Lob To Set Up The Drive

The Point

First game of the second set after receiving team just got beat 6-0 in the first. Score is deuce. Delmonico returns the serve by lobbing down the line to Hanisch, and it's deep enough to take her to the back of the service box. Delmonico slides to her left to set up her right-handed drive, and sets her feet expecting Hanisch to hit back to her on the deuce side. The overhead comes right to her forehand, and she buries it cross-court for a winner.

Analysis

This is just Paddle 101: lob to set up your drive. Couple of thoughts in this case:

Delmonico stays back right on the baseline, which makes it possible for her to react and still attack on a wider range of locations for Hanisch's overhead than if Delmonico goes for broke and picks a single place to look for it. With a deep enough lob (or poor enough overhead), Delmonico can still hurt her opponent on an overhead that comes to more locations. A worse (shorter) lob, might reduce the locations from which Delmonico can attack effectively.

The main factor in this point is that the overhead is soft and to the "short court". If Hanisch gets pulled that far off the net, she has to go cross-court with that or at least get a wire to give herself more time.

Zubori, the server, is a bit slow to get to the net and seems late to react to the overhead. Then, she realizes it's a drive opportunity for the opponent so she moves hard to the net. However, because Hanisch is so far off the net, Zubori has to overcompensate towards the middle. The cross-court side is wide open and Delmonico takes it. Zubori is actually a moment late on her split step, too, and her momentum carries her further to the left after Delmonico strikes the ball.

Only final thought is maybe if Zubori stays more on her side, she'd force Delmonico to rip the forehand through the middle or back at Hanisch's feet. Still very likely that Delmonico wins the point, but potentially a higher chance that Hanisch/Zubori can at least get to the ball to continue the point.