50: Cross-Court Attacks Part 2, The Advanced Version

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Welcome to 4.0 to Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and sweltering Long Beach California. in Chicago. What's up dude? Just a little pickleball, my friend. It's fun being back in the tournament groove, which is good. So I'm enjoying that a little bit after a kind of bumpy week. From being home and uh feels good to be out here playing with my friends. It's a family reunion. Housekeeping, folks. If you are interested in our camp, we still have some slots left.

We've got 402p.com slash camp. This is our camp at Pickler Universe in Dallas. And we are super psyched. It's about a month away now. And if you guys come, the only thing I can guarantee is you're gonna have a blast and you're gonna become a better pickleball player over the week. So that is very exciting. If you guys are on the list and you have not received an email, I have sent multiple emails to the people on the list.

So please make sure you check your spam folder and things like that. But if you haven't, all you gotta do is go to 402p.com slash. Camp. So Michael, I was talking to one of the open pros, Robert Sletsky, who is from Dallas, and he was just so effusive about what a great facility that we're gonna be having the camp at. So really excited about it and gonna be a lot of fun. They had the MLP there a month or so ago.

And even just looking on YouTube and seeing all the different things they have. They've got lounges and VIP lounges and observation decks and it's gonna be very, very cool. So if you guys are on the fence about coming, please join us.

It's going to be amazing. So, Mircha, last week when you were out, I did a little show on something that I've seen trending a little bit in pickleball. We see these trends all the time. In this case, it was the cross court attack or the cross court speed up. And there's a more global conversation about this because I wanted to bring you in and have your expertise on

Let's do a little more of a a technical overview of some of the targets that you might do on a higher level and that kind of thing. Also maybe open up the discussion to the global discussion, which is offense. seems to be really winning games, like creating opportunity versus what would happen before, which is I've been watching these like twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen finals on YouTube and going, God, these are maybe like

four O's or a four two five that are in these finals at this point. But the notion of those games was let's grind them down until somebody makes a mistake. Dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, mistake. And it ain't like that now. Now it's Let's make our own hay by firing a ball at a certain spot, hoping for a pop-up and being coordinated enough with my partner to put it away. Obviously the paddle technology, Michael, has really contributed to this. And on the pro side, the PPA at least.

Just changed the lifetime ball, which is a little bounce here, so it bounces up a little bit more. So that's going to lead to more speed ups, but it just allows for more precise. and more powerful attacks. Thus, it really allows you to target specific spots and hit the ball harder with more frequency and more accuracy and you're able to set up more offense on a ball that you're controlling. And that's really what we're talking about.

some attackable balls that are either waist high or a little bit below the net. Maybe it you're thigh level that you can attack. And traditionally you wanna be attacking straight. Up that's most optimal if you can, especially if the person directly across from you, if I'm on the right, and you're on the left and you just popped up to dink to me, a lot of times the best option is to go right back at you because

it's a shorter distance and you have just hit the ball. The newer paddle technology allows us to open up our repertoire a little bit, open up our options and Definitely the cross court speed up, which you know, you can always do a put away. So if you have a high ball. That's at like shoulder level.

You can always go down cross-court or down in the middle, but it's really those less traditionally attackable balls that now when we're getting to the four-five, five-o, we're getting to that level, that we can start to attack balls at our waist.

And One thing I think is interesting about that is that I think that because traditionally we've always said to attack straight ahead, that people are now the straight ahead people are much more prepared for that than they were, let's say, two or three years ago. They're sitting on it. They're waiting for you to attack them.

They're cocked and ready for that counter. Whereas maybe this cross court thing is catching that person a little bit like, oh God, I didn't know this was happening. I think that this will all equalize, as I did mention on the last show. I think people will continually up their game to now, hey, look, these attacks could be coming from anywhere. So now you really have to be ready instead of feeling like, oh, there's no way they're gonna attack me in in this respect, but they are right.

