How do you handle opponents who try to win the warmup?

S

So_Close

New User
It has been a bit since I faced an opponent who wanted to win the warmup. Last night I was playing ladies 4.0 doubles and it happened. One of our opponents was standing a few inches behind the net and decided to hulk smash away all my feeds. She looked like a fool. Anyways, after i spent enough time locating the 3 balls she smashed all over the place I made my feeds higher. She missed that entire next round of balls I fed to her. I shrugged and said “my feeds are just too high today I guess.” That did the trick because she said she didn’t want to hit anymore volleys nor take any overheads.

Any other fun ideas on how to handle these warmup champs?
 
So_Close said:
It has been a bit since I faced an opponent who wanted to win the warmup. Last night I was playing ladies 4.0 doubles and it happened. One of our opponents was standing a few inches behind the net and decided to hulk smash away all my feeds. She looked like a fool. Anyways, after i spent enough time locating the 3 balls she smashed all over the place I made my feeds higher. She missed that entire next round of balls I fed to her. I shrugged and said “my feeds are just too high today I guess.” That did the trick because she said she didn’t want to hit anymore volleys nor take any overheads.

Any other fun ideas on how to handle these warmup champs?
Click to expand...

I just let them smash winners. They're just confirming that they will not be a factor at the net because I'm just going to lob them.
 
My main goal in the warmup is to understand my opponent's strengths and weaknesses, so my opponent trying to win the warmup is not an obstacle to me - in fact it probably helps

Just give them lots of different kinds of feeds and see what they do with them
 
Feed them sxxx balls, take your time and slow walk to retrieve the balls all the time holding your cool and not let it get to you. In the match, drill a few shots directly at them as hard as I can when they are at the net.
 
Johnny505 said:
Feed them sxxx balls, take your time and slow walk to retrieve the balls all the time holding your cool and not let it get to you. In the match, drill a few shots directly at them as hard as I can when they are at the net.
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The downside of drilling them is that they get lucky and shank some winners.

OTOH, there's no way for them to get lucky running down a lob. After the 2nd one, they will probably just watch it land for a winner.

Psychologically, that's probably even more devastating.
 
You also always have the option in doubles of warming up with your own partner. It's a bit of a nuclear option at that point though; perhaps better used next time you play her. In addition to slow-walking, you can slow-walk to retrieve each ball rather than wait until there are two or three to retrieve, plus don't even make an attempt to return any of them even if they're hit near you. If you're able, put heavy topspin on each ball so she has to hit her volleys up.
 
Wow I can't believe all the gamesmanship with warmups discussed here. The purpose of the warmup is for you both to support each other in getting familiar with the playing conditions prior to the match. You should already arrive warmed up and ready to play. It is isn't to try to figure out your opponents weaknesses or intimidate them with smashes, etc.
 
OnTheLine said:
Where I live, that is next to impossible as there are very few public neighborhood courts outside of the facilities .... and those few that exist are packed solid. I would imagine those areas that need to play indoors would find it even more onerous.
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Blast away if you want but the code of conduct is pretty clear. I didn't write it.
 
So_Close said:
It has been a bit since I faced an opponent who wanted to win the warmup. Last night I was playing ladies 4.0 doubles and it happened. One of our opponents was standing a few inches behind the net and decided to hulk smash away all my feeds. She looked like a fool. Anyways, after i spent enough time locating the 3 balls she smashed all over the place I made my feeds higher. She missed that entire next round of balls I fed to her. I shrugged and said “my feeds are just too high today I guess.” That did the trick because she said she didn’t want to hit anymore volleys nor take any overheads.

Any other fun ideas on how to handle these warmup champs?
Click to expand...
You say you were playing doubles. What we do in similar circumstances is warm up partner to partner.
This way each team has more control over the warm-up process, and you can still check out your
opponents game because they are right next to you in the same court.

If you are playing singles, it becomes a bit more tricky. First ask the opponent if they will
warm up properly. If you get no cooperation, think about bringing on a friend to warm you
up.
 
S&V-not_dead_yet said:
I just let them smash winners. They're just confirming that they will not be a factor at the net because I'm just going
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OnTheLine said:
How exactly do you do this when you are waiting for courts and the local rules give a 5 minute warm up? Most facilities book league matches back to back to back.

In an ideal world yes, that would be great to be warmed up beforehand.
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We had over 10 min to warmup. Nobody was in a rush. This lady is known for strange antics such as winning the warmup. She also made loud grunting noises but only at certain times during the match. We were more amused than anything.
 
LOBALOT said:
Wow I can't believe all the gamesmanship with warmups discussed here. The purpose of the warmup is for you both to support each other in getting familiar with the playing conditions prior to the match. You should already arrive warmed up and ready to play. It is isn't to try to figure out your opponents weaknesses or intimidate them with smashes, etc.
Click to expand...
Well said. This was as social league match. Nobody was playing to win money but that would have been nice. I get being competitive but this was going too far.
 
