Soft Middle Overhead

The Point

It's the middle of the second set at Western NE 2021 Women's Final with Delmonico/Gebbia serving and up a break.

Analysis

The main thing that jumps out is that the soft middle overhead from Gebbia is effectively a winner despite not being a cut overhead or anything fancy. It's made possible by the prior shot from her teammate, which was a difficult overhead into the back screen and side wire.

Here's the deep overhead from Delmonico to set things up. Look at where it bounces.

Delmonico cuts the ball a little bit which causes it to die on the back screen and then ride the side screen. Hanisch also has to get out of the way of the ball itself, which has her off balance. This overhead by Delmonico could win the point outright in some cases.

Hanisch digs it and while her lob is not necessarily short, she's still moving back into position when Gebbia strikes the ball. With Zubori's positioning on the Ad side, the court is wide open for Gebbia.

Finally, Zubori doesn't make an extreme effort to get the ball back in play, but on game point, down a break, I don't think she's throwing in the towel. It's a long way for her to travel to get there since she was anticipating an overhead to her corner. And, most importantly, the ball bounces a few inches above the snowboard.

Zubori tries to play it from her shoelaces, but can't get it back over the net. It's a great example of the effectiveness of playing the soft middle overhead when you have your opponents moving a lot side to side and a wide open court.