Hey Team!

I just got back from PPA Atlanta, and it was a great trip. More on that later.

Also, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! 😊

Now, let’s get to your Week 14 video!

In today’s email:

• 🤫 EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: How to Approach the Kitchen Line After Your 3rd Shot Drop

• ⏱️ Get your 60-second fix

• 👀 An update on PPA Atlanta

How to Approach the Kitchen Line After Your Third Shot Drop 🏃💨

Let’s discuss how to properly approach the kitchen line after your third shot drop! If you can fix this in your game, you will score so many more points and win so many more games.

🏃💨 Follow the ball in

As soon as the ball leaves your paddle, you want to follow it in and take as much ground as possible. So many players make the mistake of sitting back and watching 👀 their ball to see if it’s a good drop. HUGE mistake. You’ve now wasted precious time that you could’ve used to get closer to the kitchen line.

🛑 STOP! As soon as the ball crosses the net

The second biggest mistake players make is they wait TOO LONG to stop moving forward. They wait until their opponent hits the ball, which is too late, and you’re going to get punished for it.

Instead, stop AS SOON AS the ball crosses the net. This ensures that you’re in a balanced position to move either left or right once your opponent makes contact. Even if you only get one step in, STOP. ✋

🕺 Split step as soon as you stop

Once you stop, don’t just stand there waiting. Split step – jump with both feet out wide – and slightly bend your knees with your paddle about waist high so that you’re ready for whatever your opponent sends your way.

Shout out to Francesca for the plug at the end. 😊

🔔 Practice

Grab a friend and play a game called 7-11. In this game, the person at the kitchen line hits aggressive balls toward the person who starts at the baseline. It’s called 7-11 because the baseline player starts with 4 points and only has to get 7 to win.

Focus on stopping when the ball crosses the net and split-stepping before the other person makes contact. When one of you gets to 11, switch sides. 💪

How to Handle the Fourth Ball (opponent’s 3rd shot drop) 💦

Hardly anyone ever discusses how to hit a fourth shot and how to make their opponents earn their way to the kitchen. Well, that’s precisely what I’m talking about here…

IN UNDER 60 SECONDS 👈

An Update from the PPA Atlanta 🍑

This past week was a BLAST! Not only did I turn 25 years old 🥳, I got to face off against Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters in the first round of Mixed Doubles at the PPA in Atlanta.

😳

Im excited to watch it back and create a YouTube video breaking it down! 👀

Unfortunately, we didn’t win. But I learned a lot!

Here are the main takeaways from playing the number one Mixed Doubles team in the world:

1. At the kitchen line, if you hit a dead dink, both Ben and Anna Leigh will capitalize on that and totally take control. Making it extremely difficult to get back in the point. 😣

2. One thing that struck me – that I have never seen any other player do – is when Ben hit a ball it was ALWAYS from the sweet spot of his paddle. The precision was unreal. Every shot was extremely crisp and he never mishit a ball. 🎯

3. Anna Leigh Waters dinks VERY aggressively! She is able to put so much spin on the ball. If you are not dinking that aggressively back at her, she will OWN you by rolling you and the ball off the court. 😮

Talk next week!

Tanner

P.S. Anna Leigh wished me happy birthday before the game started, so that was cool, haha!

P.P.S. I even wrote an article about this experience for The Dink! Read that here.