So_Close said:
We had over 10 min to warmup. Nobody was in a rush. This lady is known for strange antics such as winning the warmup. She also made loud grunting noises but only at certain times during the match. We were more amused than anything.
Click to expand...

So that is another part of this. You don't want to be "that person". Just warm up and once the match begins beat the crap out of them and I wouldn't even make a big deal of it while you are creaming them. Act like it is another day at the office.
 
Bagumbawalla said:
You say you were playing doubles. What we do in similar circumstances is warm up partner to partner.
This way each team has more control over the warm-up process, and you can still check out your
opponents game because they are right next to you in the same court.

If you are playing singles, it becomes a bit more tricky. First ask the opponent if they will
warm up properly. If you get no cooperation, think about bringing on a friend to warm you
up.
Click to expand...
That's a good point. I think I will do that next time we play her. I only play doubles so that works.
 
So_Close said:
It has been a bit since I faced an opponent who wanted to win the warmup. Last night I was playing ladies 4.0 doubles and it happened. One of our opponents was standing a few inches behind the net and decided to hulk smash away all my feeds. She looked like a fool. Anyways, after i spent enough time locating the 3 balls she smashed all over the place I made my feeds higher. She missed that entire next round of balls I fed to her. I shrugged and said “my feeds are just too high today I guess.” That did the trick because she said she didn’t want to hit anymore volleys nor take any overheads.

Any other fun ideas on how to handle these warmup champs?
Click to expand...
If they volley away the feeds at the net for winners, I am pretty slow to walk over and pick up more balls to feed. So they get a lot fewer reps than if they hit back to me.
 
Actually, I think warming up is an interesting exercise in of itself in that you can tell how good an opponent is based on how good they are at doing it. The dance/steps in warming up are not simple to do well and when done well you can tell you are facing an experienced opponent. If they start clanking volleys or shanking overheads or spraying baseline balls it tells you something.
 
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LOBALOT said:
Blast away if you want but the code of conduct is pretty clear. I didn't write it.
Click to expand...

Not blasting anything .... I agree with the code... it is warm up, not practice ... particularly when you only have 5 minutes.

In the case of a fool who in warm up blasts winners (especially at net) figure they don't need any more feeds and move on.
 
OnTheLine said:
Not blasting anything .... I agree with the code... it is warm up, not practice ... particularly when you only have 5 minutes.

In the case of a fool who in warm up blasts winners (especially at net) figure they don't need any more feeds and move on.
Click to expand...

I am sorry. I shouldn't have reacted that wa.

What we typically do is book a court at our home club for an hour, split the court costs, and warm up in shifts. We then hit the road to our destination for the match. When we arrive if we see the other team warming up we remind them as a courtesy if they are warming up we should be allowed to. I have not had a team refuse us the opportunity.

Anyway, sorry about that.
 
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Probably just feed them back slow balls with bad form. Aka pretend to be bad.

It's always fun to see an opponent feel confident that they have the game all won in the warm-up and then ace them silly in the first set. Their face and demeanor changes instantly. Fun stuff.

Plus real-warm-ups should be done off court- at your local tennis club and or outside- jogging/running/etc. 7 min usta warmup is not enough to get the blood flowing.
 
Jack the Hack said:
As recreational players, I think we can all look to the professional players to figure out the answer to this issue. There are two choices.

First, we can handle it like Coco Vandeweghe:


Or, we can handle it like Corentin Moutet:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1577375005767254023

:laughing:
Click to expand...

I heard that Vandeweghe didn't want to warm up in order to conserve energy [it was wicked humid] but the umpire forced her to warm up according to the rules.

if I was in a similar situation, I might have done the same thing.
 
Purposely hitting bad feeds to people while they're warming up is a bit of insanity. They're just trying to warm up.. while you're thinking they're trying to win a warm up?

You're likely putting them in your own head.
 
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I really like the suggestion of warming up with your doubles partner instead, and I will definitely try that sometime.

For singles, I recently encountered a person like that over the summer. He wanted to hit an angled winner within 1-2 shots of my feeding him a ball. No rally balls whatsoever. If was annoying, but I knew it would be over in time, so I didn’t go after any of his shots, and just took my time fetching.

One good thing came out of it. He didn’t get a chance see my drop shots, lobs, or DTL backhands, which I immediately deployed in the first set, and won 6-1. It was very satisfying to hear him say “you didn’t do that during warmup” during one of the changeovers.
 
PMF said:
I really like the suggestion of warming up with your doubles partner instead, and I will definitely try that sometime.

