¶ Optimal Poaching Situations
On today's episode, I'm going to share 30 years of poaching lessons that I picked up along the way as a junior who won nine national doubles titles. playing the U.S. Open at age 17 and becoming an All-American at Duke, as well as all the lessons from the great players I had the privilege to coach and the amazing information that's been shared with me on social media and this podcast.
So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player. Lesson number one, the best times to poach are early in the match, early in the point, and when the score is close at the end of the game or a set. Think of it this way, your opponent gets ready all week. They're a bit nervous at the start of your league match. Do you think they start the match off by trying a risky downline return or just a normal cross court to get things going?
While there are some players who make an active decision to start with a downline return, the vast majority of players just want to make their first return and get their feet wet by going cross court, which means it's an excellent time to poach. Early in the point.
Most returns go cross court and most plus ones go cross court as well. But as the point drags on to three, four, five shots, alarm bells start going off for everyone. Players lose patience. This is when net players eventually work up the courage to poach.
it's also when baseliners start realizing that this could happen and start to go down the line more. In the matches I review online, returns go cross-court about 80% of the time. Plus ones go cross-court almost just as much. But the fifth ball in a rally? it's a coin flip for me so if you want to make a move earlier in the point gives you a much greater chance of success than moving on the fifth ball
So much so that I've coached players that if you haven't moved on one of the first three balls, you should just stay on your half of the court for the rest of the point and start over on the next point. And finally, when the score is close at the end of the game or end of a set.
Players don't raise their level on big points. The level drops. And most players don't want to be the hero and step up and hit amazing shots. They're really just trying to avoid disaster. So what does that mean? Conservative returns and most likely cross-court returns.
And that's why I love poaching on big points. Just like everything, you can't do it every time. But again, get into the psychology of your opponent. It's 5-5 in the first set on a no-add point. You have a 3-5 or a 4-0 player returning serve.
Do you think they got together before the point started and decided the best strategy to win this incredibly crucial point was a risky down-the-line winner attempt? While I'm sure it happens sometimes, it's incredibly rare, and your job is to play the percentages. And on big points, the percentages say most players opt for the safer cross-court return. And after listening to this podcast, you're going to be there in poaching. Lesson number two, timing is everything.
¶ Mastering Poaching Timing and Practice
In my doubles camps, we work on perfecting positioning and the movement pattern to poach effectively. My goal is always to knock that out by the end of day one. This is honestly the easiest part of poaching, but the skill that separates elite poachers from average ones is the timing of the poach. If you start your poach before your partner's serve or ground stroke bounces on the opponent's side of the net,
and there's a great chance you're going to get beat down the line. Depending on your level, some of these shots are really slow, which means you need to be patient and let your partner's slow shot cross over the net and bounce before you do anything. Now, the perfect timing on the poach.
is starting your move between the bounce on your opponent's side and right before they drop their racket. Like I said, this all depends on the speed of the shot that your partner hits. If you're at the D1 level, this could be a split second. If you're at the 3-0 level, it might be a full second.
The goal here is to accomplish 80% of the movement on the poach during this time frame. So when your opponent actually makes contact with the ball, you're only going to be a step away from where you need to be. The single most common poaching mistake that I see in my camps is players leaving too late. The opponent is starting their swing and my player is still in the original starting position. You have maybe a half second before the ball passes you after they make contact.
And if you're above the age of 35 listening to this podcast, good luck moving from the center of the service box to the net strap in less than half a second. As always, you're going to need to video yourself in these matches. Figure out when you're leaving on your poaches.
Are you leaving too early when you get beat down the line? Are you poaching and still getting beat cross court? Once you become a master at timing, poaching gets a lot easier. Lesson number three, big goals don't happen on small timelines.
A lot of you listening want to improve at poaching or certain strokes or tactical cues that can make all the difference in your game. If you could get better at poaching after a few lessons in clinics, everyone listening to this podcast and watching my YouTube videos and the videos of other coaches online
would already be expert poachers. It is not easy to become a great net player. If you look in the mirror and make that big goal to become a lead at the net, realize that this big goal takes time. It may take an entire year of deliberate practice, but it'll be worth it.
What I see most often is players work on the skill for a few weeks. They leave too early, they leave too late, sometimes they get the footwork wrong, and they get passed down the line a few times. They don't like that feeling, and so they basically just stop.
and they remain the same players they've always been. The analogy I use in my doubles camp is that we're a weight loss camp. The goal is to lose 50 pounds. And during my camp, we're going to lose two pounds a day, which I think is incredible progress.
