Hitting Patterns

[Govnor]

Originally Posted by Nellie

In my experience, many high school girls are stronger from the backhand side, so it is good to have them practice dictating points from that wing with some of the drills you were previously practicing. Boys typically want to hit from the forehand side.

Also, in comparison to boys, I also find that the girls can dictate points with sharp angles and accuracy instead pace. So, I would practice hitting a couple crosscourt to the corner of the baseline and then have them hit sharp crosscourt to the service box to open up the court.

Yep noticed that too. I'm sure there are some advantages to be played off of that,but I'm no coach.

[McLovin]

I've seen that on many of the teams we play, but for my top 3, two of them are equally solid off both sides, but no true weapons, while the other can crush forehands all day...but her backhand is a liability.

For the one, her coach at the club is working on the backhand, so I'm not messing with it. That's his job and I don't want to contradict anything he says.

However, I will take a look at the backhand patterns from the video links Relinquis posted earlier and see how I can use them.

[McLovin]

Update from yesterday (in case anyone cares):

I ran a forehand drill similar to one in video Relinquis posted. Basically, I had them hit two angled crosscourt forehands, followed by a down the line forehand. I explained the first two shots were designed to pull the opponent outside the doubles alley and open up the court for an easier down the line shot. Two of them got the hang of it quickly, the third coming around near the end.

However, after practice my #1 player asked if I could stay & hit for an extra 10-15 minutes. We started just hitting balls, but without me saying anything, I set her up to hit the pattern. Not only did she run the pattern, but she took it one step further by stepping in on my reply to her down the line shot & hitting behind me as I recovered.

I stopped and looked at her, and she had this huge smile on her face. She knew she had run the pattern, but more important, she saw its effectiveness in an actual hitting situation.

[Relinquis]

thats great!

it's always fun to see improvement, or to put something you've practiced to use.