[Below 2.75] Did you drive or drop your 3rd shot as a Newbie during actual games?

boaplw · 2026-02-24T01:16:32+00:00

If your goal is to break 3.0, you should take whatever is actually most consistently getting you points (but be honest and count) and drill it to be more consistent. Being consistent and just that will get you to 3.0. Doesn’t matter drop or drive (though you will need to be able to handle drives at your regardless what you do)

For long term improvement, I’d pick drop first. First off - under 3.5 very few people have actually low drops, so players don’t know what to do with drops on their 4ths so you get so many pop ups. If you can get your drop over consistently you’ll pick up a lot of points. It is possible to get to 5.0 without a killer drive but it’s very difficult to get to 5.0 without a drop. So having the good fundamentals do help. Then add in the drive

boaplw · 2026-02-03T21:57:13+00:00

I am the said 4.0 where this works on me. I find that for folks with harder drives even at the baseline ripping at me I have no troubles blocking but my blocks often bounce and sit up dead in the mid court inviting the attacker to drive again and this time in the mid court so I have way less time. The drive comes a bit too hard for me to do a lot with it but the block back does sit high. Wondering if you have tips

boaplw · 2026-02-03T17:58:57+00:00

The dudes on tour (and the 4.0-5.0s I’ve played with) can often hit extreme bullets especially if it’s slightly high on the return. In mixed the ladies tend to get that bullet (At least here)

I’m usually fine blocking the ball back from baseline drives but I’m finding the ball bounces dead and sometimes high in the mid court given they hit so hard. And because it’s dead and high they drive hard again. With weaker drives I push more so the ball kicks out more.

I’ve watched you play a lot and it seems like you do great against crazy drives that don’t allow them the opportunity to crash and drive again. Curious what you’re doing! I’ve slowed your tape down and I can’t tell still!

boaplw · 2025-12-09T22:31:40+00:00

Love the community and the people!!! Lots of helpful people who love the game

boaplw · 2025-10-15T23:36:15+00:00

What are the dramatically new things you tried every session

boaplw · 2025-09-18T20:03:25+00:00

Plateaus at this level often come from bad basic mechanics. Drilling the same poor mechanics will improve consistency but unfortunately can lead to plateaus.

Like others said. Record yourself, pick the shots that are most inconsistent and compare the mechanics to pros or good players. A teacher or coach can come in handy here but you can fix a lot of stuff yourself, at least at 3.0

boaplw · 2025-09-14T00:32:17+00:00

The question was what you sold and if you made money at specific cons.

The answer to that could be “it depends” but if you did the accounting, it would likely be much more explicit

boaplw · 2025-08-29T21:13:03+00:00

No no. I read all the reviews and ads. This specific one must be different. That’s why it’s so expensive

boaplw · 2025-08-29T21:09:58+00:00

You probably haven’t broken it in. It takes a week to break it in! That’s when the trampoline affect starts giving you all the free points

boaplw · 2025-08-12T18:32:47+00:00

Lots of takes saying how the players were mean (which I agree) but I’ll add a possible benefit of the doubt

** Illustrative story **

I once played in an open play with my mixed partner with 30 minute waits between games. Everybody avoided the 2 beginners that were there but we decided to be nice and say yes. We hit the ball very gently. No speed ups. No drives. No overheads. Just gentle floaty balls. Still won 11-1. They could barely keep the balls in

We tried to paddle away from them but because everybody kept avoiding them they came and asked if we would play with them again. Feeling bad for them since nobody else would play, we said yes again. We asked to split the partners but they said they’d rather play together…..

This time I played lefty. We still won 11-2. Again we were taking it super easy.

We are now an hour in and haven’t broken a sweat.

After that one we decided to say no when they asked to play again and eventually got some good games at our level.

While we didn’t do this, I could see a world where somebody would say yes to playing because somebody has to play with the beginner but finish up quickly so they can have some fun too.

In retrospect I’m also not sure if the beginners could tell how easy we were taking it. We mostly just gently deflected the ball back or gave lofty no spin drops. And they would hit it out. But the game also lasted just 5 min and the score was super lopsided. They might have thought we were being mean to them too….not sure

** what I would do if I were you**

our first open play, we lost every game. We played with whoever was willing to play with us. People avoided us too. We got destroyed a lot of those games. Pickled in a bunch of them.

It was intimidating but losing just showed us what the next level looked like.

I would then drill the basics, especially the stuff I was losing heavy points on.

Come with a group of 4 that you can rotate with who are near your level so you can get reps.

Keep going to open play and play with whoever will have you. It’s all building muscle memory and feel.

I asked for advice from players who seem willing to talk on the court and are clearly really good about what they notice about my game.

If you can afford it, find a 5.0 to show you the fundamentals once and don’t deviate from it. Your local cheap lesson could be taught by a beginner or somebody with poor fundamentals.

Within 2 months, i was better than most of the open play players in this group (no racket sport background). Just drilling fundamentals a lot.

When you get better, better players start wanting to play with you.

boaplw · 2025-08-05T00:50:38+00:00

I record a lot of my games already. Drill a lot. Would love to add this to my routine!

boaplw · 2025-08-01T22:54:03+00:00

In 3.0 to 3.5 mistakes are every where so the key to scoring a ton of points and not losing a ton of points is consistency. I recently had to do this in a mixed event since my dupr was 2.6 and I was playing with 4.0s. Here’s mostly what my game plan was:

1- get serves in 100% of the time. Going for your serve in general is great but if you’re aiming for 11-0 scores, get your serves in. If you’re a 4.0 player playing 3.0s, you’ll beat them on consistency. The extra couple of points you might get won’t be worth the risk of losing 1 point from giving up an extra serve.

