Paying Attention To Your Opponents Dinking Habits 💪

As you continue to get better, you will notice the natural give and go of dinking. One team takes slight control, the other fights back to neutral, and so on. When your engaged in these rallies, make sure your taking note of how exactly your opponent is dealing with your shots. Are they cutting your aggressive dinks off out of the air? Are they letting it bounce and rolling it back? Can they speedup from their inside foot? What are they trying to accomplish with the current pattern?

All these factors play in to how you should be executing your whole game. A lot of time I will be rolling backhands on the right side without any offense. This could be because they are taking a step off the line and rolling forehands back. In fact, I more commonly have this problem in mixed doubles against women. This means I have to dink even deeper, and be less likely to speed up through the middle. Not all dinks have to bounce. If you notice someone is hesitant in dinking out of the air, feed their inside foot all day, especially if it’s a righty on the right.

🚨 How To Hit The ATP 🚨

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What To Do When You’re Getting Iced Out 🧐 

I’m sure everyone has played in rec games when they’re not participating in much of the action. That will happen at all levels - sometimes even more at the higher levels, as teams have more precision to avoid a player.

The first thing you have to ask yourself is “how do we get out of this pattern?” Chances are the rally’s are looking similar, dinks are going to the same place, the other team is probably comfortable and in position to be able to target one player. The player being targeted needs to mix up the spots, and probably hit more dinks to the player in front of them. When I tell my female partner to dink down the line and Erne, it’s not because I don’t think she can win the rally otherwise, it’s because it forces the ball to come to me, and probably my forehand. That’s a better pattern for us than her getting stuck in a crosscourt rally with the guy 9 times out of 10. Sometimes a player might have to take court to get more involved, but changing the dynamic mostly hinges on the targeted players ability and willingness to try new tactics and spots.

How To Hit The Lob 😎