Revised "Art of Doubles": Proper Court Positioning

[darrellmak]

Unclear with Terminator/Crosscourt Players and Mirroring Concept

Thanks for the replies to my last post. A couple of follow-up points:

1) If the net divides the court into the two sides of the court, then I still feel that Blaskower's statement "anytime the ball is on your side of the court, your are the terminator" (p.30) is either flatly incorrect or perhaps incomplete. She must have had something else in mind and couldn't explain it adequately.

2) While I understand the "netstrap" concept ("if the ball lands in the the crosscourt opponent's alley, the other crosscourt player should slide toward his/her own alley until the center netstrap intersects the ball placement"), it's the mirror concept that I still don't understand. Blaskower explains it as "... the terminator uses the mirror concept, and the most important element of this visualization is that the mirror has a convex corner on the outside. The mirror is flat in the middle but has a rounded edge as the ball placement moves toward the alley. Near the cener line, the terminator is positioned directly in front of the ball, but as shots are traded and the ball placement moves towards his alley, the player stops physically moving and begins a bow-like swivel to face the ball placement in the alley."

Does anyone else understand and can explain how this idea works?

THANKS!

 

[Cindysphinx]

Thanks for the replies to my last post. A couple of follow-up points:

1) If the net divides the court into the two sides of the court, then I still feel that Blaskower's statement "anytime the ball is on your side of the court, your are the terminator" (p.30) is either flatly incorrect or perhaps incomplete. She must have had something else in mind and couldn't explain it adequately.

I think the problem is that Blaskower is *not* using the net to divide the court in two. She is using the center stripe. One side is ad, one side is deuce. That is the only way I can make sense of it.

2) While I understand the "netstrap" concept ("if the ball lands in the the crosscourt opponent's alley, the other crosscourt player should slide toward his/her own alley until the center netstrap intersects the ball placement"), it's the mirror concept that I still don't understand. Blaskower explains it as "... the terminator uses the mirror concept, and the most important element of this visualization is that the mirror has a convex corner on the outside. The mirror is flat in the middle but has a rounded edge as the ball placement moves toward the alley. Near the cener line, the terminator is positioned directly in front of the ball, but as shots are traded and the ball placement moves towards his alley, the player stops physically moving and begins a bow-like swivel to face the ball placement in the alley."

: pounds fist on desk:

If there has ever been a worse description of tennis strategy written in the history of the world, I don't know what it might be.

I think all she is saying is this: As the angle of a cross-court exchange increases, the two net players should mirror the position of the ball. This can reach a point where both net players are in their own doubles alleys or even off the court. This is no good. The players need to stop moving wider and wider at some point.

At what point? Rather than give a guideline (e.g. "outside foot 12 inches inside singles sideline"), Blaskower instead gives us this idea of a concave mirror. If you were to gaze into a concave mirror, and of course everyone owns one of these -- insert huge sarcastic eye roll -- Blaskower proposes that the players swivel so they are facing the hitting opponent rather than continue moving sideways.

I think that's the idea, anyway.

If I've understood it correctly, I don't think it is a good idea. If the angle is severe enough, the best place for the net player could well be in the doubles alley. Also, if the net player swivels to face away from the center of the court, there is no way she could poach a crosscourt floater. The strategy seems to assume that the net player (1) is so addled that she cannot use even a teensy bit of judgment for handling extreme angles and (2) is such a poor and limited net player that she cannot cover her alley unless she is facing it.