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To
the average club squash player with a few years of court experience
under his belt this could come as a bit of a blow (as with the
"you've got no base game"
statement). However, when the all-seeing coach picked this one
out, it came as no great surprise… my dropshots were indeed
abysmal. To be truthful a colourful selection of adjectives would
also have aptly described this part of my game, but since it's
a family site, we'll just settle for the original description.
Lesson
statement made, we moved on to an exercise to allow me to show
just how poor my dropshots really were. We used the boast and
drive exercise with yours truly at the front of the court, but
before playing the straight drive to the back of the court, I
had to play a straight dropshot. Needless to say, I didn't disappoint
- putting the ball in the middle of the tin or redline with quite
incredible consistency.
So,
having clearly identified the problem the coach set about making
the corrections:
Fault
1
Having too big a swing. My start point for the dropshot
was the same as for a drive played from the back of the
court. This generated the further error of needing to slow
right down before striking the ball, resulting in a poke
at the ball rather than a smooth stroke. Moving the racket
such a large distance and needing to slow it down to achieve
a good dropshot with both well controlled pace and direction
was very difficult to achieve - and was even more difficult
when under the pressure of a match situation. I had further
complicated matters by adding a shed load of cut on the
shot to further take pace off the dropshot - the pace of
course coming from my huge start swing. With all these factors
compounding it seems amazing that I was even able to put
the ball in the tin consistently.
Remedy
1
Shorten the swing - genius, from my coach. Start the swing
for the dropshot with little more than a half swing. |
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The
racket head then has much less distance to travel and becomes much
easier to simply nudge the ball in a controlled fashion at the desired
spot on the front wall. By simply shortening the swing, the pace
is taken off the ball by slowing the swing, throughout the now smooth
stroke - this removes the need to pile on the slice in the shot.
This may make it more obvious to an opponent that a dropshot is
likely, but the dropshot should be used as a working shot to move
the opponent rather than expecting a winner every time…
Fault
2
Playing the shot off the wrong foot. On the forehand side I was
stepping into the shot with the right foot, and on the backhand
I was playing the shot of the left foot. Given the fact that I
was struggling to get the ball above the red line, I thought was
being a tad pernickety until I got the explanation. By playing
off the wrong foot the natural shot becomes the crosscourt, which,
if that's the only option available, allows the opposition to
pile on the pressure by playing the ball to the opposite back
corner with an easy straight drive. Additionally, approaching
the shot from this stance only really allows a weak push to the
side for the straight drop, this is significantly weaker than
where there is the opportunity to play a full stroke.
Remedy
2
Make
a conscious effort with footwork when moving to the front of the
court for dropshots. On the forehand side play off the left foot
and on the backhand side play of the right foot. This will allow
you choose the shot that you wish to play, no longer will you
be forced to play the easy and predictable cross court or the
weak drop shot, instead the straight drive can be mixed in to
keep the opponent guessing where the ball is going (the crosscourt
lob was also suggested for a bit of variety). |
