56: Advanced Pickleball Strategy | Paddle Angles, Deception, and Anticipation (4.0-5.0+)

Guys, before we get started, Michael here. I meant to mention on this show, I'm actually going to be in North Carolina for Thanksgiving in the Clayton area. So kinda rally Clayton. And looking for some pickleball games. If you guys know of a couple of cool indoor places to play, would love to find a higher level game, four five, five oh, senior pro type thing, but

Would love to meet some of you guys if you're in that area. Uh let me know. Picklehelp dot com is where you can reach out to me or four point nota pro on Instagram. All right. Thanks, guys.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I remember how to do this. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of 4.02 Pro, your pocket-sized pickleball podcast, where we teach you a single shot of strategy every single episode. I'm Michael O'Neill here in Drenched cold rainy Long Beach, California, joined by Mircha Morariu. Uh how you doing, bud? Good to see you again. Wonderful to see you and it was wonderful to see you when I came up to cold, wet, rainy California, which is

honestly shocking for me'cause that's typically not the way it goes. And ironically I am in sunny and quote chilly, unquote, which is like in the I sixties for the evening in uh Booker Tone, Florida. And it's been just spectacular, gorgeous weather. since I've been here and uh it was darn chilly and cold and rainy when I was out there uh seeing you, my friend. We pay a lot of money for seventy five and sunny, dude. Uh this is not

Okay. Uh we tend to call the FBI if there's some weirdness coming out of the sky, something they call it rain. We don't we're not used to that. But uh but here's the good news. I am very cozy in my brand new Carbon Court IQ hoodie. I got the the comfy jogger pants on right now. They've got some performance shorts. They've got some new shirts.

So if you guys want some good winter garb, it's so soft. It's like, you know that the the workout material that's kind of slick, it's kind of slippery. That's what this is. It's got this cozy slippery thing. And it's really flee. So you can play in this gear. I'm wearing the uh Army Green. I've got the Army Green hoodie. in the army green joggers on and I look like uh I blend right into the woods. Definitely styling. It's good stuff. The other thing.

I have here in my left hand is a copy of tonight's top 10 list. No, uh it is Carbon's doing a limited paddle drop, Mircha. Only 1,000 units. I'm assuming 250 of each unit. Uh it's called the Summit. And it's based on their True Foam Wave, which is their most recent paddle, which I believe you're playing with, or or at least you were when we played uh the other day. And it's the same paddle with all new graphics. a new case and it's kind of inspired by the wintertime. It's kind of this

Summit series. So that's what it's called. It's called the Wave Summit. And there's only a thousand of them. And if you want them, you can go to carbonpickleball.com. Use the promo code 402P at checkout for a new hoodie and some new paddles. And I hope you enjoy yourselves'cause they're all uh really good. Yeah, the paddles are slick. They're definitely slick.

Yeah, you've been playing with yours for a while now. I actually expected that you'd play it for a minute and go, eh, and then you'd move on. But I was surprised to see you showed up playing it uh in California. Yeah, I kinda alternated between that and the True From Genesis The elongated version. That's what I'm playing with right now. The weighting really makes a difference. I really feel that really enhances the best playing characteristics of the paddles.

Both with a four and the the a one, which are the elongated. And it's really along the sides that I feel it really helped open up that sweet spot and improve the consistency and yeah, great paddles.

I really like it. And we should quickly at least address. It's been like a month, dude. We haven't done a show in a month, and we both have had disparate things that Alright, we we don't this is not a uh for all of you listening, this is not a uh money making situation we're in here. We we don't make a ton of money. Uh we we make enough to keep the lights on with this show.

And so when income producing activities pull us in one direction or another or family obligations, we tend to have to do them. So that's was a weird combination of those things from both of us. But we've we've missed it. We've missed it, Mirch. I've missed talking about that. We're we still have part two to do of this darn show. I know. We really have missed it and I just wanna give a a shout out to a

everyone listening, we're just so grateful that you actually take the time to listen to our podcast. It's just incredibly humbling. And all the people that said, Hey, you know, we love the show and You're the heck are ya? Kind of oh oh it's a show, yeah. Yeah. Where where have you been? And it's it's really just incredibly humbling and we are so grateful And we really, really appreciate you and uh I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to try to help.

people get a little bit better. So thank you to everyone out there right now. By the way, if you have uh we have a a stellar track record actually of of brand deals and and when we actually do have advertisers on the show, we do really, really, really well for them. So if you have a company out there in listener land. That is pickleball adjacent or fitness adjacent or something that you think pickleball players would like.

