Top tip, stop trying to win the warmup

[zaph]

This is my absolute biggest hate in tennis, idiots who treat the warmup as a match. Had one today, warming up down the lines in doubles. I give him a rally feed, he hits a big high kicking topspin shot onto the line. Oh he over hit it, so another feed, same result. Except this time he loses control of it and sends in my partners direction. I stand back, he hits a dropshot. WTF.

I wish this was an exception, but it is increasingly common. I have had players blast rally feeds into the corners, hit nothing but dropshots. Topspin lob me when I have come in to hit a few volleys. Try to hit flat winners onto the baseline off every ball.

Now I accept some players won't have the control to hit controlled rally balls, feeds for volleys and overheads. Fine, practice, I am a bad player and I can do it.

However I have seen good players pull this s**t and to be blunt it is verging on cheating. They are doing it to prevent their opponent getting a rhythm before a match. If you have to resort to doing this you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Rant over.

 

[donquijote]

I refuse to rally with this kind of guys. I am not ashamed to say that as they are not ashamed to disrespect their opponent in the warm-up.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

@zaph,

What level is this that you run into these tone-deaf desperados?

I've only run into this once: it was in the later rounds of a doubles tournament. When we rallied, he immediately started hitting heavy TS GSs. He then stood on top of the net and smash putaway every easy feed I gave him. 3 balls, 3 winners. Same thing with the OHs. I just smiled inwardly: guys like this are never factors at the net. The reason they stand so close to the net is because they are not very good volleyers and need to be that close to hit good volleys. I, OTOH, typically warm up volleys from the SL because I want to simulate that first volley after the serve.

 

[Attila_the_gorilla]

I, OTOH, typically warm up volleys from the SL because I want to simulate that first volley after the serve.

I do the same, though I still rarely serve and volley even in doubles. But I do look for opportunities to come in.
In my warm-ups, I even often stand in no-man's land, just to get a feel for half-volleys and low volleys.

 

[Bender]

Is it okay if you escalate the warmup / baseline rallies as you go along?

Not that I try to win the warmup from the starting line, but around 15-20 mins into the warmup I start taking bigger swings and trying to 'win' those exchanges.

No-one has told me to stop yet, especially since I start hitting pretty soft at the beginning (I can't 'win' the warmup even if I tried to anyway since my strokes, especially my forehand, requires a loose wrist and good timing, and it takes forever to get those to in sync), but I do end up hitting harder in these warmups than I do in practice sets. I guess you can call them high intensity baseline rally practice, but they start around 15-20 mins in, which may be a fairly short time before the heavy hitting starts.

 

[SinjinCooper]

If the warmup lasts 15-20 minutes, I'm eating a cyanide pill.

 

[ChaelAZ]

I don't mind a few winners in warm up, but the idea is to co-op hit to get things going. I have run into a few guys like the OP mentioned. I think many times it is more about their lack of control than really trying to hit winners. Mostly at 3.5, but very rarely at 4.0 and up.

 

[Topspin Shot]

If my opponent is trying to win the warmup, I'm happy because he'll almost certainly suck in the match.

 

[pnw_hardcourt]

Is it okay if you escalate the warmup / baseline rallies as you go along?

Not that I try to win the warmup from the starting line, but around 15-20 mins into the warmup I start taking bigger swings and trying to 'win' those exchanges.

No-one has told me to stop yet, especially since I start hitting pretty soft at the beginning (I can't 'win' the warmup even if I tried to anyway since my strokes, especially my forehand, requires a loose wrist and good timing, and it takes forever to get those to in sync), but I do end up hitting harder in these warmups than I do in practice sets. I guess you can call them high intensity baseline rally practice, but they start around 15-20 mins in, which may be a fairly short time before the heavy hitting starts.

15-20 minutes? I think we're talking about pre match warmups in leagues, clubs, tournaments etc. It's like 5-10 min max and you do basically what you see the pros doing: groundstrokes, volleys, overheads, and serves, usually in that order.

I can't remember meeting someone who knows the format deliberately try to win points. Usually if guys play in leagues or tournaments they know the drill and if they hit a winner it was probably an accident or they were "finishing up" that part of the warm-up (i.e. for the last volley they hit it away from you, then back off the net to let you come foreward. But pure rec players almost never know this format and just go out there and bang away their best shots immediately in some "alpha" showcase of their skill.

 

[Gasgoat]

Obviously, it's all part of their strategy. When you feed the ball to them and they hit it as hard as they can off the court over and over, not only will you become exhausted from having to run across 5 courts to get the ball over and over, but you will also be pretty mad at the player too, messing up your physical and mental game. "Winning the Rally" is a very advanced tactic that only high leveled players know how to execute and should be a warning to how mature they are. /s

 

[pabletion]

Where are you living? Why are you guys afraid to say anything?

Ive NEVER encountered such a situation in 18 yrs of playing. And the very 1st time it happens, I wont be scared to tell the guy to hit towarda me so I can warm up.

 

[Searah]

i had someone last saturday in doubles warm up, he kept hitting into the net each time i returned the ball and my return wasn't anything special and he walked off court to eat a banana while i watched my doubles partner and other guy warm up and banana guy came back and said "alright lets do some serves" ehhhh my warm up ((( might be praising myself a bit but i feel maybe he thought i was a threat and didn't want me warmed up? /shrug.

