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Stacking--Why and How

10/20/2018

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If you've had an opportunity to watch a tournament and saw stacking in action, you may have wondered why the players were moving around the court, standing together, or standing outside the court completely. If you're curious about stacking and how and when to incorporate it into your game, read on.

Stacking is used during tournament play to exploit a team's strength and minimize its weakness. The technique increases the number of times a person plays on the right (even) or left (odd) side of the court.

According to the rules, the non-serving partner or the receiver's partner may stand in any position (even off the court), as long as they stay on their side of the net. Therefore, both team members may stand inside their service court, and partner of the person receiving the serve may stand outside the court at the time of the serve. 

Some examples may help explain how and why stacking works, and why you might want to try it.
Picture
1) Backhands in the center. Judy is right-handed and her partner, John, is left-handed. They don't like having both backhands in the middle, so when Judy serves, they stack. Both partners stand in the right service box until she serves. Then Judy moves to the left side of the court, while John stays put. At the end of the rally, they switch sides again, so they will be in their correct places for the next service. (Note: If Judy is uncomfortable with John standing so close, he can wait outside the service box until Judy moves.)

2) Strong or weak forehand or backhand. If partners are like-handed, but one or both have strengths or weaknesses that could be exploited, they could use stacking to their advantage. Right-handed Gloria has an average forehand, while her right-handed partner, Diane, has a forehand that is exceptionally strong. Diane would rather play in the left court to cover the middle and take advantage of her forehand strength. The same would be true for a partner with a weak backhand. When players are like-handed, putting a weak backhand in the right court with a strong forehand in the left court just makes sense.
Picture
3) When receiving. The players in example 1 above are receiving the serve. Judy is the receiver, and John would normally be up at the non-volley-zone line in the left court. However, since John would rather be on the right, he stands outside the sideline, just behind the non-volley zone line on the right. ​After Judy returns the service, John moves in, and Judy rushes to the non-volley-zone line on the left.

Stacking isn't something you must do, but it can help your team play better and more consistently. You can choose to stack during only a portion of the game. Stacking can confuse your opponents and is sometimes good as a way to change things up. 

If you understand what stacking is and how your team (and your opponents) can use it, you'll have an advantage over those who don't.

​Happy stacking!

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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. 
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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
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 a cat. When she's not writing pickleball tips, she's working on 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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