Hitting with Pace

Many people claim that they are able to sustain pace in a rally. But without actually measuring that pace, it is very easy to over-estimate their hitting ability.

It is actually very easy to measure average pace. Start a rally with your hitting partner and get a third party to start the stopwatch at the moment the racket first strikes the ball. That first strike is counted as zero. Get that friend to count to a total 10 hits and stop the stopwatch.

Divide the total time taken for 10 consecutive hits to get an average timing per shot. Most rallies are contacted quite close from baseline to baseline. That's 78 feet long, or about 24 metres.

Since we have distance and time, we can now work out the average rally speed:
Distance = Speed x Time
Speed = Distance / Time

If you take a look at some videos of pros in actual match conditions. Their ball speed is quite astounding! 

On average, for men, they have about 1.3 seconds between impacts. Translated, each player have a total of only 2.6 seconds to run and hit each shot.

Their average rally ball speed would approximately be:
24 metres in 1.3 seconds, or 18.46 m/s (24/1.3). Or about 66 kilometres per hour.

If you are unable to sustain a consistent rally for at least 10 shots, tone down to a level where you can. Most likely you are over-hitting above your ability to control the ball. There is no point hitting this hard or fast without control.

Or if you think that it is your hitting partner giving you junk balls that you cannot hit any pace with, think again. 

Most of the time, it is because you yourself could not generate pace. Therefore, you need a heavily loaded and fast incoming ball so you could tap on the speed through the rebound off your strings.

Maybe the circle of old players I know does not hit hard, but so far, among those who claimed they hit with fast pace, very few really could. Especially when given no paced "junk balls" bunted back at them.

To me, the acid of a good player is the ability to take any shot - lobs, low skidders, topspin, slices, flat, and generate pace consistently.

Similarly, it is this group that benefits most from full poly stringjobs as well. (link)