And you'd like to talk about advertising here on the show, uh reach out. You can do that on Instagram. You can go to picklehelp.com and that goes right to me. You can reach out on Instagram, 40 Pro, uh, or uh, you know, you know how to find us. You guys know how to find us.

So Mircha, let's talk about reading paddle angles. We talked about this a month ago and we did kind of the basic beginner version of this. Which is like this is the two point five, three point oh, three point five version of reading w what your opponents are about to do and then hopefully moving to that space before they even hit the ball. So you're anticipating the shot they're gonna hit. Now as we get to that four five plus level, things get trickier because

A huge part of the game is deception. We all know that we're all reading each other's paddle angles, we're reading body language, we're reading positioning. and we start scouting our opponents and knowing hopefully where they're gonna go on the court, generally

So this gets a little trickier when you move your uh yourself up that duper food chain. Yeah, because it's not only uh the disguise that typically gets a little bit better It's also the variety of shot making, so the skill level of your opponents just increases, and so you have to be aware of that.

That being said, you know, the fundamental skill of analyzing what your opponents are doing and where they are in the court and coming up with a hypothesis of likely scenarios that are going to ensue as someone is about to hit the ball. That skill is something that you need to hone and practice at really every level. And hopefully the further you go along, the better you'll be able to do that. The ultimate version of that.

is that that counter. The it's the most satisfying thing ever when somebody attempts to deceptively speed up on you and you're just sitting there ready and waiting for it and fire it right back at them. It's like a w it's well just uh it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, like you have a a brand new carbon court IQ sweatshirt on. I think that's really my my favorite shot and it's probably one of my best shots is my backhand counter and it's definitely satisfying to

get attacked and be able to defend that and win that battle. It's so good. So Mircha, why don't we start at the baseline and

Typically, as a let's say we're on return of serve and you're returning, I'm up front. Can you talk a bit about? At least at the most basic level, we've talked about what the roles are of that person who's upfront. And waiting for the ball at the non volley zone. Can you talk a bit about Yeah, so the two main things as the non returning partner when you are standing near the kitchen or as I like to do is stand about

six to eight feet back and then let my partner return and then move up and follow their return. But your jobs are primarily number one to help your partner get up and number two is to put pressure on your opponent.

And not necessarily in that order. They're kind of 1A, 1B. They're your combined jobs, in my opinion. The way that, you know, reading paddle angles and body positioning and Core positioning, the way that this can help you is you can predict what kind of shot is going to come and it helps you decide your core positioning.

So hypothetically, I'm on the left, you're on the right, you're returning. It helps me as the non-returning partner if we discuss where you're returning. If you return straight ahead or towards the middle, I am better able to do my job by covering the middle or sliding to the middle where I follow your return. And if I see our opponent take their paddle and dip it lower below their knee or dip it down with a paddle tip down.

I'm going to anticipate a drop. And if I know that they do like an inside drop consistently, then I shift over a little bit more to the left, but I have time to recognize that and adjust accordingly. And if they take it back more at their waist level, or if I lose their paddle, it's behind them. So obviously I know that they're going to drive the ball. And if they are gonna drive it, and you know they have like a really hard drive, it's reinforcement that you should be

stabilizing and then have some plan on where you want to hit that next ball. Transition zone's a different animal a little bit because now we have to start reading if the ball's a little higher or a little lower. You know, if you hit a ball that's

Even waist high at the transition zone, but certainly shoulder high, you've got to be ready to get a ball ripped at you full speed. And that's a little different than if you hit a beautiful drop down by their feet, right? With a nice third shot drip or something like that.

Exactly. You can adjust your core positioning based on what your opponents are doing and where their paddle angle is and how their shoulders and hips are turned. And if you pay attention to that, you know where you need to be. So if they're going to drive the ball, you can For example, in the scenario that I just gave, I can sit more middle if I know that they're gonna drive the ball, because if they drive the ball to my left, it's most likely going out.

And if they're going to drop the ball to my left, then I know I can move over and cover that. Whereas I'm much better able to sit middle and try to help you get up by sticking my paddle to the right with my forehand if I see that they're going to drive the ball.

