Back Up Plan

In my last column, “Keeping It in The Lines,” I discussed how to cut down on your unforced errors and maintain an aggressive strategical game plan. However, sometimes we have one of those days where we feel like a little black cloud is hovering over our head. It's like encountering the perfect storm. You're having one of the worst days of your life and on top of that, your opponent is hitting the ball like a madman, playing better than you have ever seen them play before. You know that your opponent is not really a better player than you are, but today he is in the zone, everything he is doing is unconscious, his game is on fire, and you are going down in flames. So, what do we do, throw in the towel and call it a day?

My recommendation is never give up the fight!

The sixty-four thousand dollar question is, how do we manage to turn things around? First, in addition to figuring out what’s wrong with our own game, we need to figure out a way to break our opponent’s momentum and somehow throw them off their game. 

Start by giving them some off speed slow lob serves.

During the point, change up your spins. Hit some slice, hit some topspin, hit some flat shots. Change up your speed. Hit a few slower balls and then throw in a zinger.

Throw in some drop shots and lob returns. Even if you lose a few points in the process of doing all of this, it gets your opponent beginning to second guess your shots and more importantly, it gets your opponent to begin thinking about their shots. In addition to changing things up, don’t just hit the ball back to your opponent. Make them move as much as possible. Utilize as much of your opponent's side of the court as possible. 

Once you’ve got them beginning to question the physical part of their game, now you need to get inside your opponent's head. Here is an old, sneaky trick which can be very effective. When the opportunity presents itself, casually make a comment to your opponent in regards to how well they are playing today. For example, “You are serving better than I’ve ever seen you serve before,” or “Your forehand is really looking good today.” This casual suggestion gets them thinking about why they are playing so good today. I call it the curse of the compliment. Planting this seed in their brain will now get them focusing on why they are playing so well.

Hopefully, applying some of these techniques will get their game, both physically and mentally, off of cruise control, which will allow you to utilize some aggressive high-percentage play, (refer to my previous column, “Keeping It In The Lines”) and be able to turn things around in your favor.

Wayne Clark is a professional tennis and pickleball instructor with over 25 years experience coaching players on all levels of the game. Contact Coach Wayne by email at coachwayneclark@aol.com, or by or by phone or text at 239-450-6161.