playing a hard hitter

[IRLsquash]

playing squash for a few years now and recently began playing some A players at my club. one lad i have been playing recently is about the same standard as me, but he has the advantage of having a ferocious whack on the ball.
i am just curious on peoples opinions as how to approach playing such a player?
what i am currently doing is trying to keep the ball away from him. one thing i have noticed is that i find myself hanging off the tee a bit, cos i am expecting an almighty whack. but if he plays a boast or a long drop i fing myself struggling to get up the front.
i look forward to opinions, thanks..

[seshadri]

I've generally noticed that hard-hitting players are rhythm-players [White and Shorbagy come to mind]. So long as they can keep the ball moving fast, they are in control, but as soon as the opponent starts holding his shot, and mixes that with straight drops, the hard-hitter finds himself stop-starting and losing accuracy.
I think Paul8241 is the best person to write on this topic, being a coach.

[IRLsquash]

good stuff, i will try that and see how i get on. i will let you know..

[getmeinahalfpipe]

It goes back to the old tactical point of squash- hit the four corners. You cannot hack the ball if its buried deep or short. Mixing, twisting the opponent is a good thing against hard hitters, playing some slower lobs with drops means they have to put lots of effort/energy in to hitting the ball. It takes it out of them and like whats already been said, the accuracy goes. There are some shots that you just have to accept you cant get back, dead nicks etc, but these aren't too frequent. John White could no doubt hit 100/100 nicks from the middle of the court if you tee the ball up for him (well yes, I know he's also hit some outrageous shots too), but start to move it away from him, his options are limited. It's hard working pounding the ball so the accuracy will go at some point ,especially at club level. Simplistic in itself, but keep it tight/deep and your opponent has won't have the chance to hammer the ball, when they make a mistake you just have to make sure you're doing something good with the ball.

[paul8241]

thanks seshadri, I find the best way is to switch up the pace, as geteminahalfpike suggests. A few well placed shots to cramp them up, particularly on the serve, never goes astray. you'll notice they need plenty of room to power up, unless you've given them the pace on the ball.

My suggestion is, a well disguised lob will help against this player. bury them in the back corners where the power game is less effective. make sure you hold your shots whenever you have the time.

[passthestripe]

Nothing I love better than standing at the back of the court melting it up and down the lines!!!!!

Things that annoy me out of my game plan...

1 - Serves to the body, I'm forward read to smash the serve to either the cross court short or straight down the line and often find that I get caught out when a player mixes the serves to be quite shallow as I need to move back and across so i'm often limited to boast return.

2 - Mid court drives. People seem to to try and find a corner, but a low and fast drive to the mid court often catches many players on the hop. It's not short enough to provoke a counter drop and it's not got enough height to tee up a hard return. One of my favourite shots on the backhand side is this midcourt drive, the times you find the nick and it just pops out in an awkward manner is very satisfying,

[Estephan]

thanks seshadri, I find the best way is to switch up the pace, as geteminahalfpike suggests. A few well placed shots to cramp them up, particularly on the serve, never goes astray. you'll notice they need plenty of room to power up, unless you've given them the pace on the ball.

My suggestion is, a well disguised lob will help against this player. bury them in the back corners where the power game is less effective. make sure you hold your shots whenever you have the time.

Lob? Sorry, won't work. Might aid in that rally but as an overall tactic it won't work.

Taking the pace off and mixing up the pace can help.

I'm a hard-hitter and an A player or above. You've mentioned just recently playing A level players. One thing is A levels have played for awhile and can anticipate almost always how a ball will bounce in the back. Its just an ordinary shot to volley your lob if its judged to maybe 'die' in the back.

The benefit of playing a 'hard-hitter' is that they can do the work for you... if they smash a ball you don't necessarilty need to impart much force into your swing. You can swing at 'half-power' or less and still get the same resulting shot. For example: He smashes it hard and you just 'chip' at it for a drop... Winner. For this to work your anticipation has to be spot one. Once on the court it has to be 'on'.

Another reason 'serves to the body' don't usually work against A/pro players is that they are conditioned to expect anything when on court. I've had that serve at me so many times I am ready to react if need be. In fact. I prefer that serve as it sets me up to tee off the back wall for a smash that may not win the rally outright but usually sets me up for a winner.

[Estephan]

I`ll assume he hits hardest on his forehand... so limit your shots to the forehand. Try and cut off as much as you can... he smashes a shot and you hit a crappy shot fast to the opposite side where he isn`t is still better than you letting it go by and hitting it off the back wall to perfect length after he has time to set up and retrieve it.

I just watched the 1997 Mahindra tournament with Power, Jansher and Nicol. They all had uncharacteristic looseness... they`re trying to push the pace and not let their opponent recover back to the `T`. Watch them in a match and they can`t get the ball close to the side wall... watch them during drills and they`re tight.

Its not about the shot... its about where your opponent is.