One mistake I see made a lot is when that happens, let's say you you put a bit of a sitter up in the middle of the transition zone and now they can get a hold of it, right? They can really fire it. One thing I see happen I think we get encouraged by the amount of space we think we have between when they're hitting the ball and we're at the non-volley zone and they're about to hit a drive from the middle of the transition zone right at us.

Oh, what I see often is that people try to swing the stroke instead of just blocking it back. They're trying to do a full swing with this drive that's coming right at them. And it almost always goes flying off the court in some capacity. Like they're overswinging. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And you know, the other scenario you've talked about in the episode where we talked about letting out balls go. The other scenario is when if you hit a short low return and I see the opponent

Have their paddle all the way back way behind them and running in. And they're gonna just crush the ball as hard as they can. I'm gonna let that one go. So I'm making the decision based on their paddle angle and where the ball is, rather than waiting to make the decision as the ball crosses the point of the net, because that's when everyone says, oh, I I can't get out of the way. I couldn't get out of the way of that one.

And you couldn't get out of the way'cause you made the decision as the ball is crossing the plane of the net. You played with uh some of my crew when you came out to visit. You play with uh my friend Dwayne who's a big dude, he's a big 6'3, 250-pound dude, and he came from tennis. We actually had a great drill session today. Shout out Dwayne. And I've always told him. 'Cause he does, he's a big dude, he takes a huge step and a huge swing.

and he hits the snot out of the ball, but when he does that huge step and huge swing and he's anywhere inside or really a f from a foot back from the baseline, I'm like, Oh, I'm turning before he strikes the ball because the ball's gonna go four feet out. And certainly if he's in the transition zone, doing that same long stride, slow stroke There's no way that that ball is staying in. When you're in the middle of the transition zone and you're trying to hit

Some sort of drive. You better be as small and compact as humanly possible. And it better be a quick ball that has a lot of Z. It's gotta have a lot of topspin on it. And this is not a shot you rip. It's a shot that you're placing in a specific corner with a lot of spin. If it ain't that, I'm moving out of the way. And I think that's a perfect example of reading

prior to the shot. And to piggyback on that a little bit, when someone has a very slicey or flat drive, which many players do, once that ball starts rising and they're hitting it hard, it's going out. Yeah. The only time it dips if they come over it and hit top spin. then it has a theoretical chance to basically come down and it it'll dip down because of the arc. But if you notice the paddle angle as someone is striking the ball when they drive,

They can hit great drives, but they're flat and they're low. They have to be flat and they have to be low and close to the net. Otherwise they're going out. And it just never ceases to amaze me how often people don't recognize that paddle angle and just hit balls chest high.

And it might be even l like I said, chest high and they're like, Oh, that ball, it was that going out as the partner, I'm paying attention to their paddle angle. So I see them strike the ball with a paddle face open and it's almost like a slice drive or a slicely flat drive. Yeah. And basically the paddle angle is upward and there's zero chance unless it They're bunting the ball, there's zero chance for that to stay in. IKEA presenterar Ljud av förändring. Let's live!

Vi kan gå från vänner till rival. Welcome to Likia. It's funny. My girlfriend's a new pickleball player, so she's in the two point something range. She's not even quite to three oh yet. But getting there. She's close. Footwork. Working on some footwork. But when I watch her play, and she's playing with uh let's say she's a two-pointer. She when she plays with the two point five to three point five folks and I watch the points it's like

Out, out, out, out, out. Wow, they just hit five out balls in a row. Like they're jumping in the middle of the transition zone. to hit it what wouldn't even be an overhead. The ball's flying over and they're jumping to get it that far out. I'm like, if you guys just adjusted your paddle angles and just let out balls go out, you'd win every point.

Literally you'd win every single point because they are just flying and they just start As you go up, they just start getting a little more inbounds when you get to that three out three five range. Boca just opened up Hatch Reef. They opened up eighteen covered courts and now they have extended open play and it's packed there. 18 courts packed.

in the morning and in the evening and going over there, watching the open play as I walk over kind of the challenge courts, I just get anxiety seeing all the all the outballs being hit constantly.

So let's get up to the net, because I really think this is where the rubber meets the road for paddle angles, especially at the higher levels. Being able to read the capabilities of your again, we're talking kind of four or five plus here. But being able to read the capabilities of your opponent's Really starts mattering. And here's why. If you and I are diagonal from each other and we're both on the left-hand side and we're doing a cross-court.

dink battle and you hang one a little bit higher than you want. At this level, I have a pretty good flick that I can flick it out of the air and drive it at your partner who's right in front of me. You have to recognize, we were just talking about it today, your ability to to take a really low backhand dink and you put this really dirty. slice on it. You we are kind of messing with it today when we are drilling. But it's one of your more unique shots as you.

