Four Corners

In my last column titled “No Winner’s No Whiner’s,” I discussed the importance of lowering our percentages of unforced errors to improve our confidence and win more points. An advanced and somewhat more rewarding level of the game is what I call Four Corners. This game needs to be played with four people. Games are played to 11 points. All four players start at the no volley zone line. You begin the point by dropping the ball in the kitchen and hitting a neutrally placed dink to your opponent’s side of the court. You can begin hitting either cross-court or down the line. The key to getting the point underway is that if the ball comes to you down the line, you must hit cross-court back to your opponent’s side of the court and vice versa. Following this pattern, all four players will make contact with the ball one time in a single rotation, hence the name four corners. Once all four players have completed a single rotation, it’s game on! We are now attempting to utilize our fundamentals and consistency skills, which have developed from playing “No Winner’s No Whiner’s,” to create an opportunity for our team to speed up the pace of the rally and smack a winner. Once you can successfully and consistently accomplish four corners to start a point, it’s time to increase the challenge. Following the same pattern to start the point, progress to eight corners, 12 corners, etc., where each player would need to hit the ball twice or three times before the point actually begins. This now challenges all players to be able to consistently keep the ball in play without making any unforced errors. If a player makes an unforced error before reaching the four, eight or 12 total of four corners, that team loses the point. You can add more pressure to the importance of being consistent by scoring that if you make an unforced error during the process of getting to a completed rotation of four corners, in addition to the other team adding one point to their score, you have to subtract one point from your score! As you are scoring, the losing team begins the feed for the next point in order to get first strike opportunities on the fifth, ninth or 13th strike of the ball.

Playing Four Corners will help to improve your consistency and build self-confidence, which will allow you to begin working on combining several shots together with your partner in order to strategically structure a point. Four Corners will also provide insight on being able to anticipate when to play offense and when to play defense. Once your opponents realize what a consistent, high percentage player you are, they begin to get frustrated and question their own abilities. This leads to them to start going for low percentage, high risk shots in an attempt to end points early. Now you have them just where you want them, and you can simply let them defeat themselves with errors.

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 phone or text at 239-450-6161.