[elraton]

in my personal case i think that when i played a hard hitters, one mistake that i commonly made is to try to anticipate too much, i became too anxious about the fastness of the game that i try to go too fast for the ball. i think could be better to mantain calm, wait a little, and take care to be well positioned in the T, from there you can catch almost everything that your oponent is going to do with a hard hit. i am not saying to not anticipate nothing, but reduce it.

the reason i think is because the dificulty with the hard hitters is not just the strength and fastness that they put on to the ball, but that they disguised you while making the hard shot, so if you anticipate you will find your self going to the wrong direction and without enough time to correct your way. if you wait a little and is a hard hit, normally the bounce should give you some time to get to the ball. as someone said, any way you can not expect to catch all the balls.

[isotrope]

Here is what Gregory Gaultier said after his match against John White in the ToC quarter final in 2008 (Gaultier won):

Interviewer: "How do you feel with a player like John White who can hit so many winners from all over the court? How do you face that?"

Gaultier: "You know, John White is a tall, very tall guy, and he volleys pretty much, and he hits the ball so hard so you have to control the ball, you have to be on your toes all the time. So, you just have to be patient and try not to open the court otherwise he hits winners after winners."

Watching the game on PSALive might be worthwhile.

[Estephan]

I think Ong Beng Hee is shorter than Gaultier and I think he may have beaten White back in the day when White was playing even better. The match is watched on that squash site Guide-to-Squash. Lots of good matches up on there!

And beng Hee doesn't play a power game. He just played a good squash game and I think he beat White in that one.

[Flash]

I agree with Estephan about hard-hitters doing much of the work for you. I really enjoy playing against them for that reason. I won't pretend to be able to tell you how to beat this opponent, but in my experience one thing you don't do is try to out bash them - just throws your timing out. Concentrate on finding your own rhythm instead.

[bny768]

I find that with hard hitters the challenge is that I have to move that much faster, and it wastes alot of my energy. Also the ball is hotter and thus harder to control. I tried going up and down tight and soft, and if I'm tight it works, but if just a little off its whack wack wack and the rhythm is back on his side. I am now trying to move up the T and cut off everything, even if my volley is a weakshot. That way, he has half the time and has to run faster too. Seems to work sometimes for me.

[boastnick]

Are they overstretching themselves? Some players hit the ball so hard that it's a level they can't keep up (although maybe for 3 games). Try "rope a dope". Resign yourself to retrieving, but don't do much with the retrieval. By that I mean just poddle it down the wall straight (not much pace). The idea being that you will save much energy and they will expend a lot. Towards the end of games or maybe into the third game you will start to see gaps appearing and they won't recover. I doubt that they'll be hitting nicks, even if they were that won't last. Patience.

[zueil]

I read the article on playing a hard hitter and woild like some advise on the opposite , I tend to struggle playing
tight /slow /touch type players , please advise

[IRLsquash]

i remember peter nicol, james wilstrop and lee beachill all commented that when they were playing john white that they just had to resign themselves to the fact that john would literally whack them off the court for the first half hour of play. they all agreed that the best tactic was to just hang in and play tight, and if they were lucky he might get tired.
i saw a few matches back in 2003 or so between nicol and white. white didnt tire out and wiped the world no 1 off the court 3 0. very frustrating i would imagine. i know exactly how peter must have felt

[Crusher]

I seem to only have a problem playing hard-hitters when I play league at clubs with paneled courts when I'm used to the concrete at my home club. I just get caught off-guard on 'smashes' for example. I am a hard-hitter myself (go through 17g strings in a week ) but I have so much trouble on the paneled courts.

The ball skids more on the paneled courts.

[boastnick]

Sounds like the problem is more with the courts than the hard hitter.

All courts are different and some are more different than others. Each lend themselves to slightly different styles of play, depending on the smoothness and "give" in the walls and also the floor as well as temperature etc. How many times I've played matches and all the players are playing in a certain way. Perhaps they're all playing short or all playing boasts or all playing crosscourts that seem to die. You have to pick up on this and try and deal with it.

All courts also require a slightly different length shot. Jonathan Power mentioned this in an article some time ago and that you need to hone this to find the most effective length.

Perhaps the bext advice is to play more often on these courts and ask the regulars what sort of shots are most effective on these courts.

[Crusher]

Actually, it is just these paneled courts that give me trouble. They have the walls washed often as they host a lot of tournaments. Maybe that has something to do with it., maybe a cleaning agent residue.

[bny768]

Does the hard hitter hit hard AND LOW? What I do is sit right up on the T and try to volley everything or half volley, just cut it off even though it is loose sometimes. I get guys who wind up and thus have a longer follow through or longer time to get back to the T. So cutting their time off makes them scramble just a bit more and can't wind up for the next shot as well. They then tin after a couple or just off balance. May not work at first, or some balls may totally get past you, but stick to the game plan and I hope it works for you too!

[Crusher]

Yes, only the hard and low shots are problem. The typical situation is the opponent has time to take a huge wind up off the back wall and just crush it law and hard straight or cross-court.

Just having trouble at this one club. No problems at all anywhere else. I just tried to avoid setting opponent up for those shots.