Welcome the rally tennis single strategy in this video, we're going to talk about the biggest components about being a better and more successful singles player, so let's get started. The principle number one that you want to understand is that you want to be making sure that when you're playing singles, you're hitting yourself in the position and avoiding hitting yourself out of position before we can go into this. 

We got to understand what's the positions that we need to be in, and this is really crucial to understand. So there's three main ideas that you need to understand when you're playing singles. When you hit the ball, you want to recover to the middle of your opponent's two best shots.

 And most of the time when I hear when I tell players this, they go, Oh, I totally understand that I need to recover back to the middle of the court. And I say, Yeah, not really. It depends on the shot. And so let me explain the middle of your two best shots to your opponent can hit changes depending on where you hit the ball. So let's look at the court from this example.

 If I hit my opponent a ball from the center of the court and hit it up the center, where is the middle of the two best shots they can hit? It's from each single sideline to the other single sideline. And if they had a great shot with topspin, maybe a little bit wider.

But here's where it gets different and a little bit tricky that most players don't understand if I hit the ball across court. Where is the middle now? Most players look at this side and say Yes, OK, this is as far as they can go.

 But when they hit the ball back across court, they generally say, Oh, the single sideline, that's as far as they can hit. And I say no. Have you ever had an opponent hit a cross court forehand with a little bit of tossing or hit a shorter angle and it bounces inside the singles area? But then it continues past into the alley, meaning that you have to go even further to make sure you can get the ball. 

So what this does, it changes the geometry of the court, meaning that the cross court side becomes a much longer distance that you have to cover. And so if you move back to the middle from this position, guess what? You're actually putting yourself out of position and giving your opponent a much bigger advantage because if they hit the ball back across court, you're going to have to work that much harder to cover the court instead of moving all the way back to the middle. 

You're going to move slightly off of the middle because that is the new middle. Based on the shot you hit now, from here, it's the exact same thing on the backhand side.

If I hit it cross court, it just flips. If my opponent hits a cross court ball with topspin or just short and creates an angle, it's going to take me off the court, meaning that where I'm going to recover after I hit the ball is slightly off the center of the court. 

By understanding this now, it changes the game when you're hitting cross courts. Now the next thing you need to understand is what happens if I hit the ball down the line. Everybody wants to go down the line and be aggressive, and there's a time for it. But if you hit the ball down the line where it's a new middle, you can see, well, if I hit the ball down the line, I'm much closer to where they can hit on this side, meaning the single sideline.

 But look how much more court I have to cover if they tend to take my ball that I had down the line cross court. Now I have to cover so much more court and this puts me out of position and you can see how much court you have to cover. So if we want to go down the line, what do we need to do to prevent them from taking advantage of us? We need to hit the ball higher above the net, to buy us more time. 

Now this now leads us into hitting ourselves in and out of position and why you see so many matches where professional players are hitting cross court and they wait for the right opportunity to go down the line because by hitting cross court, you can see that I'm really close to my next recovery position, hence hitting myself into position.

But if I hit down the line, guess what? I just hit myself out of position. I have to cover much more of the court to get to the next recovery position, and this is really crucial to understanding if you want to be a successful singles player. 

So you might be asking, So should I just hit cross court all the time? No, there is an opportunity to hit down the line. The opportunity is when the ball's shorter in the court, when the ball shorter in the court. That means you can hit the ball and it's going to get to your opponent that much quicker, meaning that you're in the offensive position compared to when you're behind the baseline. 

If you do hit the ball down the line well, your opponent has that much time to make up for you not being shorter in the court, but they can also take advantage of you and the time gets turned back on you, meaning that you don't have time to get to your next recovery position. And this is so crucial to understand why it's so important to go cross court and to have a really good ball to go down the line.

And what I mean by really good ball is you're set up, meaning that you don't have to run off the court, you're set your balance. If you don't have these qualities, you should probably take the ball back cross court. 

Not only that, by going cross court, it's a much longer court, and it's more forgiving for if you're slightly off because if you're slightly off, you're still cross court. 

Maybe you're more cross court than what you planned on, but if you're slightly off going down the line, your ball is going to be out because it's close to the sideline or it gives your opponent another opportunity just to run you to the other side. 

And so when you understand these elements, the next time you go out and play singles, you really have a jump on your opponent. You have a basic game plan of going cross court until you get a ball that allows you to go down the line and take time away from your opponent. But you also know if you make the mistake of going down the line exactly where you should recover to put yourself in the best position of their two best shot. 

And not only that, if you do need to go down the line because let's say their forehand is bigger than yours, you are going to lift the ball up. 

Buy yourself more time and making sure that when you go down the line, you're not going down the line, hence close to the line, you're going down the line probably three to four feet away from the single side line.

The make sure you have a ton of margin and realize that you're not going for a winner. You're just trying to get out of the situation of your opponent hitting maybe a better forehand than you can hit. In summary, number one going cross court is always going to be the safer shot. 

It's a longer shot for you to hit into. Not only that, it makes you hit into position, meaning that after you hit the shot, you're pretty close to your recovery position.

Number two, going down the line should only be done when you get a short ball or you have to because your opponent's strength is on that side that you're hitting. So you want to avoid that by changing directions. 

When you change directions, make sure you have a ton of margin away from the single sideline. And when you change direction, make sure you're buying yourself time to get into your next recovery position. 

Number three, try to make sure you're always hitting yourself into position so you don't have to run that much. If you understand these core elements of playing singles, it'll make singles far more enjoyable and you'll be more successful because you'll know where to be and what shots to hit for the situation.