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Coach Chris' Coaching Corner
One of the common misconceptions in tennis is where to recover after hitting a shot. The prevailing thought is that players should "always" recover to the middle of the court because that gives you the best chance to retrieve any number of shots because you are equal distance to almost anywhere on the court. But upon further investigation, this thought process couldn't be more wrong. In a cross court rally, you should position yourself along the flight of the ball. So the more angle you hit cross court, the wider you should position yourself to bisect the potential angle (since the tennis court is one giant rectangle) coming back at you. In addition, positioning yourself in the crosscourt corner takes away the higher percentage shot for your opponent and reduces the amount of running that you have to do to return the ball. Even if your opponent decides to hit down the line, unless they hit a clean winner, they are leaving the much higher percentage cross court shot wide open for you to hit to get them out of position. So to sum it up, only recover to the middle if you hit to the middle! This will save energy, allow you to cover wide angles, and dare your opponent to go for an ill advised low percentage down the line shots. Understanding this should give you a leg up on the competition!
by Chris Herdelin, GPTL Head Pro
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