67: Pounce on It: How to Recognize, Attack, and Finish Floaters!

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[00:01:04] Welcome to 4.0 to Pro, the pickleball podcast that focuses on a single shot, tip, or strategy to improve your pickleball game with every single pocket-sized episode. Our goal is to make you better on the court every time you hear our voices. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of 4.0 to Pro, your pocket-sized pickleball podcast where we teach you a single shot of strategy every single episode. I'm Michael O'Neal here in Long Beach, California, joined by Mircea Morariu.

[00:01:33] I think you're in Boca Raton at the moment. I don't know if you're playing a tournament or something, but hello. Hello, my friend. And yes, I am in Boca Raton at work at my telehealth company here at the offices with a few staff here. We're just working away. How are you doing? I am great. I have committed to something minutes ago for my Porsche restoration company that I do that I'm a little nervous about.

[00:01:59] I've got five months to hit a deadline that's insane, so we'll see how much pickleball I get to play in the next few months. But I'm good. You know, you've got to take big swings, Mircha. That's how it goes. Absolutely. So today's show, unbelievably, we've done between you and the previous co-host, God, I don't know, 100 and 250 episodes or something of this show. This subject has never come up, which is shocking to me. And that is floaters.

[00:02:26] And what I mean by a floater for all of you in listener land is you've sped up or you've fired a ball at your opponent and that ball pops up above your shoulders. You've got a ball that's just sitting there hanging like a basketball in midair and you have an opportunity to put it away. It is literally why we play the game.

[00:02:52] It's exactly what we are looking for from an offensive standpoint, wouldn't you say, Mircha? Yeah, that's the goal. We want to get floaters. We want to create floaters for ourselves and our partner. And ultimately, that's what you want. You want a ball that you can control and do multiple things with. And let's be honest, is there anything more satisfying than getting that big, fluffy, juicy floater in the middle and being able to crush it? Is there anything more satisfying than that and just having a walk off winter?

[00:03:21] Very few things are more satisfying than that. The problem is, Mircha, is that in a lot of cases, you've been now on the rec courts a little more than you normally have in your pickleball career. You're probably seeing a lot of the same things I am. And there are a lot of mismanaged floaters out there.

[00:03:42] There are opportunities that do not get taken advantage of because the people taking advantage of them, or trying to, are doing some things that are putting them in a bad spot. So that's what we're going to talk about today. First and foremost, Mircha, the main thing I see, some people get these balls. And they'll hit a, let's say, a hard drive. Let's say they hit a third shot drive from the middle of the transition zone. They chicken wing that person. That ball pops up dead middle of the court.

[00:04:12] And it's just floating there above your head. What I see more often than not, scarily enough, is people do not collapse on that space. They will let the ball bounce, which, again, takes all of their advantage away. And they don't collapse on it. And the collapsing part, attacking that space, to me, is the most important part of the floater, which is trying to hit it at its peak. Exactly. The first thing you want to do is recognize that it's a floater.

[00:04:42] And it seems like a simple thing. But, you know, one of the things that we want to do as we're getting better, we want to recognize balls early. So, you want to hit a shot. And once you hit it, see what your opponents are doing and where they are on the court. And then predict what the next ball is going to be. And if you hit a really good ball at someone's feet, or if you hit a speed up to a specific spot that is advantageous, like you mentioned the chicken wing, and the ball pops up, don't just watch it.

[00:05:11] Kind of follow it. And especially if you are on the left side, your job and your right-hander, your job is to patrol that middle and pounce on these balls. Pounce is the perfect word for that, Mirja. Yeah. Because we do need to attack that space. Yeah, I prefer that to collapse. But I think we're saying the same thing. Yeah. But really, the key is to get the ball at the peak as much as you can within reason.

[00:05:41] The biggest mistake that I see is that people take these giant swings. They take a huge backswing, and then they take a huge follow-through. The issue is primarily with a backswing. Because when you take a really big backswing, by the time you swing through and you contact the ball, the ball has usually dropped a few inches up to a foot or more than you expected.

[00:06:08] You are hitting it at a lower expected point of contact if you take that huge backswing. I think one of the biggest takeaways of this discussion is to try to limit that backswing. You are going to be able to generate enough pace. Trust me. Especially with practice. But try to maintain your paddle position, the, quote, backswing, which is really minimal, to your peripheral vision. So let's say you have a little bit higher than shoulder-level ball.

