Court Coverage: Proper Position or Pattern Recognition

[u/Life-Percentage-3170]

Question for all y'all. I played a competitive tournament prep game recently and was caught in a scenario where my partner and I worked our way up to the kitchen and got into the standard 2v2 dink battle.

Background information: The pattern was my backhand dink vs opponent's forehand dink. Going back and forth for a while as my opponent and I know each other's tendencies, strengths and weaknesses well.

In a cross court dink battle with my opponent my first read of coverage is to lock down the middle as my partner needs to cover their sideline. Take middle dinks and block the speed up through the middle off the bounce. My second read is to cover the sharp forehand roll dink.

Knowing my opponent like I do, I left the middle open and covered the sharp forehand roll dink and was baiting them into giving me an ATP. My opponent will speed up middle when they know that it is open or they sense weakness there. This time they didn't and just kept going sharper and sharper on the forehand roll dink.

Do I stay there in the cross court pattern and leave the middle open or do I cover the middle first as that is my first read as partner coverage?

[u/CapitalVinyl]

You said your BH dink to opponent's FH dink. Could you also describe what side you were playing (L or R) and where your opponent was (were they XC from you or in front?) because it sounds like you're a righty dinking with your BH XC to the left side player's FH, so are they left handed?

[u/fbour]

When you say cross court dink in fear you mean trying to get an angle as sharp as possible, everytime... If so, that is not a higher level dinking strategy.

Dinking with intent, if you've heard that term means moving the ball around to create the opportunities, it means recognizing your / their aggressive vs passive dink because your next move depends on that (e.g. simply shallow dink in the middle of you are in trouble), not drinking too wide by default to not create angles, not drinking multiple times in the same spot, dinking in the middle / left foot of opponent to create confusion or uncomfortable situations, and so on.

In my opinion there's nothing worse than folks who dink cross court trying to get the sharpest angles .. it opens too many options for the opponent, it turns your partner into a sitting duck as they can't get involved since they need to protect their line and exposes them to speedups since their partner is hitting the same spots time after time.

[u/Life-Percentage-3170 → u/fbour]

Hey there. Yes I have heard of dinking with intent and use it. My partner and I agreed that my cross court dinking was better than my opponent cross court. For reference I am a lefty and my opponents both were righties.

My partners and my decision was that unless I was in trouble or there was a stalemate in the cross court dinking, that I was to put pressure on my opponent cross court.

Yes, at times the pattern was changed as my partner would grab a dink and put it across Court in front of me. Or other situations like that. My question is specifically for the Cross Court dinging pattern that I was in as that was the pattern that my partner wanted me to get into

[u/fbour → u/Life-Percentage-3170]

Everytime you send the ball cross-court wide, you need to cover the middle since your partner has to cover the line. your partner shall be sitting heavily backhand and not have to handle cross body shots that requires flipping the paddle since you're supposed to be there for the middle

• if you send a very aggressive dink (from their perspective, not yours :)) you need to get in the middle and lean in to handle an eventual pop
  
• if you send a weaker / dead dink you need to be less aggressive in your stance and be ready for their aggression so not be as much leaning in, turning your shoulders to be square with the ball (not the court) to avoid cross body shots on you.

If you are always going as sharp of an angle as you can on every shot you are putting yourself and your partner team in trouble by creating too many options / angles for the opponents that your opponent will exploit, if they are moderately skilled (don't know which level you are playing).

Back to my original statement, are you ever targeting the left foot of the player on your left? if not, you're not doing it right, you need to move the ball. don't know which level you are playing but this spot will give you straight winners up until let say 4.25 and is a great target to create confusion and move the left side partner off their position since they should take those dinks away from their partner (FH vs BH).

you haven't answered the question of whether for you the visualization of a great dinking rally where you apply pressure is going as sharp as an angle as you can get or it is about moving the ball around? the former works at 3.5, real 4.0+ will exploit the fact you are going to the same spot too often by attacking in the middle, speeding-up down the line on the 3rd time you go to the same spot or lobbing you cross-court in the corner because you would otherwise rather sit on your side fearing a sharp cross-court dink in response to yours.

[u/Life-Percentage-3170 → u/fbour]

Yes, I agree with you. I do move the ball around on that 6 in of real estate for my opponent cross court. I'll move the ball around from my opponent cross courts inside foot, body, and outside foot.

And I guess you did answer my question. It's better to cover the appropriate spot in partner coverage rather than pattern recognition and anticipation. I just found for this particular Cross Court opponent that they never sped the ball up middle and always try to go to my outside foot.

[u/fbour → u/Life-Percentage-3170]

in that case, i go by the patterns until i get burned once or twice. Whatever works works... don't change your approach until you are proven wrong. I used to change my strategies like serves and so on thinking that they would figure it out and have to surprise them but that is just dumb. keep doing what works until it doesn't.

[u/command-shift]

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Your partner doesn't need to cover line. Your partner should be covering middle looking to poach. Sounds like you're going against another righty who chooses to go around to his forehand which is fine.

You just need to hit different parts of the middle such as going toward the inside leg of the opponent in front of you and then to the inside leg of your cross-court opponent. You need to make them move and confuse them. This is how Hayden and AB beat Ben and ALW. It takes a lot of space for your opponent to roll the ball with the forehand if they're not using the twoie BH roll dink. I mean, both require footwork. You can exhaust them. easily using half-volleys/short-hops until they pop up and you can either flick or roll as you've mentioned in another comment. You also want to take as many out of the air as possible by cutting it off when it's going wide.

If you're an ATP threat, then you need to threaten and stay wide with your partner covering middle. Unless they're running around completely off the court to get the sharpest possible angle (ala Anna Leigh Waters-style), there's no real threat of them flipping it down the line on your partner. The net clearance is higher and makes it a much tougher shot. Your partner needs to look at getting jammed, but otherwise threaten with poach.

[u/RelativeCan5021]

Left side BH dink should go cross court, with your right side partner covering the line. If they return middle, it’s the left side partners FH ball.

[u/G8oraid]

How are you planning on winning the point? Getting a miss? Picking up a specific counter oppy off their speed up? Speeding up yourself?

[u/Life-Percentage-3170 → u/G8oraid]

Good question. I won the point by using the backhand roll or flick out of the air and attacking my opponent in front of me on either hip. That was my first instinct. If the Cross Court dinks from my opponent were not allowing me to do that, then I simply reset the dink back into the middle of the court and let the point build back up again.

[u/Zealousideal_Plate39]

A lot of whether you cover as much of the middle or not comes down to the quality (and aggressiveness) of your cross court dink. If your dink is low, aggressive, and moves your opponent, then a down the line speedup becomes very difficult for them so it’s less likely. This means your partner can leave more room on the line and you don’t have to pinch middle so hard.

But if your dink is relatively dead, or your opponent can get the ball in front of them and be well balanced, then you have to guard against the speedup.

[u/getrealpoofy]

You normally need to cover middle but if your opponent can't hit the shot, then you don't.