jotapadel: The Australian?

sábado, 26 de marzo de 2011

The Australian?

Hi friends!!!

Many of you are accustomed to, when serving, changing the position from which you serve. That means, for example, that when it’s deuce, you serve from the right side and when it’s advantage, you serve from the left side. Is this correct? Why, therefore, do the professionals always play on the same side? Is it better? I would like to expose and argue my own personal opinion on this subject.


"The Australian"

It’s true that at professional and advanced level, the natural tendency is that one player always occupies the same side of the court, specializes on that side, and trains and works to increase the potential of his game from that side. The selection of the side is very closely related to the characteristics of the player, whether he/she is right- or left-handed, whether he/she is fast or slow, if he/she hits the ball hard or not, and also of importance is the psychological component, etc.

Clarifications about the rules:

The player who is returning, ALWAYS should do so from the side he/she chose at the beginning of the set and continue to do so throughout the set. He/she can change at the start of the next set.
The player who is serving, ALWAYS should alternate the side from which he/she serves, but once he/she has served he/she can occupy any chosen position.

In the situation described above a type of strategy called “The Australian” appears. It consists in that each player mantains the same side of the court throughout the game, both when returning and when continuing on from serving.

For example, usually in a pair in which one player is right-handed and the other left-handed, the left-handed player occupies the right side and the right-handed player, the left. This means that when the left-handed player serves from the Deuce side, nothing unusual happens, however, when this player serves from the Advantage side, after serving he immediately moves to occupy his position on the right side of the court.