[00:00:05.380] - Tony Roig
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. I hope you're having a great week. This week's podcast, we're going to be tackling some strategic awareness ideas. Oftentimes on the podcast, we spend a lot of time on perspective, on bigger picture understanding of the game. I think that's an awesome use of our time. Every once in a while, though, we want to get into some strategic stuff, basically mental part of it in terms of being aware of situations and how it's going to help you strategically. That's what we're going to do in today's episode. I have three different areas that we're going to be exploring. Before we do, a couple of shoutouts. I appreciate the rating and reviews. And then a couple of pieces of housekeeping, and then we'll jump dive into the podcast. So first of all, thank you. Let's see your RIFF comments from N2 something. The information for Sam was spot on. Taking a deep breath before I My serve really improves my accuracy. If I make a mistake, it is usually because I rush my serve. It's fair. Oftentimes, the RIF has a hidden jewel that comes in handy.

[00:01:08.100] - Tony Roig
We try. And then this one's from Megan. Thank you, Megan, for leaving this. Therapy for my mental game. When I started, pickleball, I quickly discovered that my mental game was really beating me. This podcast made an amazing difference. I thought I had it conquered until I played in a tournament. Now I know that this is an ongoing battle that I need to regularly work on. I listen to this podcast on the way to the and when I'm walking my dog, most every day. Don't know what I'm going to do when I've listened to all of the old episodes. I have a suggestion for you in a second, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Thanks for continuing to do this podcast. It's my pleasure, Megan, and thank you and the other listener for your comments, for your feedback. I have a recommendation for you, if you want to continue to build, the book. It's titled, Pickleball Therapy, the Book. It's available now. It's a digital form We'll put a link in the show notes. You can also go to betterpicklebal.om and get your early copy. You'll be one of the first players to understand these new approaches, these different ways of thinking about the sport that will really help you.

[00:02:14.020] - Tony Roig
And what we like about this process, too, is we're all a work in process. I am, you are. But one of our students wrote in a post in our online community recently talking about how, I believe it's How they were basically hearing stuff from professional athletes in other sports and football and things like that. That's all about the win and having the Ricky Bobby mentality. If you don't know what that is, you'll find out in the book or you've seen the movie. But having that mentality and just saying those words. And so it was a really nice post. Great question. Articulated some different ways that others use the mental part. I'm going to be addressing that next week's podcast. The reason I bring it up today is because it is a journey for all of us. Like Megan said, it's never-ending. And we're always society, friends, the way we interact, the way others interact with the sport will have an impact on how we interact with the sport, at least in our mind. We have to be conscientious of this and also be on guard, if you will, to these outside, potential outside influences that can take us to a place that we don't want to be with the sport.

[00:03:33.640] - Tony Roig
Anyway, so that's coming up next week. But I wanted to mention that because of the journey. And also, I invite you to get the book so that you can take advantage of those sooner rather than later. We will have a print version of the book coming out before the end of the year. Exact date, TBD, but I anticipate in the next 30 days or so, we'll have that lined up with the Amazon situation there. They're the ones that really control that ecosystem, so that'll be where it'll be. All right, let's dive into these three different areas. And I want to talk about strategic. This is strategic awareness, right? So this is where you're basically preparing yourself mentally to anticipate better by your awareness of what's going on from a strategic standpoint. And we're going to look at three different areas. The first one will apply mostly direct play. The second one will apply to any level of play when you deal with this player. And the third one will be an advanced concept that has to do with stacking wine. But even if you don't stack a lot or you don't play a lot of stackers, just having this understanding of how this works will help you think through it.

[00:04:42.630] - Tony Roig
That's really the key. All right, let's dive into the first one here. The first one here is the stay back returner. What happens here is you're in a rec situation, open play, and you're playing with a returner that doesn't come forward. Now you're on the return side, you're the other player, you're not returning serve, and you're playing with a partner who does not come forward. Now, we've talked about this before in some other contexts, but not here this way. It's a question of strategic awareness. You understand strategically that the best place for you to play is up at the non-volley zone line. That's why you're there as a non-returner. That's why you go up there and stand there. You're the only player on the court at the beginning who can be there, right? And so you go up there because it's strategically more advantageous to you. But sometimes you're going to play with players who don't have the same strategic awareness that you do. Now, that is another layer of strategic awareness for you. In other words, you're aware that you're playing with a player who either doesn't appreciate it or, for whatever reason, can't get up to the line before the foreshot.

