Trapping Your Opponent At The Front of The Court

I am back! And today I'm going to talk about the importance of volleying when your opponent is in the front of the court. This is generally much more difficult than volleying when your opponent is behind you as you have less time to react. When your opponent is up at the front of the court there are a lot of factors that will determine if you will be able to volley their shot or not. First let's discuss why this is such an important strategy to employ.

As you improve in squash you get to a level where attacking shots to the front of the court are not often outright winners. Instead these attacking shots create pressure and this is where you should be looking to trap your opponent in the front of the court and follow up your attack with a volley. If you do and can hit a decent volley length you have a great shot at winning the point or at the very least keeping your opponent on the run.

Above you can see a picture of Mosaad hitting a backhand straight drive from the front. You can see Ramy hasn't left the T yet so Mosaad must have disguised his shot well. If Mosaad had not, Ramy would be right behind him hunting the volley. Ramy does have cat like reflexes so it is entirely possibly that he was still able to cut this ball off, but I would guess this is going to get by him if it was hit with enough pace.

When you're at the front of the court and your opponent is hunting to volley the ball you can feel trapped up there. Look at the picture below of Willstrop and Selby. In this situation Willstrop is under a moderate amount of pressure and I'm guessing was about to drop or lob because he has a short racquet preparation. It would be tough for Willstrop to drive the ball by Selby in this situation. The more pressure you are under the most challenging it will be to get the ball by your opponent. This is why in the above photo, Mosaad is at the front with plenty of time and not under any pressure making it difficult for Ramy to volley. If Mosaad was under more pressure he may be forced to lift the ball.t

Hopefully you can now have a better understanding as to why volleying when your opponent is in the front of the court creates so many problems. If you want to try to implement this into your game here are some things that will help you do so.

I believe there are a couple of essential things to being able to volley when your opponent is in front of you. The first is the ability to read your opponent and anticipate where they are going to hit. As someone is under more pressure they will be less likely to disguise their shot and are more vulnerable to you jumping on the volley behind them. This leads to the second essential factor, pressure. If you put your opponent under pressure as you bring them to the from you are more likely to get a weak reply and will make your volley far easier.

A third factor that will allow you to volley more around the middle is quick feet and good footwork moving laterally. This includes being able to hit open stance and having a quick racquet preparation. You also need to be able to hit a good snappy volley with a compact backswing. To hit a short snappy volley with accuracy you need to time it perfectly. This is again why putting your opponent under pressure and being able to read their postural set up is so key to early preparation. You can even adjust your T position up or sideways when the situation dictates. If you move up and take the ball even earlier you give your opponent even less time to get the next shot.

Key Note: If your opponent is under little pressure and disguises their shot or has good holds you will need to make sure your attacking shot is more accurate if you want to implement this tactic.

Here are some of my favourite drills, condition games and exercises for working on volleying the ball while your opponent is in the front of the court.

1) Boast, crosscourt length, straight drive

2) A hits straight or court length, B tries to volley drive to self and then boast, if B is unable to volley drive then they boast

3) A plays straight or crosscourt lob, if B can volley drive they switch, if B cannot volley they boasts

4) Short vs. deep and switch on a volley drive

5) Boast, straight or crosscourt drive, straight drive

6) Straight or court length, straight or crosscourt length, anything short

7) Length game with the option to boast, must hit deep off the boast

8) 3 corner court while I attempt to not let any balls being hit from the front get into the back corner.

9) Quick mid-court volleys in pairs side to side. This is a great exercise for getting on your toes, having your racquet up while learning to react quickly to the ball.

10) Work on your lateral court movement. Try 1 person posting to either side or shadow ghosting a partner to make this movement more challenging and specific. Be sure to shape up with your racquet quickly while ghosting to prepare yourself properly.

11) Learn to hit open stance volleys with some snap on them. Try doing solo mid-court volley drives on your back foot. Most people can generate adequate pace when they have time, but when you have to shorten your backswing can you still generate enough pop to execute the desired result?

Many people are aware that especially from the front of the court on their forehand side most people have a tendency to hit the ball crosscourt. If you pick up on this shot pattern try and take advantage of it and cut the ball off. This is why you see the pros play many shots down the middle and extra wide crosscourts. They've played so much squash and have to use the entire court height and width to get their opponent of the volley.

Learning to bring your opponent to the front and then follow it with a volley is what I like to call a shot combination. Try and see if you can find one that will work and if they don't adjust keep taking advantage of their predictability or lack of precision.

This post could be written entirely backwards about how to keep your opponent off the volley when you are at the front. If you practice some of the drills above you will also be learning how to do this. This is why there isn't always a set perfect width; because this depends on your and your opponents court position. But I digress. That's enough. I know it's been awhile since my last post, so I hope this was interesting and worth the wait! Remember that taking the ball early increase your area to attack and decreases the time allowed for your opponent. The less time you allow your opponent the weaker their response will be.