[00:06:33] If you put up your hand and it's outstretched, pretend you have a paddle there. And if you pull it back behind your head and you feel kind of a little bit of strain on your shoulder and it's behind you, like behind your ear, and you cannot see your hand or the hypothetical paddle in your grasp, then you are taking too big of a swing. The ball should be in front of you. It should be, I'm sorry, the ball should be in front of you. Your paddle should be in your peripheral vision.

[00:07:01] And you accelerate and hit the ball at the peak. Try to minimize the follow-through so you don't just go all the way over. Because, again, so often we are talking about getting a combination. So I mentioned, you know, it's really satisfying to crush that for a winner, which it is. But the better you get, the more likely it is for the ball to come back. So you want to be able to reload as quickly as possible.

[00:07:25] So you don't want to take a giant follow-through all the way around to your, you know, like left hip if you're right-handed. Yeah, I agree. The part that I take from that, we're going to get into kind of the technical side, I think, of the actual swing and things like that. But the drop is so important to not let happen. Because even if it's, let's say that we attack the space and we get to that ball as high as it is.

[00:07:51] The other thing I see pretty often, Mircha, is people will let it drop, like on purpose. They will let it drop to their waist before they hit the ball because that is their perceived strike zone. And we're here to say, no, what we'd rather see happen is that you give yourself some space. You've seen me do it. I think we've all done it, by the way. You get that high floater. You're right there. You attack it and you rip it right into the net or you rip it four feet out.

[00:08:17] One of those two things happens because you've taken this gigantic swing or you've gotten really wristy. And you correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a very army kind of shot. This is a shot that uses a lot of shoulder and your arm can be, I mean, I'm thinking of Federico Staxrud, who, for whatever reason, he always sticks out in my mind as having a great version of this. So does Ben. But it's a very, like, from the shoulder, almost straight arm shot.

[00:08:45] So they tend to give themselves a bunch of space. Let's say if they're a righty, they'll move to the left so their arm can have a nice flat swing. Their swing path is actually heading up a little bit versus heading straight down, which is, I think, where we make the mistake. We'll stop and plant and just try to thwack it with our wrist. And that's not the correct swing path for this shot.

[00:09:09] Well, if you want to watch, you know, the highest level pros who are, I think, the best at this, I think watch J.L.B. Johnson and Ben Johns. Just watch their swing paths. They do have relatively compact swing, yet they obviously swing through the ball. But once they get control with a high ball in the middle, you typically do not see the ball coming back. Or if it does come back, it's a weak reply.

[00:09:37] And they've taken control of the point. And what you don't see them do is take these giant follow-throughs, which we've talked about. What you don't see them do is aim for the sidelines. Even if they do aim to get an angle, it's well within the court. One of the bigger mistakes that I see is the targets. And the target should be sort of an elliptical-shaped imaginary target in the middle of the court.

[00:10:02] Imagine if you kind of plant yourself in the direct middle of the pickleball court. That is a really safe target zone that you can have for these high shots. I might miss some stuff long, some stuff in the net. But generally, I do not miss wide. And you don't typically see pros miss wide balls on very easy balls in the middle, like these floaters that we're talking about.

[00:10:29] But it's incredible to me how often those balls are missed. If you're missing 10 out of 100 of these balls, that is a significant percentage that you want to decrease. You really want to maximize your control of the point and the control of your attack, particularly on those really big points. You don't want to miss a floor at 8-8 all, a 10-all. Your whole goal is to get that ball. So you want to go get it.

[00:10:56] And what you're talking about is people kind of letting the ball play you as opposed to you playing the ball. So you go get that ball and you get it at the peak as much as you can rather than waiting for it to come to you and then swinging. Yeah, agreed. I think if you guys take one thing from this, it's that you really have to attack that space. Pounce. Pounce. Yeah, pounce is a better word than prowl. Well, first you have to prowl and then you pounce.

[00:11:26] Yes. And then you pounce. Right. But it's an aggressive, I keep saying collapse because I like to think of it as the space is collapsing, but it's an aggressive move to get that to happen. One thing I've seen recently, just a couple days ago, is I was watching a group of like kind of 3-0-ish, 3-5, and a couple of these pop-ups happened. And these floaters happened right in the middle of the court and they let the ball bounce, Mircha.

[00:11:54] They let it just drop down to the court again. And I thought that just negated all of that hard work you just did to get this pop-up. It's the whole reason we're trying to play these points is to get this ball to pop up really high so we can put it away and hit it at their feet or hit it at this elliptical area in the middle of the court. And they let the ball bounce.