Yeah, and I think we should define a little bit better that we really want to pick the right ball. And we want to pick the right target. Because if the ball is below the net, we still have the challenge of w going cross court being a longer distance so that person has more time to prepare. If you're on the right and you get a ball below the net and you speed up either inside out with your backhand or cross court with your forehand.

you are going to a longer distance and you're going at a diagonal. If you're going outside, meaning if you if there's a right handed person on the right side and you're going to their right, the ball is gonna go out. And so you have less room for the specific target. And then it's also a longer distance, so you do have to pick the right balls in the right spot. And that's what we're gonna talk about today, Michael. So you played obviously senior pro mixed.

today. Did you see any? Did was anybody doing any cross court attacks i in any of your games? Absolutely. And traditionally in mixed, especially in Senior Pro And also open pro, there's gonna be a lot of balls going cross court between the females and at appropriate times either my partner or the opposing female would speed up cross court and it was Relatively common. But I will say that the most effective attacks were the ones that were targeted to specific spots rather than space.

So let me just clarify that a little bit. When you're attacking cross court from below the net, let's start off with the being on the right side and let's finish the the mix topic. If my partner, who is Audrey Spielberg, if she speeds up from below the net cross-court in the middle, a lot of times those male players will cover with their forehand. Or if it's a female player, they have that two-handed backhand.

So the cross court middle, which is you're looking for space, you're attacking that space. It really only works well if you've really pulled someone out wide. It can be either player, but if you've pulled them out wide and you've opened up that space and someone's not covering that space. Again, when you're going below the net, it's really, really risky because you have to hit it from low to high and someone can jump over to cover that space because you're going somewhat cross-court.

So it it's really a tricky shot. Today my first partner, I played in a group of twelve and this guy was a still somewhat recent tennis guy. And when he was on the left and he was a really tall guy, 6'6 kind of guy, but didn't yet have the backhand dink. swing path dialed yet and he would almost every single time would cross over from his right leg and cross all the way over to the left and expose his back.

to that person that he was diagonally dinking with, which then of course opens up that whole middle area when you're on the right hand side. fire it right down at their their what's remaining their left foot and it's over. And I eventually had to say, Hey, this particular thing, we've gotten burned on this now about four or five times in that last game. Think about it this way. And it was we never talk about like here, change your swing entirely, but

No one had ever told him that. And he was like, oh, that makes tons of sense. And so we actually ended up switching partners and I played against him and he was Much better the next game. So it is a quick adjustment. But to your point, I was hoping to be able to just swing him wide because I knew that he was gonna turn away from me and I'd have all of this space. You could drive a truck through the space.

that he was gonna vacate. You're saying that to me it feels like the the further you go up that duper ladder Yes. where you might want to attack the space between the players, it doesn't work like that four, five and above, because A, that space isn't probably there. And B, they're probably baiting you. Please hit it to that space. That guy is waiting for you to hit it to that what looks really open gap.

And then stepping in and putting it away. Exactly. And that's that's a really good point. Because the higher level that you go, you definitely have that middle closed a little bit more because we've always talked about where do things funnel, Michael, if they start going fast. Yeah, they always go in the middle. They always go in the middle because if it's going wide or diagonally, it's going out. The balls that are typically going in are funneling towards the middle.

And Let's go back to the mixed example, which you can actually extrapolate pretty well to gender doubles as well. The most effective attacks that my partner Audrey who played the right today, the most effective attacks that she had If she had an inside out backhand that she could get in the air that was below the net, she would go inside out. to the opposing female who's on the right side, more to her body.

So we call it crossbody. She's not going to that space in the middle. She would go to either midsection or the right shoulder or the left shoulder of the opposing female player. Same thing with her forehand. When she had a forehand speed up, if she was able to get it more to the body, that was much more effective. We did not play any lefties today, but one of the

really good senior pros is Natalie Bagby and she's a lefty and she plays on the right side. So if you attack that lefty go cross middle to that space, they they cover that with their forehand as well. And that ball is gonna go right at me, which He's Natalie has hit that ball a bunch of times. If you are able to get it into the paddle side body of a lefty, so with that inside out backhand from the right volley from below the net, it really does

That's one of those are some of the spots that you want to attack from below the net cross court. Let's play out a couple of scenarios. You and I are opposing each other. We are now right side to right side. I have shown in this particular game That I'm ready for if someone is right in front of me, I am cocked and loaded for a counter. I am probably if I'm on the right side.

sitting with my backhand most of the time, unless there's some scenario where I need to turn or or be a little more neutral. In general, I'm sitting on that backhand side, and my left side player has shown a propensity for being able to step in and take those. floaty forehands in the middle or an attack in the middle. You're you and I'm me. Where are you looking? Let's say we're in a dink rally and I put one a little bit net high.

