how-to-take-advantage-of-players-who-step-around-their-forehand-and-or-bh
Kevin Tang asked 2 years ago
I play against certain players who actually step around their forehand to hit a backhand, especially on serve return because they want to flip the backhand. What’s the best way to punish people that do this?
On the other side, some people cheat towards their forehand to try to get a forehand in, are there any particular good strategies to counter this?
Tom Academy Coach answered 2 years ago
Yes I know exactly what you mean, I actually like playing these type of players because I always feel if you can block and place the ball well it’s hard for them as they can get caught out of position.
The best way to take advantage of it is really trying to spot early when they move around into these positions and switch the ball quickly, of course this isn’t easy and not always possible but if you see them sneaking around you can then change the placement at the last minute.
Another tactic would be serving short to the forehand and waiting for them to move around and flick and then quickly blocking back to the backhand corner. If you can serve with a lot of backspin the flick at you won’t be as strong as they have to life the backspin more.
This works the same against players who run around to use forehand from the backhand, you can serve long or half long there on purpose and then be ready for a block wide into the forehand corner. Of course the serve needs to be with enough quality so they can’t play a really strong attack.
