Split and Three
This is the first post since the HP program has moved to a new facility. I am now directing Rippner HP for Rippner Tennis here in the Austin area, and am very happy to be here. As we expose new players and coaches to our philosophies and methods, some of the most widely used and recognized directives from yours truly take on a new and invigorated life.
One of those is the command , "a split and three!" Anyone who has ever been anywhere near an HP court n the first 15 minutes of warm-up can attest to hearing it often. This is a great opportunity to highlight this habit for some of our newer players, and to refresh some of our seasoned veterans as to it's importance.
The "split" command obviously refers to the split step. As has been mentioned in many articles here, I am a huge proponent of executing a well-timed split step to initiate your response to every ball. When your feet hit the court simultaneous with your opponent's contact, you maximize the time frame you have to read and react to every shot, which will dramatically increase your success rate on every shot. But that's not enough. If you employ a well-timed split step and then plant your feet where they land, you lose much of the benefit of splitting. "Split and Three" is a reference to taking a MINIMUM of three adjusting steps after the initial split step. Those three steps are about re-aligning yourself to the ball, adjusting your position, and controlling your balance and momentum to best use them in the shot you are planning. Of course there are times when you can't fit three steps in the time frame, and I am definitely not promoting "tap dancing", where a player will madly take many quick steps for seemingly no benefit. It's more about continuing to adjust to the ball, and not planting your feet until it is tiime to commit the racquet to the ball.
Way back when I worked for Player Development, they showed the coaches some videos of how the top players utilize a similar skill. The amazing discovery was about two things:
1) most of the players had turned one or both feet toward the ball BEFORE their initial split step had hit the court, i.e. they had read and were responding to their opponent's ball in the fraction of a second between lifting ( or I prefer "unweighting" ) their feet, and their feet making contact with the court; and
2) Most top players were taking between 4-7 adjusting steps between split step and contact, and in some cases 7-10 steps.
The important things for our juniors, and club players for that matter, is the HABIT. Over the years, many quality players have asked me, "why should I take three steps when one will perfectly align me on time for an easy ball right in my strike zone?" The answer is easy. If you always take a split and three, then when you need it (most often), it is an automatic habit. If you take a split and one step, when you need 3 or more, you won't have that ingrained, habitual response.
The legendary coach Jose Higueras, from whom I'm fortunate to have learned much, refers to this as "walking to the ball". That's a translation from Spanish, and certainly loses something in the translation. It's not that he advocates athletes walking at any time, but rather the point is, continuing to adjust and re-align until you commit to the swing. It is about using all the available time, WITHOUT PLANTING YOUR FEET EARLY, to position yourself best.
Often, when working with club players, I will focus less on the split step, a difficult habit to adopt as an adult, and more on the adjusting steps. Then, I challenge them to take at least two adjusting steps. A split and TWO for our club players will make a world of difference in their balance and consistency.
Make " a split and three" your habit. Move your feet until you commit to the ball. Continually re-aligning yourself until the time you set to strike the ball, will raise the quality of your strokes, and the consistency of your shots. And that, will raise the quality of your performance, and the level of your results.