[00:05:42.940] - Tony Roig
So the question now is, what do you do? Now, the strategic thinking here is, if I stay up at the line and my partner stays back, what's going to end up happening in a lot of situations is the opponents are going to come forward. So now the serve team is going to come up to their line So it'll be you alone at your line and the two players on the serving team be ganging up against you, if you will, on their line, and your partner back at the baseline or somewhere in the transition zone. Now, think through that in terms of how that rally ends that you're going to like. The answer is not many situations, because likely what will happen is your partner is going to lay the ball up. It's going to basically lift the ball. Then if your opponents know what they're doing, you're going to be the one to eat it. You're going to get the one with the sma-you're going to get the sma at you. So from a strategic standpoint, is that how we want to play this game? I would submit to you the answer is no.

[00:06:43.900] - Tony Roig
And then you get into a situation or a question of what can you control there? You can't control your partner necessarily. So what can you do? Well, from a strategic awareness standpoint, you can back up, right? You can back up all the way back to wherever your partner is. So if your partner wants to stay around the baseline, great. You want to take a step in there, that's fine, too. Somewhere around there, it's fine. But you're going to be in rough contact with your partner in terms of the depth that you're at. What that does is it allows you to not be the one getting smashed with balls. And if you do get smashed with the ball in your direction, you're back, so you can defend it better. You can just keep the balls in play. You also get more shots, right? You get more opportunities to touch the ball and things like that. So that's an example of how you think of strategic awareness, how you apply, I should say, strategic awareness to your play in open play or rec play situations where you don't have control over everything that's going on in the court, and there are going to be times when you're going to want to stay back with your partner from a strategic standpoint because it is better than you staying up and then staying back, which is, we refer to that in our coaching as Islands of Despair.

[00:07:58.380] - Tony Roig
It's the worst formation and a pickleball, one up, one back. We're talking about a standard formation. You're not like where you're attacking or taking advantage of an opportunity. That's fine. But if you're just staying constantly one up, one back, one up, one back all the time, that can be a very difficult way to play this sport of pickleball. That's a strategic awareness situation for you there on open play. The second one I want to address is more broader application, and this is when you're facing potentially a lopper. Here, you can go through, and all of these we can go as complex and deep as we want to. We're going to keep it mid-level here. As I go into this, I do want to let you know that at the end of October, I'm having. I don't remember the exact date, but I know it's after this podcast, but shortly after this podcast. But I have a strategy clinic where I'm going to teach you how to read the room. And this is a good example here in reading the room when you're playing against a potential lob situation. So when you think about lobers, how do you tackle lobers from a strategic awareness standpoint?

[00:09:02.470] - Tony Roig
Well, first, and I know this is going to sound super simple, but listen, I played with players who half a game in, they'll be like, Oh, you're left-handed. And no criticism, right? That happens. But that's not even seeing that I'm a left player after however many rallies. So the first step is being aware that you're facing one or two lobers. They don't come out to the court in disguises and stuff. If they're lobers, they're lobers. And let me be clear, I'm not criticizing any lober. I think lobbying is fine. I played this morning and I lobed plenty. So you're facing a lober. Then the second thing you're going to look for is, where do they lob from? Forehand or backhand? What do they prefer? Third thing is, Baseline, non-volley zone lop. What part of the court do they lop from? Front or the back or anywhere? Some players are like, I can lop from anywhere on any side, so I'm probably the most dangerous type of loafer. But most loavers who you're facing probably prefer one side, forehand. Usually, forehand is more common than back-hand lobs. Usually, it's a fore-hand lob, and they have a preferred spot, whether it's lobbing from the non-volley zone line or lobbing from the back.

[00:10:10.200] - Tony Roig
That's strategic awareness. Then what type of ball do they like to lob? Then what you do is, this is the idea of talking about reading the room, where you basically read those pieces coming together. It's almost like you're sitting outside on the pier or something, looking across the water, and you see a storm rolling in. You see lightning in the sky, you see dark clouds, maybe you see bands of rain, maybe you start feeling the wind, maybe you got your phone and there's a weather app, and you're like, Okay, probably going to rain. Maybe let me get off this pier. Really no different when you're playing pickable. So you're looking out there and you see the storms are gathering, the clouds are gathering, you hear thunder, you see a little flashing in the sky. Might be a lot of coming your way. The Piecing these parts together in terms of the players are lober, they're getting a ball on the side they like, they're getting the type of ball they like. And then you can look also at their body. What's their body look like? Does it look like a lobbying position? Most lobers lean back a little bit.

[00:11:16.220] - Tony Roig
They open their body up a little bit to lob because it's easier to lob, usually from that position. We open up a little bit, and then you're able to hit that lob. So you can start reading those pieces, and then you can take action sooner rather than later. As opposed to waiting for the lob to bounce behind you before you get it, you can start fading off the line a little bit to squeeze their space. You can tell your partner to go cover it. You can communicate sooner, all these types of things. If you read the rooms sooner. So that's the second one I wanted to share with you. And then the last one I want to share with you is a Stack Unwind. Let me lay this out for you. So this is a stacking attack concept, and this is, again, strategic awareness. This is being aware of what your opponents are likely to do and then understanding how to attack it strategically. You're playing against stackers, and they are doing what's called the unwind on the return side. They're returning, and then either they're going to... It could be an unwind or it could be an off-court stack, but basically, the returner is going to go diagonal.