Where are you targeting me? Give me one or two targets that you would target. And you tell me what ball you're gonna hit. Like what what do you need to be able to speed this ball at me? So if you dink if you try to dink to my left foot and I have stepped up and I can get an inside out flick at you, I will go inside out towards your chest.

So I'll try to get that. Or your right hip if I can get there. Because again, it's cattle side. So I'm trying to almost chicken wing you. Sure, because I'm gonna be sitting in backhand, so you're almost aiming at my elbow. Exactly. And it's gonna really force me to like. To to try to rotate around to get it. Exactly. And if I do it below the net with my forehand, if you've pulled me out.

It's a little more challenging, but I would try to hit the same spot as well if I can't. That is a little bit tougher. Ideally I would do that if I've pulled you out and I feel your partner isn't covering. So I would try that cross middle if I have it, but only if I've pulled you out. This is like a surprise ball in general, right? You're trying to surprise me. I'm probably not gonna be in a position where I can fully avoid the ball, even though I would like to because I think it would

Go out generally, right? But you're doing such a good job targeting my torso. And it's surprising me that maybe I don't have time or I don't have enough. Space to to get out of the way. Exactly. So I would be targeting like you probably your chest with that forehand in the air from below the net. I'd be targeting your chest probably more that That right pectoral muscle if I can get it there. And a lot of times it works

works off speed. So I know you're talking a little bit about the full send, if you will, hitting it as hard as you can at your opponent's body. Of course that works well if you surprise them and you hit the hit the right shot. But this will work pretty well off speed if I can surprise you enough because I'm gonna be telling my partner these are my targets.

If I get this shot, this is what I'm going to try to do because my goal is to create that triangle. So I will hit the ball towards you and you will pop it up or counter. if you can, towards my partner. So I have to tell my partner that this is the ball I'm looking for. I see this as a weak spot or a potential target for attacks. If you see me get a ball in the air, just look straight ahead.

And that's really key because if you're not communicating with that with your partner, your partner will be surprised because that ball does go to your partner. Right. If I hit that inside out flick volley with my backhand right at you, you're either gonna counter wide to my partner's left or you're gonna get it right. To my partner. It's very difficult for you to counter inside out to my forehand. Unless I hit it just a terrible shot or you or you shank it or you get very fortunate.

Yeah, because if I'm sitting backhand, that would require me to not only get all the way to my forehand, but get there quick enough where I can actually get a backswing and start moving my paddle forward again. It's not really gonna happen. Really my only option If I'm lucky I can put it between you guys, but probably it's going right against you.

Exactly. So you have to communicate with your partner, which again we've talked about a million times, but it really, really helps their anticipation. It helps their reaction time. It's just huge if you have

It's very easy to see positioning problems and things that we all had when we were coming up. And this particular shot that you're talking about, if there's a a Better reason for getting all the way up to the kitchen line. It's because the tape hides this shot. from your opponent. The tape, the top of the net, the white part. Exactly. I can't see your feet. I can't see your knees. Cause the the net is obscuring that.

So when you reach down in general I'm thinking there's no way this is gonna be offensive. So when you're able to because you've got the skill set. to get that paddle face down and flick up on the ball and all of a sudden it appears. From the depths.

Like it's a really surprising ball to be able to handle. When we were playing back and forth way back when at Los Cab, you got me like fourteen times on that ball. It was like man, this thing just appears out of nowhere, but it's the exact reason why we want to be all the way up at the kitchen to instigate. If we can, and the best scenario for this is when you have hit a really good dink and that your opponent is struggling or a little bit out of position or a little bit further back.

or they're looking down or they're a little bit off balance. I'm totally fine with people stepping off the line to try to get a more comfortable dink if you need to, but if you've hit a really good dink, get up to the line and hunt for that ball. And if you are on the right side, you hit a good ding cross court, go towards the middle. Go hunt for that ball in the middle. Michael, what do you think about talking about some few scenarios from the left side? Some

Cross-court attacks. Well, you read my mind. So now I'm on the left, you're on the left. We are comfortably cross-court dinking. Now, the the typical scenario for this would be we go back and forth a few times. And I hang a ball up a little bit high. You're able to reach in and poke it at my teammate.