And you really can get a nice angle and and it and it and it it really skips when it hits. And it's like, oh, I need to avoid giving him that ball because It comes back kind of diabolically. It's a it's a very rough ball to handle once. You've hit it in your wheelhouse. So I'm gonna wanna go a little more between your legs or a little more towards your left foot instead of getting it out wide on you so you can get all of that junk on it that you like to put on it. I'd rather

keep it closer to your body. But that's an example of not giving you the shot that you want. But my point is is that you can do things with that ball and I need to be aware that you can do things with that ball. And that's where the paddle angle thing comes in because Once once I see you do that a few times, I go, Oh, and you wouldn't probably I mean, maybe you notice'cause you c seems like you notice everything, but when we were across from each other towards the end of our

six or seven games whatever we played. When I saw that ball go there to that, I think that's a good thing corner, I immediately started shifting to the wide angle because I knew that's where you liked to go on that. Now you could sneak up on me and go middle and and get me, but you hadn't uh revealed that yet. So that's an example of how I might use it in in a real game. That's an excellent example and I love how you're highlighting the concept of trying not to give your opponents

shots that are hurting you. People just don't realize how important it is when you're getting hurt by a particular ball to not give your opponents that ball. It's such a simple yet potent concept that people need to be aware of. When someone is hurting you, just don't give them that shot. Along those lines, when

you see someone hit a certain shot with certain paddle angle and this comes with the analysis that you're doing on an ongoing basis, especially if it's people you haven't you haven't played against. Right. All right.

You know, you and I d we haven't played that much, but it's one of the things that you notice this particular time and I love that you pointed that out,'cause that's very accurate. Even if it wasn't accurate, the more important concept is that you're looking for it and thinking about it. And you are taking what I always call data points. When you're first starting to play.

you might not recognize that a certain paddle angle means that a ball is going a certain way. But once that ball goes there, everyone has patterns that they like or shots that they like to hit or they're good at. So those will be repeated often. So if you pay attention and notice That For example, uh like today I played this

I this guy I've never played before and he has a good two-handed cross-court role, but he only goes cross-court. Right. And I can see that when he holds his paddle with a two-hander, it's almost perpendicular to me. So I know that he can only go across court. I almost don't see the bulk of the face of his paddle when I'm on the right and I'm looking straight ahead. So I should clarify where where I was when I'm noticing this. Right.

I was playing with a partner that wanted to practice left so I was on the right most of the time. So I could see that you know, I wasn't seeing the face of his paddle. So I know there's no way he can go down my line. He has to go cross court. Right. So I can shift to the middle and help my partner by limiting the amount of court coverage that he needs to have. And he can just kind of shift over to the left.

One thing that I want to emphasize is half tracking versus full tracking and remind everyone, full tracking is when you're watching the ball the entire time. If you and I are playing and people are mostly dinking to you. I'm watching the ball come off. our opponent's paddle go to you. I'm watching you strike the ball. Then I'm watching the ball

Where it goes off your paddle back to the other side. So that's the full tracking. This is where half tracking really helps you because the half tracking would be. I track where the ball is going to you and I can see where your court position is and maybe I even start to see your your paddle come back, but I immediately change my focus from watching the ball all the way through to watching your paddle hit the strike your paddle. As soon as it goes over the net and I kinda see where you are.

and you know, which kind of ball you're generally about to hit, whether it's four hand or back in, I immediately look forward and I look at my opponent. So wherever you hit the ball I see the ball come out of my peripheral vision. I have you in my peripheral vision. I see the ball come out of my peripheral vision. Go to whichever opponent and I can analyze both their core positioning, their body positioning, and more importantly, their paddle angle, where their paddle.

So if I see you dinking straight ahead and I see the opponent take their paddle back and look aggressive like they're about to blick the ball or or roll the ball, then I know that I have to tense up and be ready for a counter. And then if I see them kind of take the paddle back gently, for example, might shift back a little, but then I know they're about to dink. I adjust accordingly. That doesn't

override the primary concept that you always want to expect a speed up, but this helps you adjust a little bit better. I wanted to add something to your story about this guy who only had the cross court TUI. It sounds to me like when he hit it He it was wide and accurate and probably difficult, right? But what you noticed is that it wasn't hurting you on the right hand side. There was nothing about it that you were concerned about.

