Fake Poaching Like James Bond

Hi Will.  Good vid.  Thanks.  The fake poach is the #1 move in doubles that has to be established early and often.  You can then “James Bonds” the returner for the rest of the match with mixing in the poach, the fake poach, and the ultimate – the fake early and then go …

Brent

Thanks, Will. I do just as you and the Bros. say, start back, move straight in and then either go or fake a go. If I go, I make my second move just after the serve hits the ground and if I fake I move just before the bounce. By waiting, most times the receiver is too busy trying to read/hit the serve to see me poaching.

Hey Brent!  Thanks for chiming in – you’re a master at this.  The fake and go is a great one!  All that movement can really throw off the returner’s timing, leading to errors / free points.

This is the sort of thing that leads me to over-think a shot. (I usually hit to his backhand, so he’s expecting that, so I’ll go cross-court to his forehand – but he may be expecting me to change it up, so maybe I’ll go backhand…or maybe…)

i don’t think there’s any chance of an improvement in my tennis game, but it will help me out when james bond & i next play poker

Will,
  Very useful info—-another term I’ve heard used in tennis is telegraphing —you try to avoid telegraphing your shot before you hit it so the opponent is unable to anticipate where the ball is going. And conversely, watching the opponent carefully may reveal what he is telegraphing so you can anticipate his shot.
             Newt

Too much BS talk…. too little action. It’s for the dumb sheep, not me!

mmmv djsksl djksdl 9w   ! oisipi di idpsid ! od pso you pillock!

Will:  They were playing baccarat, not poker.  At least that what it was in the book.  Like your tips.  Paul Miller

Will:  They were playing baccarat, not poker.  At least that what it was in the book.  Like your tips.  Paul Miller

What are the foot movement when you are fake poaching?

the more i play the more i watch my opponents body and racket! i won my match last night because i was able to start up to the net before the ball hit her racket! i knew she was going to slice/chop me…. Thanks for these videos – they help so much!

the more i play the more i watch my opponents body and racket! i won my match last night because i was able to start up to the net before the ball hit her racket! i knew she was going to slice/chop me…. Thanks for these videos – they help so much!

Thanks Will,  I can’t wait to try this out at club nite tomorrow.  I think I will try faking to my weaker side to poach on my forehand.

Great video Tip Will! Our players definitely such a skill and will continue!

ACE Academy

Awesome, nice work!  Happy to help.

In the movie they are playing No limit hold’em

Kind of a sideways split step

i like this strategy alot…it makes the opponent confused where to hit the shot and committed more errors….

I loved that you really lightened up and showed us that you can be a funny guy as well as a good instructor. Nice balance, well presented.
Charlie

Thanks for the posts.  Something I find sometimes with a failed poach is that it puts a partner off their stride because they have to go late to a ball the forward player has missed, and may also be unsighted as a result of the forward player’s movement.  I guess a dummy poach might have the same effect? (I am usually the forward player in this scenario!)

I WILL TRY IT THIS MORNING.

At the recreational player level, revealing what shot is coming is not necessarily a problem. We are assuming the opponent can handle the shot IF they know what to expect. A shot hit from within your comfort zone still needs to be returned by your challenger, and this may be the very shot in your arsenal that is difficult to reach or hit back with vigor even if you see it “telegraphed” from across the net. We’ve seen plenty of examples when pros hit inside-out forehands that, even when expected, cannot be returned due to the quality of the shot. This happens much more often than wrong-footing their opponent for example. But any advice that can assist in winning the point is helpful. Thanks for the Bond reference. We perhaps can count this as “shaken, not stirred.”

Reading some of the comments i think it may be obvious but you should have pointed out that you make sure your partner is aware of what you’re doing otherwise it may throw your partner off

you should have mentioned that you

Thank you for these great information.

I wanna ask you something about moving early. If you move early and go back because it’s a fake poach and you’ll will just do that then your opponent soon will know your intention,but when you also will move early and then make a make a real poach then your opponent keeps asking himself is it a real poach or not and thats is just what you want to reach don’t you agree?

richard

much better heir cut now, Will )

Amen to that.

Great thought will going so early to bait the returner. I have found that one of the keys is the pace that the server hits the ball. If the player IS poaching and the ball is hit slower than usual, the net player will be going too soon and give the poach away and be passed down the line. Any thoughts as to how to correct this problem.

That’s the first thing I’ve noticed, too.

Thanks Will.  Enjoying your tips.

Seems to me the trick is to mix it up, especially after establishing a pattern.  It’s all about keeping your opponent off balance after all, no?

It sounds good, but (a) my problem is that in moving one way and then back, when the returner puts it at me I am so busy moving that I miss the volley and (b) returners tend to just put the cross court return very wide so that even a real poach is tough to reach without a very early move.
So this seems to work to begin with but after a while I found either the cross courts were too wide or else I missed the volleys when they came at me.

Tried this at club nite, I was with very good players (3 men) one of my opponents was a 1st team player.  I’d not be usually matched this way, but as not many people turned up in the Cheshire permafrost, they just had to play me.

Play was fast to really take notice of the opponent’s response, but I think ‘faking it’ it did actually work as serves/ground strokes were never hit to my backhand as I had wanted, so it must’ve worked on a subliminal level…… Oh, and my partner and I won our game, and he wasn’t the 1st team player

that really made sense and i don’t know one thing about poker
I look forward to taking this out on the court
Thanks much

I just wasted a dollar on your playbook.  All of that information is already available for free on many other sites.  Charging $97 for something unoriginal and amateurish is just unprofessional.

Nice video, true tactics…. Keep the good work =D

Whew! Long walk.

way way to much verbage for such a simple point we’re not total morans

I like the videos on your site