RacquetWorld's Newsletter Racquetball Tip of the Month

The Rally 

At this point, we’ve been through much of the racquetball game….today we’re going to discuss the rally. For our discussion the rally starts after the service return or more precisely on the servers 2nd touch of the ball. A couple interesting notes about getting to the rally…the first is as the server, you missed your ace….as a receiver you missed putting away a non ace serve. Realizing that it takes two unsuccessful events to get to a rally, I hope you understand why rallies aren’t my favorite thing.

Lets throw out the situation where a player almost hits an ace and the receiver hits a very weak return…and the server then puts it away on the next shot. I’d lean toward that being a successful serve. 

Full Fledge Rally Strategies…all the pointers I could think of in 10 minutes or less. 

Don’t Skip the Ball – The biggest rally killer of all is suicide and that’s what happens when you skip in your shot. Stick with higher percentage shots like down-the-line passes or cross court passes. The rollout is a double edged sword…

No Back Wall – by this I mean don’t allow your rally shots to come off the back wall for a setup. Your opponent only gets one shot at the ball…with this commitment a pass ball is a winner…period. More angle in your shot selection (wide angle pass) allows more room for error on the height of your ball off the front wall. Also if you do come off the back wall with a wide angle shot, it’s still moving away or jamming your opponent as opposed to the ball that come straight off the back wall for a much easier setup.

Pinch by Level – Many C and even B level players should not pinch as much as they do. Missed pinches are one of the easiest setups you can feed to your opponent. As you get better, the pinch becomes a higher percentage shot. Stick with down-the-line. Once you master a solid down the line shot, you have really mastered most of the shots…it’s just a matter of changing your footwork slightly at that point. 

Solid Ceiling Balls – a very large percentage of rallies find their way to the ceiling. You will control or be controlled based on a good ceiling ball game or lack there of. I’ve won many rallies simply because I practice ceiling balls. When an opponent just puts up a ceiling ball to get you towards the back of the court…ratchet it up a notch and return a ceiling ball that also skims the side wall…a ceiling ball can be a weapon don’t waste the opportunity aka Death from Above.

Control Center Court – Keep your shots out of center court and keep your body in center court. Once you get to a rally, it’s about controlling the court. If you don’t control center court, you don’t control the rally and that usually means you are working much harder than your opponent to stay in the rally. Working harder longer leads to more missed shots and loss of concentration. Control center court…make life easy.

The overall thought I’d like to instill in you about rallies is this: During each individual shot of a rally you must decide if your shot will be a 100% offensive shot or a 100% defensive shot. A 100% offensive shot should be a rally ending shot. A 100% defensive shot should allow you to recapture center court and lead to you controlling the rally. Many, many, many players, try and hit offensive shots that are way beyond them for the given situation…we all do it from time to time…we send the ball screaming on it’s way with a prayer…I guess I’m condoning taking religion out of racquetball… Anything in between just keeps the ball in play…and a ball kept in play lets you exercise but doesn’t help you win. When in doubt, hit the 100% defensive shot to retain control of the rally until the 100% offensive opportunity arises. 

Life is Good on the Court!!

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