go and turn it into a possible nightmare...Hopefully if you can picture what your possible errors could be, you will be able to note them and correct them.

Good luck...

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