I bet you've heard that the forehand takes the middle. Is it true?
I'm CJ Johnson. If you're new here,
welcome to Better Pickleball where we show players over 50,
how to live their best lives on and off the pickle ball courts.
I'm pretty sure that when you first started playing pickleball,
someone told you the forehand takes the ball that's in the center.
However, if you watch the best teams in pickleball,
you'll see that that's not always the case.
It begsthe question, when does,
or doesn't the forehand take the ball that's in the center of the court.
HelleSparre was an accomplished a tennis player and author before she set her
sights on pickleball. Now she's a us open champion and national champion,
and she's the creator of dynamite doubles.
Here's her advice for covering the court effectively as a team.
Why don't we get into that just a little bit.
You know what your philosophy is around how a team works
together on the Pickleball court.
Right? And that is really, really good.
And I think it's one of the most important things
to learn that you have different responsibilities because of angles.
So what I'll do is I'll,
I'll kind of turn a little bit and have you watched the board here. Um,
if you can see the board, wherever the ball is,
the yellow piece, he has the ball. So
if these two guys are up here and red has the ball.
Blue down here, and red here have different areas of the court,
they have to defend. They're both defending the ball coming from here.
So if you are in front of the ball, such as right here,
you are what I call the blocker or the little V we have,
we talk about little B in big V. So you haven't little V.
So if it's inside your little V you can take it or you can let it
go.
Now, if it's down the line here, obviously that's, who's, that's blues.
That can't be the partners,
but the middle ball is that awful ball that we all go wrong on.
We need to divide up. Who takes what. I call it, the double door.
It's kind of a Bulletproof, um, coverage.
If you don't have this system, middle is really good to play.
If you have this system,
you're going to find out that people who hit the middle,
they are going to get beat by you because you now know how to cover that middle.
So I'm going to draw the V of the blues responsibility. Now,
mind you red hasn't hit the ball yet. It's in red's court.
It could be a forehand or backhand. Doesn't really matter. Blue here,
wherever they're standing. If they happen to be here.
They're responsible for that V.
So if a ball is hit easy and short,
blue runs up and gets it because red is too far away.
But if it's past the,
the blue right hand wing here in the V,
it goes past that. And it's coming really hard.
And this blue cannot do a whole lot of good with it.
They let it go and they let the red back here who is,
whose V looks like that. And they can now, um,
catch that ball here. And it will be with a backhand.
And that ball goes back in this direction.
So they keep the same coverage for two shots in a row.
Because if, if blue is a little ahead of red, that's really good to understand,
to understand the
middle ball. If red hit, if red
here hits it straight ahead, the V's change.
Can you see that? If red hits it here, now blue is saying,
Holy smokes. My V was just here.
Now my V changes and goes
here and reds changes and goes here.
That took some time,
probably not enough time for you guys to get organized.
And blue got a winner right through your middle,
because you got caught in what I call Wrong Way. Wanda, www.
That's just, you don't want to do that.
So the built in safety is when red takes this ball,
red hits it back to red.
Blue stays in the same position, has the same coverage.
Red sees the same ball.
Now they've had two chances to maybe reset and hit a ball into the
kitchen after which they could advance.
If they hit a ball that red is gonna volley hard,
they stay back and respect that smash.
If red hits it softly, which is my pet peeve.
If the ball is high they've,
don't hit the drop shot that invites blue and red
forward. When you could keep them back, play the right way,
don't play just to win that point. Now,
if it's match point at nationals and I have hit them back here
for 10 times and it keeps coming back,
then I might do one short one, but it's not my go to shot.
Because when I see two people back or one person back,
my goal is to keep them back and keep my offense.
And therefore also ball continues to the point continues.
You watch the young pros.
They don't hit drop shots on high balls because these guys run
up and get to the kitchen then. And then the is saying,
why didn't you keep them back? If you keep them back,
you have probably 95% chance of winning this point.
Eventually with patience, if you bring them in,
you minimized what you have, you have lowered that number,
and now it's maybe 50/50.
And if I'm a partner and you could have kept them back,
but instead you invite them in, I'm going to go. What's up with that.
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