Fiend at Court Unplugged
As a lifetime tennis player and fan I have seen a lot of unusual shots. In a league match last Sunday, I successfully played a rare shot myself. For the first time in my life, I hit a winner from the opponents side of the net. In fact it is the only time I have ever been in position to even attempt such a shot. If I didn’t have such poor footwork, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
The match was played on a super windy day. My opponent hit a ball off the top of the frame that initially looked like it might land on the adjacent court. As the wind started pushing the ball back in our direction I audibly observed that the ball had a chance to land in play. That recognition was not accompanied by any actual movement toward the ball because lackadaisical footwork is the essence of my tennis game.
The ball bounced about 6 inches from the net and two inches inside the doubles alley. It was also very clearly moving back toward the opposite side of the net. Had I appropriately responded to the shot, I likely would have played it on the rise and possibly reaching over the net to strike the ball. Opportunities to hit the reach over are not all that rare on the windswept plains of north Texas.
Since I was nowhere near the ball when it bounced, I had a lot of ground to cover. Additionally, the ball was moving away from us too fast for a strike from our side of the net. Thanks to the high bounce, there was time for me to run around the net post to play the ball inches before it hit the ground with a one handed backhand lunge. I was trying to hit the ball back into my opponents net, but my actual shot bounced maybe a foot from their net and then skimmed the ground across the court parallel to the net.
Our opponents had no play on the ball. The “Wow” reaction was immediate from both teams. Fortunately our opponents recognized that the shot was legal since my feet were not touching doubles alley on their side of the net before the ball was struck. I previously wrote about the specific rules in “A Rare ‘Around the Net Post’ Winner” that includes video of Pablo Carreno Busta hitting the same conceptual shot.
Sadly, I left the video camera in my car that day because breaking down video captured on very windy days is painful. However, the Trophy Husband was on hand after surprising me by showing up to watch after his own league matches had ended at another site.
As I turned to check his reaction, the Trophy Husband looked up from his phone. “What?! Did I miss something?”
