Pace Shifts
Ball machineNTRP 3.5–4.010 minforehandbackhandstrategy
Why this drill
Hitting every ball at one speed makes you readable. Alternating a heavy loop and a flat drive off identical feeds trains the gearbox — same preparation, two very different balls arriving at your opponent.
Setup
Machine feeding consistent medium balls to one side. Deep target zone marked.
The drill
Alternate strictly: one heavy topspin loop clearing the net by three meters, one flat drive clearing it by one. Both must land in the deep zone. Twenty-ball sets per wing, counting pairs where BOTH balls hit the zone. Identical preparation for both is the entire game — a watcher shouldn't know which is coming until contact.
One thought to take on court
Change the finish, not the takeaway — disguise lives in the first half of the swing staying identical.