One of the problems many players have is crowding the ball. At some point, we all get to close to the ball and don’t have the space we need to make good contact. When this happens we have a tendency to pop the ball up and allow our weight to fall backward.
Paddle Position
The solution to crowding the ball starts with how you hold your paddle. Often players hang their paddle to the side or rest the paddle against their body. Another common problem is grabbing the face of the paddle in hopes of keeping it up. But we don’t want to grab our paddle anywhere other than the handle. Doing so will cause the paddle to snap or flick. It may also keep the paddle from swinging through the shot the way we intended.
Instead, we want to keep the paddle in front of us, creating the space we need to make contact with the ball before it comes to us. I imagine resting my arms on a table in front of me. I don’t want any part of my arm to be touching my body. If you have taken dancing lessons, you might want to relate this to the “frame”. Keeping a firm, steady distance between yourself and your partner…which, in this case, is your paddle.
Finish the Shot
Just as we want a comfortable distance between the ball or paddle and our body, we want to finish the shot the same way. We want to extend as much as possible, toward our target, keeping our elbows away from our body. Focus on finishing your follow through on every shot you hit. This includes your dinks!
We sometimes make contact with a ball and pull away quickly. If your elbow is bending and pulling away from your shot the ball will likely pop up in the air. Instead of crowding the ball, we want to extend from our shoulders. In order to do that, we need to create space that allows this to happen.