And that's what it was like when I was and it was probably a year ago. I I'm sure it's changed since then, but when I played Matias. Uh in doubles, if I'd put that ball towards his left foot, I knew it wasn't gonna hurt us because he was only gonna hit a slice cross-court backhand from it.

I'm sure he's worked on other things since then. As the guy who has the TUI, that's a really good opportunity to in your drill session, which is something we worked on today. You're working on your two E cross court dinks and then every once in a while you speed one up directly in in front of you. So you'll drop the paddle face a little bit at the last millisecond.

And speed it up right across from you, because that's going to keep the mirches of the world honest. You have to be paying attention if the ball's a little high. If somebody has a flick or they have a TUE that they can open up in the last millisecond and fire it your way, and and by the way, I can hit that ball with a two-e so that it's at your upper chest, but it has so much topspin on it that it's gonna drop in three feet.

You know, it doesn't have to be a really hard ball, but that's to me a drilling opportunity for that guy that's got the twoe. To to be able to keep you honest on that right side. Yeah. And if if he took his paddle back just a little bit more and just kind of showed me his paddle face. And then he brought it over and closed the face and then

brought it over to go cross court, that would allow for some more deception. The general point is that if you observe things correctly and and the half tracking greatly improves your ability to look at that, you're able to analyze things a little bit more. someone that you've played with regularly and you know has a good shot, look at how they're about to hit their paddle angle.

predict the shot and if you predict it ninety nine percent of the time you're able to adjust your core positioning and expect the ball that you're you're about to hit that you're about to get. And then if it's someone new and they hit a shot that you hadn't expected. think about what their paddle angle will look like right before they're about to hit the ball or as they're striking the ball. What's that paddle angle and adjust accordingly? We talk a a bit about

And this is something that I thought about when you and I played. You were on the left. I was on the right for this particular point. And you sped the ball up. You chicken winged me. I got it. But it was, it was a very weak return. It was a very weak response to your speed up. And I I can't remember who won that particular point, but it made me think that With you in particular, and I think if you find somebody who

has mastered the art of deception as well as being very accurate like you are. You're very surgical with where you put your shots. That mindset of, oh, it's coming at me. We've been across from each other now a handful of times, but enough times now that I can start getting a read I'm like he's coming at me right now.'Cause I think you do it to F with me most of the time. Uh, but but like

I appreciate that. But I appreciate that. I'm not walking away whether it was Dallas or here thinking, oh, he got the better of me so many times. I was like, I was we I was all right, I handled my business a few times. But my point of this was if I know you're gonna go there and you've done it let's say once or twice already during a match, when you get a dead dink and you've got your options, I'm probably going to

slide a little bit. Because I know you're gonna target a particular spot. I'm gonna start practicing whether I need to slide backhand or slide forehand. If you're gonna chicken wing me and I'm on the right hand side I'm gonna right before you strike the ball move to my left a foot and give myself a little bit of wiggle room so that I can hit a forehand counter on that. Because it's too far to go backhand and I'm opening up the whole middle of the court if I go all the way to the right.

So I'm generally gonna do something like that, but That's where some of this nuance comes from where you start getting to know your opponents and their their ability to speed up from pretty much anywhere. Yeah, and part of my job in in this scenario is to try to hide a little bit, even if you know that I'm gonna speed up. But yeah I don't know if you're going right hip, left foot, you know, right shoulder, left shoulder. There's options

Is changing the spot. So for example, if you give me a dead in my forehand, I try to minimize my backswing and just try to hold and then hit the ball and accelerate towards the spot that I'm trying to hit. and towards the expected counter that you're going to hit. Right. So if I have my forehand, I'm going to just try to minimize that backswing because the more backswing you have, the more time your opponent has to read your paddle.

