It’s the hot topic of the pro tour in early 2023 – who is Anna Leigh (AL) going to play women’s doubles with for the near future? Your guess is as good as ours, but now that we’ve made it to April, we’ve seen AL play with both Catherine Parenteau (CP) and Anna Bright (AB) in several PPA tournaments. This analysis will examine the differences between these two pairings, both in terms of strategies deployed Read more…
Below is a summary of this analysis. To read the full paper, visit here! The return is a unique shot that gets hit in virtually every rally! What makes it special? It’s the only shot in a rally where a player can place the ball in any part of the court while knowing that their opponents must let the ball bounce. Missing your return is considered a cardinal sin, and rightfully so. You’re letting your Read more…
You hit a strong serve, the opponent floats their return, and you’re ready to drive. If you’re like me, you’re probably too excited to hit the ball as hard as you can to even think about where you should be placing your third. In the words of my former middle school tennis coach, down the middle solves the riddle. Even against opponents who are not stacking on the return, hitting down the middle always has Read more…
Stacking on the return involves a lot of movement. The returning player needs to hit the return, and then run the diagonal to their spot at the no volley zone. All too often I have seen teams attempt to stack on the return, only to lose the rally because they were not able to properly cover the third. In theory the serving team should serve out wide to make the returner cover as much ground Read more…