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Changing Direction During Rallies

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Changing Direction During Rallies

Ean Meyer

Figure from Changing Direction During Rallies

Making smart choices during competition is just as important as good execution. This includes knowing when to change directions.

Some players change directions without any reason to do so and put themselves in a poor position to return their opponent’s ball.

The general rule of thumb is to only change directions when a ball is “inside” or weak to the outside.

Don’t change direction on good quality “outside balls”, or those that cross your body.

When not sure, don’t change direction at all.

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Figure from Changing Direction During Rallies

Weak Outside Ball

155749010326Good Outside Ball or Cross-Body Ball00Good Outside Ball or Cross-Body Ball

Good Outside Ball or Cross-Body Ball

37291615798Inside Ball 00Inside Ball

Inside Ball

Figure from Changing Direction During Rallies

Reason:

Good Outside Ball: to change direction, need to create a large angle shot that has too much margin for error.

Weak Outside Ball: to change direction, need to create a medium angle shot that has less margin for error.

Inside Ball: to change direction, need to create a small angle shot that has much less margin for error.

Figure from Changing Direction During Rallies

Ean Meyer, a professional tennis coach since 1987. Over the years, I’ve worked with every level of player from beginner to professional, coaching tennis for over 25 years and have worked with many different levels of juniors and adults. In this time I have worked at high performance academies including Bollettieri’s, Seguso-Bassett, Evert Tennis Academy and most recently, the Harold Solomon Tennis Institute. I’ve been published in tennis magazines in Brazil, Venezuela, Italy, South Africa and the U.S. and have conducted seminars for coaches in different countries. My coaching philosophy is very simple: Develop strong Fundamentals in 4 areas – Technical, Tactical, Mental and Physical.

Visit his website at: https://eanmeyertennis.com and https://tennis.pro/

Additional figures (from header/footer of source docx):

Figure from Changing Direction During Rallies

Source: tennisplayer.net archive — Changing Direction During Rallies.docx (John Yandell teaching library, 2002-2022). Extracted and rendered as HTML for Tennis Future Lab.