If you're getting pulled out wide off the
non-volley zone, where should you hit the next shot?
Hey, everybody, it's C.J. Johnson.
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I'm sure we've all experienced it.
You're at the non-volley zone
with your partner, and suddenly you get a sharp angle shot and your momentum takes
you off the court, leaving your partner to cover the entire court by themselves.
Now, the question is, where should you hit the next shot?
There are a couple of options.
First of all, you're in a tough position.
There is no doubt about it.
And I don't like this time to try and hit
a winner or be super aggressive on the shot.
My whole thinking is get it back over and make my opponents hit one more shot.
That gives them the opportunity to make one more mistake and maybe, just maybe, it
will allow me enough time to get back into the court.
What are the best options?
One of the options would be to take the
ball that's being hit wide and drive the ball into the body of the opponent who is
on your side of the net directly across from you, Tony, from in typical and I were
talking about that shot last week during a webinar.
He really likes that one.
You know, I'm kind of lukewarm about that one.
And the reason why is if you miss that
drive at all, you are now going to have that your opponent is in a
position to drive that ball right back into the court. And because you're off the
court, that doesn't give your partner much time to react.
Another option would be to take the wide
shot and return it cross court on that same angle.
Again, this is not my favorite shot.
I think that well, there are some benefits
you're going over the lowest part of the net, which is the center part of the net.
It just is a difficult shot to hit when you are on the run and to keep it in play
. And if you don't get the winner, you and your partner on this side and the ball is
going over that side, you've got half the court left open.
A third option would be to lob over the opponent who's directly in front of you.
I like to angle it between that opponent and the back corner of the baseline.
I like the lob.
And if that is an option for you, I've got another video and you can check that out.
The last option.
And it's frankly the one I like the most.
It's kind of a just a dump dnk.
All I want to do here is take this, soften
the ball and just pop it up onto the other side of the net.
I want to make it fairly high.
So in terms of the apex going over the net so that I allow myself enough time to get
back into the court and at least we have a chance now to cover half the court.
This is one of the drills Jeanie and I were playing around one day.
And we're trying to get some visuals on how to do this shot.
And actually, Jeanie came up with that and we've taken it and modified it.
We use it. And we practice this a lot.
So enjoy this drill.
The first thing that we want to do is get a feeling of lifting the ball up and over
the net, because remember, this is the highest portion of the net.
So the easiest way to do this shot, we're going to stand cross court from each other
and I'm going to have Jeanie feed the ball to me.
She's going to feed it fairly gently, and
I'm just going to lift it up and over, trying to get it into the basket.
OK, so that's the first part of the drill.
Now, the second part of the drill, let's spice this up just a little bit, and what
if I put the ball into play, I'm still the one who's trying to hit it into the basket
. But if I put the ball into play, that gives me the chance
to put a little different angle on it or to increase the speed.
So I start the play.
She's going to hit it back.
I'm still trying to go into the basket.
That gives it a little bit more speed.
Now, for the last part, I want to simulate being pulled out wide.
So I want to make sure I get my momentum going off the side of the court.
So, again, I'm still going to feed to
Jeanie and she's going to try for a sharp angle.
But I'm going to stand a little bit more
towards the center line so that I have to create that that momentum that I would
typically see if this was happening to me in a game.
Again, I'm trying to lift the ball up and into the caddy.
I think that was just out.
So that gives you the feeling of being
wide and softening the shot to do the dink.I
If you're dinks need a little bit of work, make sure that you check out this
playlist that's right over here. Meantime, if you got value, give this video a thumbs
up and share it with your pickleball playing friends, because together we can
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