Drop It Like Shabana

Today I'm going to talk about furniture, a clock and Amr Shabana. I know strange combo, right? Well I'm going to use pictures of Shabana to demonstrate how to vary your swing path for different types of drop shots. The furniture and clock parts are things that I like to use for visualizing the swing paths of various drop shots. As you learn to do this your swing path will stay on line and your drops will become more consistent; perhaps even resembling the great Maestro!

Shabana hitting a forehand counter drop

The height you receive the ball is the main determining factor for your swing path.  The distance off the sidewall and pace of the ball are all factors as well, but today I will only get into the receiving height and how this influences your swing path. Let's get right into and use some examples for you.

Dropping From The Height You Want To Hit On The Front Wall

Below we have a low coffee table. I like to use this as an image when explaining how to hit drops that are hit just above the tin. You are hitting the ball at a height that is already at the target you want to hit on the front wall, so you simply swing right across the low coffee table. I find many people drop their follow through or start with their racquet to high for this shot. The length of the swing can greatly vary even at the highest level.

We can also look at this picture of Shabana and visualize how his swing would have been right along the above low coffee table. Basically the height of the ball is just about where he is aiming on the front wall so we will be swinging parallel to the floor and following through on this same line. Considering I don't see his opponent in sight, I think it's safe to assume he won this point!

Shabana swinging across the low coffee table with a relatively flat racquet face on this forehand drop.

Dropping From Above The Height Of The Tin

If you are going to hit a drop from higher on the bounce or the volley you want to aim down, meaning you will have to swing high to low. The amount you swing from high to low depends on the angle you have. The higher the ball is at contact the more severely you can cut down on the ball. You can either lift the back part of the coffee table, or think of a the hands on a clock as an example. For example if using the clock, you can swing from 2:00 to 8:00. In the example below you would swing from approximately 2:00 (high) to 8:00 (low). 

Shabana about to slot this into the nick swinging from high (2:00) to low (8:00) with an open racquet face.

Also important to note here is the angle of the racquet face. If your racquet face is closed and your swing path is from high to low you have a good chance of hitting the ball into the floor or the tin, or at least hitting the ball too hard. So having an open racquet is an important characteristic of a drop when making contact from higher than your target on the front wall. I don't want to get too complex here, but very skilled players will actually swing from high to low (like the clock above) and will finish up again, close to the height they initiated their swing from. This means their swing path is high to low, straightening up through contact and then back to high again. This allows them to put a lot of slice on the ball and also keep the ball above the tin as the follow through has a major influence over the direction of the shot.

Dropping From Below The Height Of The Tin

If we look at a drop which is struck from under the height of the tin it is easy to visualize how we need to start our swing low (under the ball) and finish higher then we started (see another great example of Shabana doing this below). You can tell Shabana had struck the ball below the height of the tin and because of this the ball is rising on the way to the front wall. This is how he can get the ball over the tin. The problem with this is that we are hitting up on the ball and that once the ball hits the front wall it is almost surely to still be rising slightly. If you also include that the swing preparation for hitting a drop lacks deception, you can tell why it isn't hit very often from below the height of the tin. If done it is almost only done so well from the very front of the court as counter attacks where deception doesn't matter and we are hitting the ball so softly it won't rise much (or at all) after contacting the front wall. 

Shabana swinging with an open racquet from low to high on a forehand counter drop.

Shabana playing an overspin forehand counter drop off of a low and tight receiving ball.

In the above picture you will see that Shabana has received a tight ball and it was pretty low to the floor. To get under the ball and keep it tight, Shabana used a slight overspin/topspin shot. You'll see the pros do this most of the time when the ball is really tight and once in a while from mid-court if they are really feeling it! It's a much easier to play on the forehand side.

I felt like it was fitting to pay some homage to the recently retired Maestro, Amr Shabana. I normally wouldn't use a lefty for examples, but he is one of the very few lefties that I've ever seen with an exceptionally smooth swing. If you want to have a smooth swing path and drop it like the Maestro, try visualizing a clock,  low coffee table, or some other piece of furniture you have in your house. It goes back to what an earlier post I wrote about the follow through. The ball 'usually' goes where our swing is aiming. If you want to ensure you hit your target, make sure that just prior and just after contact your swing is going towards your target and you will increase your accuracy. 

You can visualize different objects to help you with all types of shots. For some people the clock works, others like to use items. You could for example hit a lob from below your hip to above your head. Or to a kid you could say you want them to swing up along a slide. There are lots of ways that people learn. Find one that works for you. If you're good at billiards or geometry you will probably enjoy squash. If you've played any net game you should also have a decent understanding about angles and when the best opportunities are to attack vs. defend based on the reception height of your shot.