[ Steve Paranto on Successful Lobbing ]
The Ws of
Successful Lobbing
When I think of a player who uses the lob most effectively, my good friend
Enrique Ruiz comes to mind. I’ve had the good fortune of playing many
games with Enrique, both recreationally and competitively, and have
observed and learned many of his secrets to successful lobbing. In this
article, I’d like to share seven Ws of effective lobbing.
1 Why I would want to use the lob?
A good player will use the lob as an
offensive weapon that’s difficult to run
down or will only allow for a weak smash
or return.
2 Who are you playing?
One of the most important things about
successful lobbing is knowing what skills
your opponents have and how athletic they
are. I keep a mental list of players to whom
I’ll rarely, if ever, lob.
For example, if I were playing against
a team comprised of Wes Gabrielsen and
Kurtis Campbell, a top 5.0 team like this
has too much athleticism, and the odds of
being successful with a lob would be very
low. Even if I put up a perfect lob against
these players, they’d more than likely
jump and I would be in big trouble with an
attacking smash, or they’d run and retrieve
the lob from the baseline and get back so
52 TO SUBSCRIBE, CALL 888.308.3720 OR GO TO THEPICKLEBALLMAG.COM