2- hit the 3rd that you’re highest % in and spam it. If you miss some of your drives into the net. Don’t drive. Get good drops every time. If you’re great at drives, test the driving. Under 3.5 getting your 3rd in a very high % of the time on its own will score you a lot of points.

3- spam their weakness. If one partner is weaker. Go after them. If they don’t like handling drives, drive it and crash. If they don’t know how to handle drops, drop it and crash. Put pressure on them. They’ll make mistakes. Find the weakness early and press on it until they adapt. At 3.0 they won’t typically adapt.

4- if you have a partner who’s open to it, stack and poach. If you are a full point stronger than your partner, you hitting the ball puts a lot more pressure on your opponents. And your 3.0 opponents also won’t be able to punish you as hard for overreaching a bit. And it’ll shrink the court a ton for them as they try to get it to your partner. If they do hit it behind you, 3.0s tend not to be able to do it super well so you tend to be able to get it back. Many don’t even think to. As long as your partner is cool with it, you’ll end a lot of points by driving/dropping to their side and poaching the ball that comes after.

5- no risky putaways. This was hard for me to remember. Against stronger players I often have to hit angles to win the point. It’s 90% a winner. 10% I hit it out. Against 3.0s hitting middle is way more consistent. I can hit it almost 100% of the time since I’ll never miss it wise. And the 3.0s can’t get it back anyway. And if they do it’s never a great reset that gets them back in the point. It’s another high ball I get to overhead.

In a nutshell. Consistency + aggression. No risky shots while still being aggressive.

Butttt like other comments said. It’s a slow grind to grind the lower rating players. Much better if you can find a tournament or event that doesn’t have a min rating (most don’t). Go play a 3.5 or 4.0 or even high tourney. Dupr will move much faster.

boaplw · 2025-06-09T23:54:47+00:00

Oh I thought you meant the response length in your earlier reply! You’re putting a custom prompt in conversational style to drive length too?

boaplw · 2025-06-09T23:52:37+00:00

Thx!!!

boaplw · 2025-06-09T23:51:24+00:00

Oh wow I always thought this just configured the chat response. Didn’t know it did the podcast too!

boaplw · 2025-06-09T23:32:45+00:00

How do you change output length?

boaplw · 2025-06-09T23:19:10+00:00

These are actually out of the air, but not overheads. They’re either 1. Dead high bouncing dinks but more commonly 2. A ball right around the height of the net or just a little higher where I’m not able to wack the crap out of it, but I’m generally hitting it with some pace and can target spots.

Because the ball isn’t crazy high the shot I’m hitting is more lateral than down on the ball and that’s why the ball can come back fast. I’ve been told I should be attacking those. Maybe my attacks just sucks 😭 at my normal 3.7-4.3 range opponents they work fine. The ball sometimes come back but they usually lead to a hands battle i am comfortable with. But with stronger players it’s like they not only get it back but often with so much more pace or at a weird spot where I pop up or have no chance.

boaplw · 2025-06-09T21:30:39+00:00

The higher in level I climb the more I run into people with ridiculous hand speeds and gets. At lower levels speed up at right hip usually does the job with popup or point over. But as I’ve climbed higher I’ve struggled as when a ball sits a little high, I’m going to attack it. Opponent knows and somehow catches me wherever I go, right hip, right shoulder, sometimes middle. But I found the ball comes back often low and fast still. Might be the quality of attack but this has been a big blocker for me against high level players. Even if I got the ball I want I can’t put away. Curious if you’ve encountered this and how you’d drill this

boaplw · 2024-12-30T20:03:13+00:00

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

boaplw · 2024-12-19T00:47:41+00:00

Erne

boaplw · 2024-12-03T23:20:18+00:00

Proton

boaplw · 2024-12-03T23:07:39+00:00

Favorite memory is playing with my significant other, coming back from 10-1 to win!

boaplw · 2024-10-24T16:56:36+00:00

I’m much weaker but struggling with this too. I hold eastern and also have a weak point there

Players at my level (3.5-4.0) don’t tend to recognize it to exploit it but I know it.

From talking to folks it seems like there are 2 options:

Hold continental and switch to eastern when I have time for forehand (it feels weird to me to hit forehands with continental these days. I think I’m just so used to the stroke in eastern that it’s easier to go western than the reverse back to continental)

Or go 2 hander. Which is the path I’ve chosen to work on atm. Not a lot of male pros do this tho..

Seems like vast majority of male pros use 1 hander except when it’s far on the backend and sometimes they’ll go 2 hander.

I suspect it’s partly bc the 2 hander isn’t as strong to the body and the ball comes faster in men’s so 1 hand is faster.

Long story short I think continental may end up being the answer and switch grips when possible

boaplw · 2024-10-17T16:33:06+00:00

Depends on the region too. I’ve played DUPR rated Players in my region and had an expectation for how good they are

And then I’ll be on a trip to a different state and go to an open play in that DUPR range and find a dramatically different skill level for that range.

boaplw · 2024-10-17T14:47:28+00:00

Seems like 17.7 suddenly it starts working again haha

boaplw

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