The Switch Trick Play
In the last lesson, we learned about switching in tennis doubles.
Of course, switching makes sense only if your team is in the Up-and-Back
Formation. Then, if you and your partner switch sides of your court,
you change which side of your formation has the net player and which
side has the baseline player. If your opponents are also in the
Up-and-Formation, switching drastically changes the battlefield
situation.
Let's see how.
First, let's review what happens when your team switches to return
a lob over your net player.
Player C is returning a lob over her partner that caused her team
to switch. Let's read her mind. She sees all that room straight
ahead and no reason to lob. So she can usually be counted on to
drive the ball down the line, leaving ample margin for error.
Now let's see what happens when she does.
Ouch. Player B scores because he can poach with impunity in this
situation. Especially if his partner's lob lands near center, or
Player D crowds the net, or both.
The shadows in the diagrams below show why: When Player D switches,
he casts a protective shadow over a large and crucial part of Team
AB's court.
How so? For one thing, Player D is in his partner's way, blocking
the only shot a poaching Player B fears — the one behind him, to
the side he vacates. Poaching is normally risky, but not when a
player on the other team covers that part of your court for you.
Plus, Player D is not just a block, he's also a blind. Switching
has left him in his partner's line of sight on the poacher. Especially
if Player D crowds the net, or Player C hits from center, or both.
Notice also that the poacher has improved his situation by crowding
the net to help put Player D between him and Player C.
Since Player C must watch the ball, she sees Player B only peripherally.
Peripherally, she has no depth perception, so Player D's and B's
body lines blend to form one compound image in the corner of Player
C's eye. The principle here is the one behind the military art of
camouflage: Break up the lines of what you want to hide; though
in plain sight, when viewed from a distance (or peripherally) it
will be virtually invisible.
And what's out of sight is out of mind.
Therefore, though normally the poacher must worry about a shot behind
him and be careful not to betray his intent or jump the gun, in
this situation he has a poaching block and blind. He can get such
a good jump on the ball that I've seen switch-poachers reach shots
practically going down the far alley!
You can run The Switch Trick Play on many teams all day. That's
because many people just blame-lay instead problem-solve. Consequently,
they diagnose the problem as poor play by Player C, when it's really
Player D's fault. Seldom does anyone notice that Player C is NOT
hitting too close to Player B. And seldom does anyone notice that
it's returns of lobs getting cut off, let alone that it's returns
of lobs that Team CD switched for.
In summary, here's how to run the Switch Trick Play, broken down
to steps:
The Switch Trick Play:
- Your baseline player lobs over the opposing up-player to get
your opponents to switch. If they will switch for a lob that lands
near center, aim there.
- Your net player comes close to the net and hides behind the
opposing net player, watching for the opposing baseline player's
racket to start coming forward at the ball.
- At that instant, he or she crosses to poach the expected straight-ahead
shot, volleying it through the angular gap between Player C and
Player D.
