Important Racquetball Skills

These two videos feature several of the power houses of NW Racquetball in the 2012 Regional. I don't know all the players. The lefty is Jeff Stark. He's number one in Washington and has spent some time playing the pro tour off and on over the years. From these videos you can see he has incredibly quick hands and feet. In addition his hands are "soft hands" like Kane Waselenchuk processes enabling him to stretch the court not only side to side, but front to back. He (Jeff) spends much of his time up front and uses the corners frequently mixed in with appropriate down the line shots from this location. And keeps his opponents off balance as a result. Many of their shots are on the run, which is exactly what Jeff wants. It requires someone really on their game to overcome this style.

Racquetball really looks odd from the front view used in these two videos. You can really see the importance of controlling center court from this view. It becomes very apparent that a great majority of the shots in any given rally are responses on the move in the front part of the court. It doesn't feel that way when you are playing since we all remember the shots from 39' that roll out, or pass our opponent. But we miss far more of those to some degree and leave opportunities for our opponent to re kill from front court. Yet we spend little time perfecting this skill, leaving too much to any natural abilities we have to play up front. In my last article I spoke of John Egerman of Boise Idaho from the 1980's who rose to #3 during that period on the pro tour. He spent much time perfecting these skills in front court. Cutting balls off in the air or short hopping balls back to the corners or down the lines, all of which Jeff does quite well from the film here and from people I play with that play him in tournaments.

In this next short video we will see more of Jeff Stark and others. The ongoing theme is the quick reactions up front and the value of practicing these skills. At least half of our time should be spent doing drills up front. In the opens in particular the percentage of time that you actually get your feet set before shooting the ball is probably 25% or so, with the rest being open stance reaction shots, and the rest hitting on the run. Footwork drills for fast feet and quick racket  preparation both are valuable to practice. I have many videos in older articles where various drills both of footwork and shots are the subject. Here are a couple of my favorites. This first one features Shane Vanderson in a drill similar to the one John Egerman used to use, except that John took the ball often in the air as well using the same center court position.http://racquetballstrategy.blogspot.com/2011/06/specific-racquetball-drills-move-your.html And this has several drills http://racquetballstrategy.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-move-from-d-to-b-or-to-open-in.html Another critical racquetball skill that is obvious, if you are looking for it, is watching your opponent shoot their shot. Watch how these players do this consistently. It gives them a jump on where the shot is probably going to go, allowing anticipation to really play a part in reacting to the ball. The more experienced you get, the more it will become second nature. Lower level players tend to look at the front wall while the opponent is shooting which dramatically slows reaction, since you don't see the direction of the ball until it has already hit the front wall and come off part way. Much too late in many cases to respond.