For singles, I recently encountered a person like that over the summer. He wanted to hit an angled winner within 1-2 shots of my feeding him a ball. No rally balls whatsoever. If was annoying, but I knew it would be over in time, so I didn’t go after any of his shots, and just took my time fetching.

One good thing came out of it. He didn’t get a chance see my drop shots, lobs, or DTL backhands, which I immediately deployed in the first set, and won 6-1. It was very satisfying to hear him say “you didn’t do that during warmup” during one of the changeovers.
Click to expand...

Some stuff just doesn't come out during warmup, even if I'm not trying to hide anything: S&V, drop shots/volleys, sprinting for shots and sliding into recovery, scissor-kick OHs, etc.
 
LOBALOT said:
Warm up at a different set of courts. We do it all the time.

Click to expand...

Lol. Good luck with that around here. All the clubs play USTA on Sundays (all levels, both men and women.), so between that and the coaches giving lessons you literally cannot get court time anywhere unless you're going to play either really early or really late (which defeats the point.) The days we have away matches some other team at our club has home matches.

If the code intends people to warm up somewhere else before playing, it's obviously nonsense during the winter season here. There is not a single person that I know that warms up on other courts prior to the USTA match start time. Definitely not on my team, and probably not on others (nobody's ever arrived warmed up that I've seen, though obviously I can't know about everybody.)

(Heck, half the reason I'm IN USTA at all is because it's the easiest way to get court time during the winter. You either have to join a regular group, or play USTA, or be left with the dregs of whatever time happens to be left at various random clubs and shop around for what court times happen to be open each week, if any. During the summer you can get random courts when you want them, just go outside, but not during the indoor season.)
 
S&V-not_dead_yet said:
I just let them smash winners. They're just confirming that they will not be a factor at the net because I'm just going to lob them.
Click to expand...
same... might even comment on what great volleys they had, i wish i could hit my volleys as hard as they do...
the person i would fear at net is the one that warms up behind the service line, and puts everything into my strikezone at the baseline
 
I cut the warm up short and call it a cool down.
And since they won't get any rhytm from me during the match, that's more of their loss.
 
Just say your ankle or shoulder hurts and limp or walk with a slumped shoulder to sit down for a few minutes and then get up when they want to start the match.
 
So_Close said:
It has been a bit since I faced an opponent who wanted to win the warmup. Last night I was playing ladies 4.0 doubles and it happened. One of our opponents was standing a few inches behind the net and decided to hulk smash away all my feeds. She looked like a fool. Anyways, after i spent enough time locating the 3 balls she smashed all over the place I made my feeds higher. She missed that entire next round of balls I fed to her. I shrugged and said “my feeds are just too high today I guess.” That did the trick because she said she didn’t want to hit anymore volleys nor take any overheads.

Any other fun ideas on how to handle these warmup champs?
Click to expand...

You 'win' the warm up by not missing any balls and keeping the rally going (and hopefully your opponent hits harder as he sees you are not missing but misses himself. This is a psychological first blow).
 
If they're hitting winners from the net, it shows me how they can't control their volley or that they're too inexperienced to know better. Either way, that's a good sign.
 
Haven’t run into a player who tried to do this. Is it more prevalent at lower levels where players haven’t learned tennis ‘etiquette’ yet? I don’t think I would let it affect how I approach winning the match which is the goal.
 
socallefty said:
Haven’t run into a player who tried to do this. Is it more prevalent at lower levels where players haven’t learned tennis ‘etiquette’ yet? I don’t think I would let it affect how I approach winning the match which is the goal.
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To me it's a sign that they are poor volleyers because they have to stand so close to the net. The volleyer I fear is the one who stands at the SL and can easily block back everything right back to me no matter what position he's in [ie lunge volley, high BH, body shot, etc].
 
S&V-not_dead_yet said:
To me it's a sign that they are poor volleyers because they have to stand so close to the net. The volleyer I fear is the one who stands at the SL and can easily block back everything right back to me no matter what position he's in [ie lunge volley, high BH, body shot, etc].
Click to expand...
I never practice volleys right on top of the net. Always stand at the service line and practice picking up low/half volleys.
 
I dont mind players trying to 'win' the warm-up once a rally progresses.

What really annoys me is when a player hits a winner off a feedball.
 
Jono123 said:
I dont mind players trying to 'win' the warm-up once a rally progresses.

What really annoys me is when a player hits a winner off a feedball.
Click to expand...

The only time I regularly hit a winner during warmup is at the end of my OH cycle and I hit it into the corner so my opponent doesn't have to go far to retrieve it [as opposed to bouncing it over the fence]. That signifies I'm done at the net and he can either take his turn if he hasn't yet or we can proceed to serving.

Occasionally I'll do it with a GS
 
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