Yes. And that typically ends the point that I did it about fifteen times at the APP in Newport. I'm like, God, keep that ball down. Very sorry, Alan, for that. But this is not that. This is that would be the traditional version of This is a little bit different. Let's talk about the scenarios where I might be dinking towards your right foot. And the kinds of things you might do with that.

Yes. And let's clarify this because your first scenario is the optimal scenario. If you and I are are going back and forth and I get I am have the opportunity flick straight ahead. That's most likely what I'm gonna do. One of the scenarios, if you're trying to go to my right foot, if I've hit a good dink and I see you're a little bit in trouble and you're trying to reset to that middle and I can get that ball, I can go inside out.

right at your torso again, right at your midsection, either your right hip or your left hip, it's safer for me to go to your right hip, and that kind of jams you. And another really good scenario for me to hit that shot is if your right side partner is trying to target my right side partners. left foot. So I know that that shot is coming. So they're trying to go towards the middle.

And I take that ball and I go inside out right at you because you are going to be looking in the middle. When you're on the left and you're either watching your partner dank or you see your partner dink in the middle, you're looking for that middle ball. If I'm on the left opposing you, I can get that ball in the air and go inside out right at your midsection. And I'm trying to get that ball to pop up

for my right side partner. Yeah, because I'm hunting for the middle ball. I'm absolutely hunting for the ball that you hang a little high in the middle that I can just turn on and fire either right at the person in front of me. Or right through the middle of the court, high to low, it's gonna be a hard ball and you're gonna pop it up and we're gonna put the point away. Anyway, it's gonna happen one way or the other. But in general, when I'm on that left side, I might be leaning a little more

Forehand. Like I watch like let's say Georgia Johnson play that a little bit, where she might even have almost a lollipop grip. And she's moving out of the way to give herself a forehand put away in that scenario. So if you're able to get it to my left hip in that situation, I'm totally screwed.

Like I it's it's an almost impossible jam for me to get anything on the ball at that point. Another scenario which I like is if you and I are dinking cross court and we're on the left. and you are the one that hits a dink and you floated a little bit and I get a ball say at like waist level. So if if it's a backhand, if you're floating a backhand and I've pushed you out wide, what happens is

That l left side player, so that would be you in this scenario, are always going to go with your forehand to cover that middle. That's where you go. If you floated a dink on the left side with your backhand and I've pushed you out and you get it cross court, but I have I I can do a backhand flick, you're gonna go cover that middle. And so I'm gonna take advantage of that.

and go cross court right at your midsection again to try to jam you to pop it up. Now, if I try to go cross court middle to what I think is the opening You are probably gonna cover that with your forehand and crush it at my partner. I'm waiting for it. Exactly. One interesting thing about that, that whole scenario is that you don't even have to rip that ball. Like if you have a second to go inside out to that like what would be my left foot, it's so awkward.

You don't even have to hit it that hard. It's gonna be just so hard for me to get the paddle to do anything at that point. You gotta read it. I think this is one of the the points of this show. If someone shows a propensity to do something, ultimately you're going to have to cover. A good example today, for whatever reason, my four hand drive was

savage today. Like it was my percentage was really high, including the full on jack sock, run around the backhand, lace it down the line, the opposite of how Paris Todd won that game. But r but enough that I hit that down the line when I'm on the left hand side, ball went a little wide, I ran around it and ripped it down the line three times. In a game for winners, enough that they had to go, all right, I I have to cover line. I can't play how I would normally play this.

The guy had to sit forehand at least on that line to get me out of it. So of course I went I went inside out and dropped a murderous drop, but I was saying it was just that my forehand was so good today for whatever reason. But make them beat you on this, or at least recognize that this is a shot that they're gonna hit and you're gonna have to discuss it. If we're playing against you and I go, dude, he's hit this inside out thing on me now three times when I'm

swung wide and I put this ball up and he's able to like instead of ripping it at you, which is what we would expect, and he's ready for it. Mirch has gone inside out on me three times and he's won that. I have to now think, okay. If I float it, our only option is that right side players gotta fully cover middle and be ready for some counter. And I have to cover that that left foot.

thing that you're hitting, but you're making us change our strategy because we've recognized that you now do this. Exactly. So you're manipulating the other team with your own patterns that you are trying to maximize. So You've illustrated it really well. Thank you, Michael. Makes it hard to cover.

