Elephants in the Room: Lobbing and Club Dues

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are well. These are challenging times. But we are strong, loving and working together. Be safe as you can. Many blessings to all.

Sometimes there are things in life we don’t talk about enough. They are important, but not easy to speak about, or maybe not as fun or exciting as other things. We begin Wednesday’s Wonder with a tennis taboo subject: the lob.   

Let’s step onto a virtual tennis court. In your mind’s eye, imagine the ‘Woods, the most beautiful club in the world. Or close (I’m prejudiced here, fully admit it). Step out on to your favorite court, pick one (I’m split between 2 and 5, but each and every court is wonderful and holds treasured memories). You’re joined by 3 of your friends. They can be there too in virtual tennis (we’re all safe in our mind’s space). And unlike real life, you can make them do what you want. Isn’t this great?!?!?

In club tennis, the lob is probably the most effective shot, especially at the 2.5-3.5, even occasionally, 4.0 levels. And lobbing remains useful and essential tool at the highest levels of the game. And yet it seems no one wants to talk about it. Or have a rational discussion about lobbing. Or what to do about it.  Most just call it or its proponents dirty names. I think James Cagney famously once say, “Ya dirty rotten lobbers…” (or something like that). 

Imagine you are playing doubles, returning serve. Your partner is in defensive net position at the service line. The server’s partner is it the net, looking confident and assertive. The server bounces the ball a couple of times and prepares to go into their service motion. Every doubles point roughly begins this way. We’ve all been here a million times. 

Your opponent delivers a good first serve and you are able to return the ball successfully up the middle. So many times don’t get that far. The most common rally length in tennis, the one that happens the most often, is one shot made (the serve, and it is not returned). So, you are ahead of the game! 

But the truth is, you had to play a defensive shot, to the biggest part of the court, over the lowest part of the net (best first sever return – get it in, neutralize the angles). Now whether the net person volleys the ball, or it makes it back to the server, their next shot is hit up the middle and deep, and you are really on the defensive now.

Let’s pause (we can do that in e-mails or in virtual tennis). If you’ve been around, you know a couple of things. 1) Most winners in doubles are won from the net (so you don’t want to give them a volley), 2) you’re in a defensive position at the baseline (where relatively few winners are hit), 3) if you make this shot, the fourth shot of the rally, you are already doing better than the vast majority of the points (75% of the points are 4 shots or less), and 4) you can’t win the point if you don’t hit the ball in. 

That all adds up to: it’s time for a reset. Time to get back to neutral. Lob. 

Why does this work, why does it reset, why do we lob? 

Remember, the most likely outcome of a point in doubles is a winner, not unforced or forced errors (like in singles). And the vast majority of the winners come at the net. If we allow our opponent to be at the net, and control he point from there, they will hit a lot of winners, and we will be at a decided and crucial disadvantage. 

We lob to keep them off the net. 

Craig O’Shannessy says “A main reason why you lob is that you don’t own control of the Center Window (control the middle from the net) so you move the battle above it – and once you have caused enough chaos, can then come back and retake the Center Window.”

Lobbing is the primary reset button in tennis, especially doubles. They are pushing forward and pushing you back. It gives us a chance to reverse that trend, to break the momentum of their attack. 

If the lob is successful, it pushes them back forcing them to hit up, and not down (most winners are on shots that are hit down, not up). Hopefully our lob bounces in the back part of their court. In that case, our net person may want to move in (to gain control of that Center Window). Sometimes we both move in, but remember, the most likely response to a lob that bounces will be a lob in return (they are on the defensive now, at the back, where winners are unlikely and the chance of errors high). We adjust our position to defend a lob. Net person looks for short lobs and thus overheads, and the back person for deeper lobs (they can come forward somewhat, play a volley, swing volley or overhead, but they are primarily responsible for the backcourt). 

If our lob did not clear their net person, we have to be ready to defend an overhead. Our partner at the net may choose to back up to a more defensive position, or duck, if our lob is really poor. 

I recently got hit in the shoulder by an overhead (lousy lob, lobbed to the wrong side, guy hit the best overhead of his life, service line to service line, I didn’t even have time to move). This is not fun, so protect yourself. If you can get back and return the smash back with another lob, perhaps they will miss the next one, or you will reset successfully. 

And a word to the attacking wise on the other side:

If you are the attacking team, remember that controlling the net is key in doubles. That’s where the winners are. They are lobbing because you control the net, because you are holding the aces in this hand. Don’t give the net up, your strong hand, because you are afraid they will lob. Adjust, but don’t surrender. Position one person at the front (to volley and hit overhands on short lobs – after all, you lob to get overheads) and one player to take care of the back (the deep lobs). This back person should play more towards the middle of the court (this is the key, and where most people make the fatal mistake of staying on one side). 

