The third in a six part micro series to provoke a little thought about the way you see your game!
In our last micro-blog (when did that become a word?) we dealt with range. Let’s move to another key component of effective footwork… recovery to the T.
Now, let us, for a moment, accept that there are different ways to play squash, coach football and peel a potato. Personal preference, individual differences and fondness for carbohydrates may all play a role. For me, recovery to the T is vital and all our program players can happily chorus that we “need to be on the T BEFORE our opponent hits the ball”. The only caveat being safety, but maybe that’s a sentence for another day.
Now, your movement to the ball is so closely linked to your movement out, they should be addressed together. I would normally suggest that your “stroke” begins before you leave the T and when you are preparing your racket, and that it does not end until you return to the T. It’s a simple enough picture.
Your footwork should enable you to move off the ball with the shot. It brings questions of weight distribution, what angle your heel strike should have, where is your knee in relation to your ankle as you swing… and probably another fifty micro thoughts, but you get the general idea. What is vitally important is the principle. On the whole, recovery is king. Yes, if you nick the ball, you don’t have to clear. Yes, if your drive is perfect, you can wait in the corner admiring it for a second… both are correct perspectives, but the 90% of the time rule remains “get to the T before your opponent hits the ball”.
See you on the court!