It does. Who you what are you gonna cover? Like what's what are your options? Because at that point with your forehand, that floaty forehand in the middle, now you can literally go right hip on my partner who's right in front of you and go that way because they're gonna be stuck.

Covering the middle'cause you've inside out at us three times now. One thing you have to keep in mind is your own comfort level, your own skills. that you have, so do you have some of these shots that we're talking about? Obviously you have to consider your opponent skills and your adjustment. You are taking a risk because you're going a longer distance and you're going diagonally, so you run the risk of hitting the ball wide.

These are great options, but you really have to hit specific targets most of the time. And I know you talked about it last time. Some people are just taking that ball and going full send, like trying to hit it as hard as they can at the person. Obviously that can work at times. The better you get, the more people can recognize that, especially off the bounce, because if you don't have a good speed up off the bounce,

that's disguised, people can read that really well. But the spots that we're talking about also work off the bounce if you are targeting specific people in specific ways. So See how it works. It's an option to try. If it's working, great. But if it's not working, don't do it. It sounds so silly and simple.

But I've seen it just time and time again where for whatever reason people, especially on the right side, like to speed up that cross court middle ball and it's just getting destroyed over and over again and it's not working. So If it ain't working, let's try something else. I think it's probably a really, really fun set of drills to do because you can illustrate how you can get completely caught.

with some of these shots and it'll allow you to hone in on your locations a little more, your target. It helps with practicing your locations. Obviously if you're drilling this, your drilling partner knows that that's what you're working on, but you can still work on that specific targeting really well. I really like doing this type of

scenario with two people across from me. So it's myself on one side and then two people across from me so I can change the pattern a little bit or have a little bit of mystery s so you can try to vary your shots and your opponents don't always know exactly where you're going or your opponent. Drilling partners don't always know exactly where you're going. This feels like a drill where you really need a basket of balls'cause you're gonna fire a bunch that are gonna be all over the place.

Diff much more difficult to do if you're just if you have one ball and you're drilling or two or three. This is a basket type drill. It is, but one of the drills which I did a bunch out in Aspen, which I really loved, was fast hands with one person on one side and two people on the other. So the w the person on one side would try to change the spot. So sometimes they'd go cross court, sometimes they'd go straight ahead. And you do cooperative fast hands.

And it really helps you to see the angles. And it allows you to work on some of these things that we're talking about. It also helps work on the defensive aspect of it. So you can see that you're not you don't have to panic when someone attacks you cross court. You can visualize their paddle angles. You try to work on where you're countering. if you need to shift to one side for another. So if I'm continually targeting your body from the right side to the right side.

you might wanna shift over to your right so you can get that backhand in you can get my ball into your wheelhouse with that backhand a little bit. So that's one way you can work on it. So I really enjoyed the cooperative fast hands with one person on one side and two Yeah, and that last scenario before we wrap this.

By me shifting over to the right and getting that ball more into my wheelhouse, I've gotta talk to my partner and be like, Hey, I've I have to do this. He keeps nailing me in this hip. You're gonna have to come over a little bit more and cover middle more than you maybe were.

Otherwise we leave a tractor trailer hole in the middle of the court. Exactly. All right, guys. So I hope you'll drill this. I think it's a really fun thing to start playing with. And it really can teach you that low flick that Mirch is talking about is really, really a fun shot. We need a name for it. It's like the uh the appearing dragon or something. Like it just it appears out of the blue just from under the net and it shocks someone. So we have to figure out a name for that.

But uh yeah, hey, good luck tomorrow in Gender Dubs. Thanks, buddy. And you'll have to report you'll have to report back and if you did any good cross court attacks, I think that'll be really good. Sh don't tell anyone. Okay. Folks, you've now just listened to another episode of Four Point O to Pro. If you'd like to come and join us at the camp, it's four oh two p dot com slash camp to register. You can also email me. By the way, if you ever fill out like picklehelp.com

Don't just put your email address in. I don't actually know what you want then or if you accidentally sent it without sending something. Definitely mention that you want to be on the list for the camp and I'll send you the link. But here's the link: it's 402p.com/slash camp. If you have not heard from me, that's where you register. Thank you for Mircha. I'm Michael. You guys keep Listening to 4.0 to Pro. For more tips, find us on Instagram. out there and But don't forget to have a little bit