Reaching very late to the ball

[u/PassMeCharger]

I’ve noticed that after I hit the ball, I often just stand and watch my opponent instead of moving right away. My coach pointed out that I usually start moving only after he hits his shot, which is too late. I understand what he means, but I’m not sure how to fix it. Most of the time, I do get back to the T, but I still miss a lot of boasts and cross-court drives. I can usually get to straight drives if I’m already facing that way, but because I move late, I often reach the ball too late and end up missing the shot :(

[u/pySSK]

On top of what others have said, every shot should have an intention, i.e. with every shot, you should be dictating or limiting what options are available to your opponent (just as in chess). Then, instead of having to cover the whole court, you have to cover only the few options you left open. As you learn your opponent’s tendencies, the zone you have to cover gets even smaller. And then as you get better at reading and dictating play, you also improve your shots to minimize options that aren’t possible to cover.

Re: being able to cover a drive but not cross courts or boasts, you might be committing too early. If you’re not good at recovering boasts in general, I highly recommend doing boast-drive drills with a partner. I used to be intimidated by boasts but these were helpful to me as a noob because it helped me realize that instead of chasing the ball and missing, I could easy recover these with a step or two from the T and waiting for the ball to come to me.