A lob goes flying over your team's head.
Has your first instinct ever been to
look at your partner and think... yours?
Well just who shot is it anyway.? Stay
tuned. You don't see a lot of lobs with
5.0 players but if you're playing at the
levels I'm at 3.5 to 4.5 that's a fairly
common shot. Hey everybody it's CJ
Johnson. A couple of things are important
about a lob and the teamwork. Number one
is that you know how to run it down and
number two is who shot is it anyway? If
you're not sure how to run it down click
on the link, it'll take you to the last
video where Laura Fenton kovanda worked
with us to make sure that we have the
proper skills to do just that. Here are a
couple of things that I think about that
have helped me to learn to defend the
LOB just a little bit better. The first
one is I look at who I'm playing with is
one of us more or less mobile than the
other? Simply put who's however the
fastest has the best chance of getting
back there and defending against the LOB
most often they should be the person
who tracks it down. A recent example of
this was the powerhouse ladies double
team of Sarah Ansboury and Christina
McGrath last year when Christina was
seven months pregnant that changed her
mobility just a little bit and Sarah
need to cover a little bit more of the
court that she normally does. The second
thing is is there a height differential
in your team? If your opponents are smart
it's not going over the tallest person
on the court. It's going to go over the
shortest person on the court therefore
you have an advantage when you see their
paddle blade start to open up you can
make an educated guess that it's going
over the shorter person. The team
facing the net has a height differential
of about a foot so sure enough when the
LOB goes up it goes over the shorter
ones head.
The third thing that's helped me is the
partner who looks at it at an angle
generally has a better chance of putting
their body in the right position to
swing the racket and return the shot. If
you're trying to back pedal or watch a
ball going over your head it's very
difficult to keep a spot on it where it is.
If you're looking at it in an angle you
have a much better chance. Stefanie Lane and Laura Fenton
kovanda have their back towards us. When
she sends the lob over her opponents
head the gal in the orange looks at it
from an angle and she is better able to
track it down.
Now that you got a couple ideas of who
should be running it down what does the
other partner do? Again it depends but it
should be dictated by the partner who's
hitting the shot. If you're that partner
you want to yell duck or switch. Don't be
afraid to tell your other partner what
to do. Chances are they can't see the
shot and they can't see you so they need
your direction. When Laura sends this lob
over bills partner's head he does a
great job of calling for a switch and
the team is in position for the next
shot. Here we're going to see Stephanie
Lane send one up and Lucy Kovalova
does her best to just duck and get out
of the way. Those are a couple of the
strategies that I've used to become a
better doubles partner and to be able to
defend against the lob. Make sure you
come back next week when I show you the
three different types of shots that you
can hit to get that ball back into play.
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