The easiest shot to play badly.

Playing a Cross-Court from the back can be a really effective shot. Often players will drift in anticipating a straight return and when they do this, the Cross-Court can be a great way of catching them out, seizing the T and putting them on the defensive as they have to turn towards the back wall.

However, as a lot of people know (except almost all junior players…), it can also be a liability of a shot. If you play it badly and it’s either loose and in the middle or too short, you can come under a lot of pressure or even lose the rally.

So how do we make it a weapon and not a liability?

The Technique

There can be a number of reasons why Cross-Courts from the back don’t make the grade. Some people get too ‘front-on’, which is to say their body faces the front wall as they hit the ball. If you do this, you typically lose engagement in the hips and torso which means you don’t get the same swing, which can cause the shot to come up short.
Do your best to remain more ‘side-on’, having your body facing the side wall, although you may need to play about with this and find a middle ground between being side-on and front-on.

Another thing to be aware of when playing this shot is the follow-through. A lot of players finish their follow-through very quickly, which means they lose a bit of their accuracy and ball control. Your hand should go through the ball when you’re playing this shot by quite some distance, so just check you are allowing it to do so and also letting it do so in the right direction!

It can also be an idea to snap your elbow and lower arm more, especially if the ball is in the back corner or getting behind you, as this can give the ball a little bit more impetus for making it to the other back corner of the court.

Added Deception

An added benefit of remaining more side-on is that you take up roughly the same position that you would if you were going to play straight, which means the shot can have some natural disguise, which could help to make it an even more devastating attacking threat.

Make sure you don’t play any rash Cross-Courts from the back but wait for the right opening and then make sure you achieve that depth and width with the quality of your technique!