But you're going to have to go home and be consistent with the teaching, work on it weekly, and lose the remaining 44 pounds over the next few months. Sound difficult? That's because it is. And that's why the players who are willing to invest their time, focus, and effort to their skills
are the players who improve the most, and ultimately enjoy the game of tennis to the fullest. Before we get to lesson number four, a quick reminder that I have my Indian Wells and Charleston doubles camps coming up. We still have six total spots available in my three Indian Wells camps.
and Charleston is starting to fill up quickly with 25 of the 32 spots already taken. Both camps follow the same format of tennis practices over three days, tickets to the BMP Masters and the WTA 500 event in both cities, as well as our sick gift bag featuring an ADV backpack, clothing and shoes, as well as other premium items. Speaking of ADV, the holidays are here, and if you're shopping for your tennis or padel friends, ADV has some excellent options.
They have great gift picks at every price point, including their new performance socks for $20, which I personally had the chance to test and weigh in on before the launch. They're also dropping a new holiday gift box soon.
featuring two types of grips, an organic towel, and those wristbands that everyone loves, including me. Use my link in the show notes to get 10% off your order, and also check out my link, www.stokeytenniscoaching.com, if you want to secure one of the last few spots in my upcoming doubles camps.
¶ Poaching Mindset and Expectations
Lesson number four, getting beat down the line is a badge of honor. Again, just to clarify this idea, getting beat down the line and getting beat in the alley are two different things. Whether you are poaching or staying, I am always good with you having your opponent hit a winner in your alley. It's four and a half feet wide.
My best Division I players can't hit that target off my ball feeds with any level of consistency. So I know my 5-0 and lower adult players can't hit that target under pressure in the biggest moments with any level of consistency. That being said, if you aren't poaching and you get beat down the line but not in the alley, that's a balance or positioning issue and something we need to address. But when you decide to poach, inevitably you are going to get passed down the line a fair amount.
And here's the good news. Your partner has legs. They can run and try to get to that passing shot. And if it doesn't land in the alley, they should have a great chance to get there and at a minimum throw up a lob. Getting beat down the line.
doesn't mean you automatically lose the point. Many players are simply terrified to get beat down the line. It's like it's the end of the world. I hope you're aware of how many points you end up losing in a standard tennis match. Let's say you win a match 6-4, 6-4. That's 20 games, about 6 points a game, so that's 120 total points. Assume every game was won by 2 points in this example. You would have won 64 points, and your opponents would have won 56.
You're losing 56 points even in a match you win in two straight comfortable sets. And you're going to lose points in all different types of ways. Miss returns, double faults, you're going to brick a few volleys, miss an overhead or two. It's all part of the deal.
And yes, some of those 56 points will be you getting beat down the line. But here's the difference. When you double fault, you lose the point and you accomplish nothing. Same thing when you dump a return in the net. But when you poach and get beat down the line. Yes, you might have lost the point, but you've planted a seed in your opponent's mind that you might continue moving in the future. You give them a little stress and a little something to think about moving forward.
Of all the ways you could lose a point in doubles, this is one of the few ways that actually has a lingering positive effect, even if you don't execute it properly. It's one of the best ways to lose a point in doubles and something that elite players understand.
And lesson number five, expectation management is key. And I don't mean this in terms of how successful you'll be or how long it'll take, although both of those are very important. I mean expectations about what a successful poach will actually look like. In my experience as a player and as a coach, the number one way I win points is when my opponent misses. Sometimes they see me moving and try to go down my line and miss the net wide or long.
Sometimes they see me moving and try to go for too much angle cross court and miss wide. But the biggest piece of the pie in terms of winning points is simply forcing errors by moving to the middle and creating stress. The second most common way I see points being won on a poach is with very average to poor volleys. Sometimes they're shank angles. Sometimes they are slow, simple volleys hit at the opponent's feet. A lot of times the winning volleys on a poach are unspectacular.
And guess what? That's very normal. The third and smallest piece of the pie when you win points on a poach is when you move, you time it perfectly and hit a gorgeous textbook volley for a clean winner. It happens some, but not a lot.
And yet I found that many players believe this is what should happen when you poach. And this is how you should win a majority of your points. And so when that isn't happening, as they think it should, they get discouraged, which makes them move less, which means they don't improve.
Proper expectations are everything. You're going to make them miss. You're going to hit some really weird, awkward volleys. And then you're going to hit some ATP or WTA level volleys out of nowhere. In that order. And that's okay and normal. All right, that wraps up this week's episode. Reminder to check out my camp and ADV links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening. I hope you just improved at tennis without even hitting a ball.