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Run to the non-volley line — YES — but where should you stand?

1/17/2015

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If you've played much pickleball, you know it's important to move up to the non-volley zone (NVZ) line as soon as it's safe to do so--that is, when you believe you'll have enough time to get to the NVZ line and not be caught in midcourt with a ball aimed at your feet or a drive headed to the backcourt that you won't be able to reach. 
Picture
If you don't know why  you should move up (other than everyone says so), here's a quick explanation. (The rest of you may skip ahead.) In the picture on the left, the diagonal lines leading from John's paddle  to the outer extremes of the backcourt show the maximum possible trajectory of a hard drive John might make.   
In the example above, John served to Mary, who returned a deep shot down the middle. John is about to return the ball. As shown by the lines with arrowheads, if John hits a hard drive to Mary at the baseline, she must guard all 10 feet on her side of the court. If John tries to send a long drive past Sue at the  NVZ line, she must only guard 7-1/2 feet on the inside of her court. Why? Because John can't aim any wider on a drive shot and keep the ball in bounds. (We'll talk about what happens if John hits a soft shot later on.)

What this means is that you shouldn't necessarily stand in the center of your court at the non-volley zone line. Let's concentrate on Sue in the picture above. She's standing where she can reach the drive shots most easily: smack in the center of that 7-1/2 feet. (If Sue were right-handed instead of left and her backhand was weaker, she might move a little to the left.)

Now, what happens if John hits a drop shot — a softer shot that lands just over the net — to Sue and it lands way over on the right inside the NVZ?  It's not a problem, because the shot is much slower and Sue will have plenty of time to get to it from her position.
Picture
Now let's say Sue returns the ball to the far outside corner of John's court before he can move up. As shown on the left, the possible trajectory of a drive shot from John has changed. Consequently, both Mary and Sue move to the right, still covering about 7-1/2 feet each. If John returns a soft shot to Mary's left, she'll have time to move and get it.
When you're playing a soft game — dinking back and forth across the net — the best position is shown by Sue, above. Because she's left-handed, she's standing slightly to the right of center. This allows her to move left to cover the center and also reach more easily with her backhand a diagonal dink toward the outside.
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Left-Handed Pickleball Paddles

9/7/2014

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Picture
Picture
Recently I was at a pickleball tournament and I happened to look at the paddles available from one of the vendors. One paddle had a sticky tag that read, “Lefty.” I laughed when I saw it, knowing that paddles aren’t any different for right- or left-handers, and I said to the proprietor, “That’s cute.”

“It’s for real,” he said, and he proceeded to show me the grip on the “lefty” paddle.

If you look at the paddle in the first picture, you’ll see a typical paddle grip. Notice the way the spiral grip matches the angle of my fingers when I hold it with my right hand.

Now look at the next picture, which is the same paddle in my left hand. (I moved my thumb out of the way to show the grip better.) The angle of my fingers and the angle of the wraps are opposite, and it’s not nearly as comfortable.

I don’t know if any other manufacturers are going to begin offering left-handed grips for their customers, but you can always customize your own paddle by removing the existing grip and replacing it with a new one that’s wrapped in the opposite direction.

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    Gale Leach lives in Arizona with her husband, two dogs, and one cat. When she's not singing or playing music, she's writing the second in a new series of novels for young adults, a fifth book in the "Bruce" children's series, and updating The Art of Pickleball.

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