How to Beat a Speed Merchant.

Over the coming months I’ll be sharing some thoughts as to how best to approach playing different styles of player. Of course not everybody can be pigeonholed into a genre of player like this, but you’ll certainly recognise some of your adversaries in the descriptions below.

Each style of player demands a different approach to beating them, as they will have varying strengths and weaknesses. There will be areas of opportunity to gain an advantage, as well as areas that they will be a threat to you. The articles, which start today and continue steadily over the near future, will help you exploit these opportunities, and minimise the threats.

I’ll be looking at Speed Merchants, Hackers, Grinders, Drop/Lobbers, Blockers, Left-Handers,  Shot makers and

We start with speed merchants.

Fast. Really fast.

You feel like you have to hit 4,5,6 winning shots to put it away.

Just what do I have to do to win a rally?

This is how it can feel to play a speed merchant. But don’t worry; let’s look at it from their perspective.

He feels that he can get everything back, but what can he do with the ball – usually not much. If your opponent is a talented shot player and super quick you are probably in trouble! So it’s likely that your opponent won’t have the capabilities of working you out of position and out-playing you.

Your opponent is relying on YOU to put yourself at a disadvantage either by making an error in your panic to finish the rally, or by playing an aggressive shot at the wrong time, and putting yourself out of position. A classic situation is a rally in which you hit several good shots in a row, but they keep coming back. Drive, volley drop, volley drive, another drop, he scrapes it back again. You feel you need to do more and more with the ball to win, and then end up aiming lower and eventually hit the tin. This is exactly what he wants you to do. He relishes scrapping and getting balls back over and over, knowing you’ll get more and more frustrated and end up hitting the tin.

Let’s say you stop trying to force the winners so much now, you work the ball into the corners, and are very careful not to attack when you can’t cover it, or when you don’t have great control. You can do this, because you are controlling the ball and therefore the rallies. He keeps getting the ball back. But let’s go back to how he’s feeling now.

On the end of the rallies, having no chance to counter attack, running and running, with no light at the end of the tunnel. This is hard work both physically and mentally. It doesn’t matter how fit he is, he can’t do this all day. He’ll get edgy and will probably start to play uncharacteristic shots. Shots which he doesn’t have full control of errors might creep in. All the time you are tiring him more, getting a bigger and bigger grip of him. You’ve taken his biggest asset away from him – his speed. When you go short, you do so not to win on that shot but to firstly work him hard, but also to put the ball on the wall. No one can keep getting the tight balls back over and over. It doesn’t matter how quick he is, a ball on the wall will still win some of the time.

Something that I overheard Nick Taylor say about a prospective world top 10 opponent. “It doesn’t matter how quick he is if he’s going in the wrong direction”. By this he meant that one of his strategies would be to use disguise, perhaps a hold, and try to send his opponent the wrong way. And if you are running the wrong way quickly, then it’ll be tough to recover no matter how quick you are.

A Checklist

·         Be patient; don’t try to force a winner.

·         Wear your speedy adversary down by using a greater margin of error, and working your opponent around the court.

·         Think how he feels while he’s doing all this running, and your mistakes are not forthcoming.

·         Only attack when you can cover any potential counter from your opponent.

·         Err on the side of putting the ball tight to the sidewall rather than going for the outright winner.

·          Draw your opponent one way and then play to the other side.

Have fun watching your fleet footed friend scrambling after your shots, running themselves further and further into the ground. Next up for dissection is the hacker (a repetitive hard, deep hitter) – stay tuned!