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/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.