[00:12:16] So the don't, if there's a do's and don'ts of these floaters, never, never, never, never let the ball bounce if you can possibly help it. I mean, I don't know what I'm thinking. Maybe if you hit a baseline drive, you hit a perfect chicken wing ball and the ball popped up and you just don't have enough time to get to that spot. But in general, if you can attack that space and pounce and get it in the air, we want to do that 100% of the time.

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[00:13:42] Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Yes, and I will have one scenario that I want to bring up that you do want to let the ball bounce, which is another mistake that I often see. Okay. Yes, and. Thanks, bro. You're welcome. So another big mistake I see is that people take a floater, which is going to land in the non-volley zone, so in the kitchen, and they can't attack it at the peak. So it will be a high floater.

[00:14:10] And what they do is they reach into the kitchen and hit the ball like at their, you know, ankles or knees. Instead of letting the ball bounce and hitting the ball with a more aggressive topspin forehand, topspin backhand, some sort of aggressive shot off the bounce.

[00:14:30] And that's the exception that I want to bring up because I think that's an often seen mistake on the rec courts that I see in the, you know, 4-5 to 5-0. And sometimes even like the 5-0, you know, plus area that they are really taking a attackable ball and making it defense oriented rather than offense oriented. So it's interesting you say that because I was going to bring something up.

[00:14:55] Let's say that it's not quite in the kitchen or the non-volley zone and the ball bounces. Now, it wasn't ideal. I do see that people tend to continue to try to be aggressive with that ball. Are we suggesting that the best time to do that is when the ball is actually in the kitchen, but not necessarily outside when you're, you know, in the low transition zone or something like that?

[00:15:21] Because to me, I feel like, well, now the defense has gotten a chance to set back up and reestablish themselves. So maybe it's not a great idea to speed up off that bounce. However, the bounce might be kind of high and dead. So you might have some options there. So I'm curious about what your take is on that. Obviously, it depends on where your opponents are. That's one of the keys.

[00:15:44] If your opponents are far back or relatively far, say they hit a really loopy floating third shot with a very high arc, and it's clearly going to land in the kitchen. You don't want to reach in like halfway through the kitchen and take that ball in the air if you're going to hit a very defensive shot.

[00:16:06] And a good rule of thumb is if you're looking down at the court and almost down at the ball to hit a volley off a very high arcing shot that's going to land in the kitchen, then you should probably let that bounce. If you can take that ball in the air and you can still see your opponents and where they are on the court and you can get a little bit of a topspin, like a little bit of a flick or roll type shot that goes over the net and dips down, then that's a ball you want to take in the air. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:16:36] You want to be a defensive block, but you want more of an offensive shot there if you have one. My point is you don't want to take a potentially offensive opportunity and turn it into defense by misjudging the ball and taking a ball that if you had let bounce and it would bounce relatively high and you could do something aggressive with it. And aggressive doesn't mean you hit it hard, okay?

[00:17:03] Because if the ball bounces, sometimes it's hard to hit down. You have to hit either straight or a little bit over the net, so you've got to get a little bit of shape on it. And if you hit it hard and your opponents are coming up, where do they want the ball? They want it in their sweet spot, which is typically at, you know, waist slash abdomen slash chest level. So you want to get it down to their feet. That's always the goal.

[00:17:27] So, again, my point is really not to take an offensive opportunity and turn it into defense. Right. So you get the pop-up. You want to collapse on it. You want to hit it at its peak. To drill this, what I've done in the past, Mircea, is kind of stood close-ish to the non-volley zone, typically on the left-hand side,

[00:17:53] and had a partner just underhand toss a ball that's like shoulder height or above that I can just stroke and put away. And I'm really focusing on a unit with my arm so I'm not wristy about it. I think adding too much wrist to this is what makes it go into the net, and we've all done it. We've all overhit this ball, and it's gone long. We've all slapped it, and it's gone right into the net.

[00:18:22] So the methodology, to me, it almost feels, you know, Frankenstein-y a little bit, Mircea, where I'm swinging with my torso and my shoulder and trying to keep my arm and wrist pretty locked and working on my swing path until the ball goes where I'd like it to go. And you can do that just by having somebody toss it up, you know, like I said, shoulder or head height. Yeah, you've got to remember you're also already up in the point,

[00:18:49] so you want to maintain that strategy where you're continuing to be up in the point. And what I mean by that is you don't want to hit a huge, risky winner. You know, you want to think of it a little bit of a combo. So one of the good drills that I like to have in terms of technique is I'll be on the left, and someone will float a ball, like, you know, kind of toss or feed a ball, like a few feet to my right, and I have to shuffle over to go get it.

