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Two areas of the court that can be difficult to get out of are the extreme front corners. The typical response to a short drop is to drive the ball hard crosscourt thinking you can hit a winner from that position. The problem with this can be twofold: first, putting a lot of pace on the ball at this moment can result in giving you very little time to recover to the T; second, if your opponent is anywhere near the T, he/she will have an open court to simply place the ball down the opposite wall for a winner.
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Overview
The purpose of this drill is to work on getting out of tight spots while giving yourself time to recover to the T. Players tend to forget about rails when faced with picking up balls at the front of the court—usually because the ball is close to the wall and you are not in good position to get out of the way of a shot down the wall.
In this drill, the response to a re-drop will be to take pace off the ball and “lift” it high and tight down the wall with good length. The result will be to force your opponent into the back corner while giving yourself extra time to get back to the T.
Execution
Both players will rotate being the worker and “feeder.” A starts the drill by hitting a boast. B moves from the T to hit a drop which A (as the feeder) redrops. B (as the worker) then lifts the ball down the rail with enough pace to make the ball land past the service box but slowly enough to recover to the T. A (as the feeder) hits a rail (any pace is okay) to which B (now as the feeder) responds with a boast to restart the drill.
Notes
To simplify this drill, simply eliminate the dropshot portion of it until you feel ready to work in the drop. The idea is still the same because a good boast will take you all the way up to the front as well. The difference with this variation is that the worker does not change during a routine regardless of the side (e.g., drill pattern is: A hits boast, B lifts down the wall, A hits boast, B lifts down the wall—a form of the boast/rail drill).
To increase the difficulty, try volleying the rails when possible to reduce recovery time.
The ultimate goal is 25-50 sets of each drill.
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Dec 2009
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