Yeah, if you see that move when there's a dead dink and you see Ben Johns or Gabe or somebody doing this big like pomp and circumstance, like they're about to rail the ball at them, all that's doing is like that's them just holding and holding and holding until they fire the ball at the last second. One more thing about this. One way you can use that if you

take a little bit of a backswing and fire off what we call a full send where you take a ball that's a dead dink and you basically just crush it of your opponent trying to going more towards the body to try to get a pop up. One of the things you can do next time is is Disguise that same move and hit an off speed shot or hit an aggressive dink to their backhand.

by mixing that up you keep them off balance and so they're not sure that you're gonna speed up next time. And you kinda set them up the first time with those two really hard speed ups and then the next time You take an off speed ball. So again, we've talked about the aggression, the quote attack unquote, that it doesn't necessarily have to be hard. It's just an aggressive shot that sets you up for the next shot. If you're drilling anything, if you're drilling dinks.

or drilling resets or, you know, you name it. Especially if you're in that like four out of four two five level right now, the way to start introducing this deception into your game would be, all right, let's do 10 back end dinks in a row or 30 or whatever your number is. But if you happen to get one that's a little bit high and you have a moment, just send it straight. Start. Seeing if you have the capability to start changing your target based on the height of the ball.

and start really thinking about how long you can hold your paddle still to make it look exactly like all the other dinks you just did, but now you're gonna go straight instead of cross court with it. And you can pretty much do this with every single shot. You can wait and wait and wait. If you're working on

really tiny drives from the middle of the transition zone. Do a few down the line, then do a few cross court and just get used to the motions of I want this swing to look exactly the same. I just want the ball to to go in a different spot. And I I may have mentioned this before, my old racquetball coach, Rocky Carson, literally his it was his right foot that would move an inch or two.

And that dictated and that also how far in front of the his knee he hit the ball that would determine whether it was going down the line or cross court. And it was I mean, it was the last millisecond that he would reveal it. So you'd really be stuck in this soccer goalie during a penalty kick situation where you just don't know what side it's going on until it's already been hit. And in racquetball at 130 miles an hour, that is way too late.

is that racquetball players tend to have that racquetball grip and they have difficulty hitting topspin on their forehand with speed ups off the bounce at the kitchen. So if you see someone that has a grip where basically when they hit the ball with their forehand and they try to speed it up, the paddle face is angled upward. Okay, they cannot keep that ball in unless

the ball is soft. Right. Can I make it really easy? It's extremely low, like an inch above the net. I'll make it really easy on you, which is uh if they're wearing a glove and playing a gearbox paddle, they were definitely a racquetball player. That reminds me of Rich Lopez. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I know Rich.

All right, we've lost Myrcha, but we've got a few very actionable takeaways here. Number one, and you can do this when you drill. It really, this is a great place to start drilling. Start watching your opponent's paddle angle on every dink rally for 10 minutes. So you guys are thinking, start really focusing on your drill partner's paddle angle and start mixing it up a little bit. Go inside, outside, tell them to go inside, outside, and really try to

Making real emphasis on watching the angle. Number two, film yourself and Slow down the point. So put it in slow motion. And before the person hits the ball, or you can film anybody, see if you can predict where the ball is going to go. Start reading the paddle angle and go, okay, cool, this one's going cross court, this is going down a line, they're gonna speed it up based on their body language, watching it in slow motion, watching their footwork, watching their anticipation.

Th what their body language is doing, all that kind of stuff all factors into this very organic skill set. Number three, train both reading and disguising. So you've got to learn how to fake your own paddle angles. Start changing your angle at the very last second. As long as you can keep it stable and not pop the ball up, it's gonna be something that's going to really vastly improve your point structures because you're gonna be paying attention.

to the angles of the ball before the ball actually even gets there. So half tracking. You want to not focus everywhere that the ball is going to be. You want to kind of keep it in your peripheral vision, keep it in front of you. Read the paddle angles, read the body language, read the court positioning, read the footwork, all the things that we have to do. And of course it's all bang bang. So the better you are at. observing and calculating The more

It'll help you on the court. And as I tell everybody, it's one thing when you're twenty-two, when you've got twenty-two-year-old knees and twenty-two-year-old reaction times and twenty-two-year-old, etcetera. But when you're fifty You better learn this darn skill because it's harder for us to get to the spot. If someone deceptively or non deceptively actually hits a really wide cross-court

and we could have predicted it and started moving before they hit it, it's gonna give us a way better chance to field that ball than if we have to wait until it's going over the net. Makes sense, right? Guys, awesome to have you back in uh I'm so grateful, honestly, to be back in your earballs. And uh go out and enjoy yourselves on the court. All right. Thank you for listening to 4.0 to Pro. Find us on Instagram. out there and But don't forget to have a