 

[Bender]

15-20 minutes? I think we're talking about pre match warmups in leagues, clubs, tournaments etc. It's like 5-10 min max and you do basically what you see the pros doing: groundstrokes, volleys, overheads, and serves, usually in that order.

I can't remember meeting someone who knows the format deliberately try to win points. Usually if guys play in leagues or tournaments they know the drill and if they hit a winner it was probably an accident or they were "finishing up" that part of the warm-up (i.e. for the last volley they hit it away from you, then back off the net to let you come foreward. But pure rec players almost never know this format and just go out there and bang away their best shots immediately in some "alpha" showcase of their skill.

Oh right, I was thinking of social doubles / singles situation, not league / tournaments

 

[Morch Us]

Usually you wont find such warmup-winner folks at above 4.0 levels. If you find one the best choice is to not waste your physical/mental energy, and just go right into net and do volleys. That way anything he hits out of your zone will be a passing shot "winner" for him, and then you can slowly walk around the court and collect the balls. Obviously you will loose your warmup time, but you were anyway not going to get any warmup. Either it is social games or league matches, if you are not getting any benefit out of it because of opponent behavior, it is better to just kill it or waste it.

On a league match or some match you care about, you should not depend on your opponent to get warmedup. You should get enough warmup before even meeting the opponent, so that you can concentrate the warmup time with opponent specifically on two things, 1. analysing the opponent 2. getting used to the court and conditions

Now in todays busy life, you may not be able to do that warmup before meeting the opponent, then totally expect yourself to be not in sync/rythm at the start of the match (which may not be too bad, since most of the time your opponent also might not be fully warmed up).

So now if the expectations are clear as mentioned above, then you wont be frustrated since you wll now consider any warmup you get with opponent as a bonus.

I wish this was an exception, but it is increasingly common. I have had players blast rally feeds into the corners, hit nothing but dropshots. Topspin lob me when I have come in to hit a few volleys. Try to hit flat winners onto the baseline off every ball.

Oh right, I was thinking of social doubles / singles situation, not league / tournaments

 

[ByakuFubuki]

Is it okay if you escalate the warmup / baseline rallies as you go along?

Not that I try to win the warmup from the starting line, but around 15-20 mins into the warmup I start taking bigger swings and trying to 'win' those exchanges.

No-one has told me to stop yet, especially since I start hitting pretty soft at the beginning (I can't 'win' the warmup even if I tried to anyway since my strokes, especially my forehand, requires a loose wrist and good timing, and it takes forever to get those to in sync), but I do end up hitting harder in these warmups than I do in practice sets. I guess you can call them high intensity baseline rally practice, but they start around 15-20 mins in, which may be a fairly short time before the heavy hitting starts.

It totally depends on the situation and/or the way you do it, in my opinion.

After all, if during the match you want to take the ball early and/or make full swings, you have to concede yourself at least a bit of warm-up of that kind. It may just be me and my rubbish level, but if I just feed my opponent/hitting partner balls all the time, I can't find my rhythm, and I'm forced to either waste entire games as an unforced error machine or keep feeding balls for the whole match, and none of these two options are exactly my Plan A. My coach rises the rhythm too when warming me up, and I would like to think he knows a little better than I do.

Now, to warm up at a higher rhythm doesn't however mean to overpower the other person or to go for winners, so I think there is at least a couple of requisites:

1) Be as gradual as you can. Of course no one is asking you to rise the speed/spin by an unperceivable fraction with each hit until you're at your pace, but the point is you should at least give your opponent a slow start. Of course this isn't a problem as you said you wait 15-20 minutes which is quite some time for a warm-up, but I wanted to repeat it for anyone who may read because starting too fast may cause injuries to both you and the other person, so it's crucial not to do it.

2) Hit at your opponent. In doubles you're pretty much forced to do so, but I don't think it takes a genius to understand that if you try to open the singles court and go for a winner on the empty side during the warm-up, you're a scumbag at least when it comes to it.

As long as you respect these two points, I don't see anything wrong with your behaviour.

 

[heninfan99]

you need a pre-warm-up to the warm-up, like hitting on the wall for 15 minutes.

This is my absolute biggest hate in tennis, idiots who treat the warmup as a match. Had one today, warming up down the lines in doubles. I give him a rally feed, he hits a big high kicking topspin shot onto the line. Oh he over hit it, so another feed, same result. Except this time he loses control of it and sends in my partners direction. I stand back, he hits a dropshot. WTF.

I wish this was an exception, but it is increasingly common. I have had players blast rally feeds into the corners, hit nothing but dropshots. Topspin lob me when I have come in to hit a few volleys. Try to hit flat winners onto the baseline off every ball.

Now I accept some players won't have the control to hit controlled rally balls, feeds for volleys and overheads. Fine, practice, I am a bad player and I can do it.

However I have seen good players pull this s**t and to be blunt it is verging on cheating. They are doing it to prevent their opponent getting a rhythm before a match. If you have to resort to doing this you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Rant over.