[00:12:22.420] - Tony Roig
There's going to be an opening there as their partner who's up at the non-visal line either slides over or comes in from the outside. Most of the times these days, you're seeing more of these switch stack. That's why it's an unwind, as opposed to the old-school one player off the court coming onto the court. If you don't understand this part of the story, don't worry about it too much, but it's basically how you can... It's two different ways of stacking. The key to understand is that when there's a stack on the return side and they're trying to unwind it, so they're trying to basically come into the position opposite where they're returning, they're going to have to run a long distance, longer than normal, and there's going to be a gap in the court as they do that, as they switch sides, and as the other player either comes in or comes over, there's going to be a gap that's going to be in the area where the returner is heading toward. So think of if the returner is returning from the even side and they want to go to the odd side, that's their stack, then the odd side will be open.

[00:13:22.210] - Tony Roig
So that'll be the right side for you, the left side for them, and then flip it around the other way. If it's the other way, then you're going to be open on the left, they're right. And so why that's important to you strategically is because when they're doing their unwind, you don't have to really see it too much or think about it too much. You just basically hit your ball into the open area, into the potentially open area. They may have closed the space. But you have an opportunity there when they're doing a stack unwind to attack the opening. And I tell you that if you watch pro batches, you see this happen a lot on stack unwinds, where there's a lot of... The scoring rate really increases on the stack unwind. I don't have an exact figure for you because it's a statistical nightmare to figure that out, to get enough information. But I can tell you anecdotally, I've seen it happen too often and too free. It also the story makes sense, because there's a gap. The other players are attacking the gap because they know there's a gap. And then that gap creates a decrease in the defensive capability of the return side.

[00:14:21.040] - Tony Roig
And so then the serve side's chances of scoring go up. I would bet dollars to the owners that the data would prove that out. I'd be very confident in testing out that hypothesis. But conceptually, the idea there is it's strategic awareness. It's basically going in with an understanding of what's happening on the court, preloading your strategy before this ball gets served, and having that strategic awareness, whether it's how's your partner playing on the return side when they're returning? What are the chances of getting lobed? The second thing we covered, and then this one here, where am I attack opportunities when I have a stack unwind happening on the other side? Recognizing a stack unwind, knowing where I'm going to hit my shot to put pressure on them. Those types of strategic, being strategic awareness along those lines can really help you play better, pickleball, because you have an understanding of how the opportunities and challenges present themselves, whether it's to you, like the challenges to you would be facing the laver, a thing. And the opportunities present themselves when your opponents are on a stack on wine. So that's an example of an opportunity that you can be aware of on this strategic awareness.

[00:15:38.860] - Tony Roig
And having that awareness, it's a very nice sense of calm. It gives you an ability to read what's happening on the court. It's like you're watching a show or a movie, and you can follow the storyline. You're watching it, you're like, Yeah, I follow the storyline. I know what's happening here. I don't know if you saw the movie The sixth Sense with Bruce But if you haven't seen, I'm not going to ruin it for you. But basically, that's one of those movies with a twist, right? And what's interesting about that movie is, and if you haven't done it, check it out. So if you haven't checked it out, check it out, period. The sixth Sense with Bruce Willis in it. But If you've watched it, watch it again. Because the second time you watch it, once you know the twist, you hear everything and see everything differently. It's the same thing here, right? The better you get at reading the room when you're playing pickleball, it's like you already know what the twist is before the twist happens, and you get ahead of it and take advantage of it. Hopefully, that helps you with your strategic thinking, which is obviously part of the mental...

[00:16:38.440] - Tony Roig
It overlaps athletic pillar and strategic pillar. It's strategies, but it's also using our mind to get ahead of them and to give us some clarity when we're out there playing. So hopefully you enjoyed this week's podcast. If you did, please consider rating and reviewing it like the two listeners that I shared earlier with you. If you want to check out the book, check out the book. It's I will now. And if you're into game breakdowns and understanding how to read the room, please join me for our Strategy Clinic. And I think it's in a few days, but there'll be a link here, or you can go to betterpickleball.com and find the Strategy Clinic and sign out for it. So I hope to see some of you there. Otherwise, I will see you in the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. One last thing, if you enjoyed the podcast, share with your friends, because if you enjoyed it, they will, too. Be well, and I'll see you next week.