Remember, the vast majority of lobs go across the body of the person playing the lob, so I righthanded backhand lob would tend to go your left (if you were the team receiving the lob) and a right-handed forehand lob would tend to go to your right. If you have put them on the defensive, and feel the lob coming, shift position before they hit. People complain about having to run down lobs all the time. Lobs are predictable, and most are pretty high, you have plenty of time to move first and stop all that desperate running. 

In terms of width, lobs tend to land in the middle third of the court because most lobs are hit from deep in the court, and there are not a lot of angles possible from there. Angles are much more likely when you hit them short balls, and wide balls. That’s when you look for angles. Angle gets an angle, middle to middle, short to short, deep to deep, lob to lob.  

So, there is another solution, if you don’t like lobs, play more angles, less deep balls. But then you have to be ready to move. And that is a whole another set of problems for another day’s musings. 

As for how to lob, another topic that is not discussed enough. Everyone thinks, “How hard is this, just whack the ball up into the air.” 

The lob is a stroke. You want to feel like you are lifting the ball up, holding the ball on the strings (the lob is a touch shot), rather than hitting it high up in the air and letting gravity just bring it back down. Of course, that is a lob too, but a bit hard to control. 

When you think that you are up against the overhead, the most powerful shot in the game, the shot most likely to produce a winner or forced error, accuracy is going to be important. You need to get the ball in the back part of the court, where they have to hit up and not down. So next time you are practicing your game, hitting on the ball machine, take a few minutes to play a few lobs. You’ll be glad you did. 

Lobs are really a friendly elephant, embrace them. One of my tennis mentors, Bob the Lob did, and he had more trophies in my little hometown club than anyone. 

*** 

There are other elephants roaming around. Have you seen them, felt them, asked them, talked to them? Welcomed them into your Guest House (Rumi, see Monday’s musings).

I’ve responded to several people who were asking about Club dues in this time of forced shut down, of sheltering in place, and of us all coming together as a community, nation and world to stop the spread of COVID-19. Many of you have paid your dues (thank you), others have asked questions and wondered what to do.   

To answer the question, the dues are in place for April. We are asking people to pay their dues. The Board will meet in April (Tuesday, April 28th) to discuss what to do going forward from there. They will discuss all the options at that time. The situation may look very different by then, with hopefully a flattening of the curve, a move towards the situation drastically improving, and moving towards a return to our normal way of life (which may still take more time in pause mode). 

The virus attacks, we defend. Stay home, limit the spread. Keep lobbing. 

I’ve done a lot of personal reflection on uncertainty in these recent weeks, and on the illusion of control. What we can control, what we have to let go of. 

None of us on April 8^th know what the world will look like on April 28^th.

We are a community. A community that may start with tennis but is so much more. It is through that community that we can get much strength, hope, support, love, and help us to return to our best selves. 

As many of you know, I’ve keep focusing on this:

“I travel everywhere looking, looking breathlessly, for paths with a heart.” — Carlos Castenada. 

Orindawoods is a small club, owned by 258 families, just like yours and mine. It is run as non-profit, there is no large corporation, or years of profit taking, to support it in times like these. There are expenses to pay, staff to support, so that on the other side of all this, Orindawoods Tennis Club will still be there, for all of us. This wonderful place. 

In the intense crisis we are in, it can be hard to remember that “this too shall pass,” and we will want to pick our lives up again, the things we love, the games we play, the places we love to be, to hang out, to “willingly waste our time in.”

Some of you may be in difficult financial situations at this time. Others just not able to play the game we love. Look for that path with a heart. Find your path.

We are a community, and we are all individuals, with individual situations. We honor where each and every person is at. We are grateful for everyone’s love and support, no matter what form it takes.

Please remember, in these scary times, don’t be ruled by guilt, driveness, desperation or fear. These are the big temptations. They throw us off balance, they corrupt our soul. 

Our only job is to stay centered, and connect with our inner wisdom, our sense of the divine, and live and act from there. Take this time to nourish the soul.  Find your center, find your path with a heart, and follow that.

The club, the owners, the staff and every single member thank you for being you, for what you can do. 

So, we reset. We throw up a lob, we shelter in place. We protect each other, the community, our club, by not playing the game we love for a while, but probably a relatively short while, in our tennis lives. And we stick together in any way that we can. Every soul does their best, and all are loved, all are blessed. 

Let me leave you today with this thought. We are pieces of a greater heart that includes everything in the world. 

“Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together.” – Mark Nepo 

Blessings, 

-- Keith