[00:19:19] And I keep my arm extended, and I keep it within my peripheral vision, and then I accelerate through the ball at the peak of where I can hit it, and I basically target that sort of elliptical shape target in the middle of the court that I discussed before. And then I do the same thing when I'm on the right. So I'll be on the right side. Someone will kind of toss or float a ball in the middle, and you have to shuffle over to go get it.

[00:19:47] You don't want to step forward because ideally you're at the kitchen line already, so you don't want to step forward and fault. You want to just shuffle over, making sure you keep your feet behind the non-bally zone line, and go get that ball and basically accelerate through the ball and make sure you're not taking that giant swing and you're keeping control. You want to keep your chest sort of forward.

[00:20:13] You want to keep that sort of attack-like posture where your knees are slightly bent and you are prowling and then pouncing. Yeah, and really think about keeping your feet planted. If you do happen to get the pop-up from a dinking rally and you're already at the non-volley zone, the kitchen, yeah, you really want to plant your feet. Sometimes tennis players struggle with this particular shot because they want to step in with their left foot or in John McEnroe's case, his right foot,

[00:20:43] and then he complains about how the kitchen is lame. But generally, we want to really plant our feet and stay somewhat still, and that upper body is really doing a lot of the work. Exactly. And when we talked about recognizing, you have to remember that really the key is to try to recognize what is going to happen on the other side of the net, what your opponents are doing. So if you or your partner have hit a really good shot, you want to identify the floater.

[00:21:12] You can see that if your opponent is leaning backward or they have an open paddle face or they've contacted the ball late or they're stretching or off balance, like a really good example is like you or your partner have hit a really good dink and your opponent is back and off balance. Then you want to move towards where you think the floater will be. Again, you want to get the highest reset trajectory and you want to attack that at that point. Agreed. So quick summary.

[00:21:42] You get a pop-up. You want to attack the ball at its peak, humanly possible, which means you're going to have to aggressively get to that space. Do not let the ball bounce and try not to be so wristy with a huge backswing. Really stay stable when you hit this ball. Obviously, stable base. Keep your arm and your wrist straight. Give yourself some space to hit it.

[00:22:08] And then you want to hit to that elliptical area magically on the other side of the court towards their feet if you can. And expect the ball to come back the higher you go. Have I missed anything? No, that's really good. My biggest takeaways are, again, not taking that giant backswing, maintaining your paddle and arm extended within your peripheral vision and basically lock in on your target and make your target safe

[00:22:37] because you're already in control of the point. So you don't need to hit a perfect ball. If you're hitting a ball on the line or within two inches of the line, if that's your target, then you're hitting the wrong spots because you're going to make that error a significant portion of the time and you don't want to lose that opportunity. We call it opportunity cost. I had a floater to win a tournament game about three weeks ago. We were at 10-10 and I had it. It was right there, right in the middle. And I didn't listen to you

[00:23:07] because we hadn't done this show yet. And I fired the ball and it went about a half inch wide on the left-hand side. I went a little wide with it and it went a little bit wide and it was side out and they got it and they won the game and we got fourth instead of second. That's how that all worked. So there you go. And by the way, just another thing that I thought of as you were mentioning that, let's say you crushed that ball

[00:23:35] as hard as you could right on the line. But guess what? Your opponents, because they didn't get a great view of it, but they thought it might have been just a smidge out. They call it out even though it was clearly on the line. Don't give them that opportunity when you hit hard within a foot of the sideline. You know what I'm saying? Like don't give them the opportunity to call the ball out. Now we've seen balls called out even on the pro level where they've been, you know, a foot inside.

[00:24:04] But that being said, you know, try to minimize that opportunity for them to make an incorrect call by hitting it within your target zone, kind of in that middle elliptical target area. I was playing yesterday and I thought of you because I had like two shots in a row that were just a little bit outside the lines, one on one side, one on the other. And I said, Mircha would yell at me. There was a one foot virtual line here that I didn't pay any attention to, but I should have. Anyway, thanks guys. Go enjoy.

[00:24:35] Get some floaters, put them away. Let us know how it all goes. Of course, on Instagram and you can always write us at picklehelp.com if you have any questions about anything. Thank you, Mircha. Have yourself a good weekend. Yeah, thank you very much. And yeah, we appreciate the questions. We've gotten a few good ones and we're going to incorporate that, those questions into show topics. So thank you so much. Keep them coming. All right, guys, you keep on rocking. Enjoy your day. Happy pickling. See you later. Thank you for listening to 4.0 to Pro.

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