September 15, 2016

Years of Training Have Destroyed My Reactions
Okay, this may seem misleading. During my development years I did the usual intensive drills that conditioned me to react properly to nearly any given shot. Let me emphasize one word here: nearly. Now opponents may play at speeds that I might not be able to react to, or catch me off guard with placement and spin, but even there I’d usually react properly, just not always quickly enough or with just the right racket angle.

Some of my students have picked up on a certain flaw here, which I think affects me more than most. When someone throws something at me that I’m not used to, all that conditioning falls apart. It means I basically have two choices – I can go for a “regular” shot, and likely miss, or I can change to a safe shot, usually just fishing or weakly blocking it back.

For example, one of my students (a righty) has been developing this inside-out backhand loop that goes down the line, breaking away from a righty opponent. Now against a regular down-the-line shot, whether it’s a block or a loop, I’d react almost instantly with either a block, a smash, or a loop. It’s instinctive, and I can do all three with equal ease. But when he throws this inside-out backhand sidespin loop at me, I basically freeze up – my subconscious doesn’t know what to do. And so I usually just hold my racket out and block it back weakly, or step back and fish it back, or often react so slowly that I don’t even get to it.

Another student discovered that if he steps around his forehand and plays a backhand from the forehand side, and hits it down the line to my backhand, I often watch it go by before I react. None of my training prepared me for that shot!!!

I faced a more extreme example of this many years ago. In the very first tournament I ever played after they went to 11-point games I n2001, in a best of five, I faced an 1800 penholder – but he was the first penholder I’d ever faced with a reverse penhold backhand. (This shot was basically unknown until the 1990s, and rare right into the 2000s.) I couldn’t react with a regular backhand against the shot, and over and over I’d sort of put it back weakly, and he’d smash a winner before I had a chance to back up and make an effective lob. Next thing I know I’m down 0-2 to this 1800 player. I was about 2270 or so and hadn’t lost to a player under 2000 in over 20 years, and now I was on the verge of losing to an 1800 player. I finally switched to pure fishing and lobbing every time we got into a rally and managed to win in five. Afterwards I found a local with that backhand and practiced until I was used to it.

I think most top players adjust faster than I do to such things. I adjust tactically very quickly, but in the heat of a fast rally, it’s hard to overcome what your brain has been wired to do. I think part of the problem is that I didn’t do much multiball training in my early years, as that really prepares a player to simply react to fast incoming balls; I mostly did one-on-one training, and so learned to react against the shots those players gave me.

But one of my pet theories is that at most levels, players way underestimate the value of throwing in such variations. I’ve seen it done even at high levels. There’s one top USA junior who often throws opponents off with a sidespin chop return of serve (he’s not a chopper) that seemingly just gives the opponent an easy loop – but over and over opponents mess up against it because they’ve never trained against such a shot.

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