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The ball is behind you and you cannot turn. What is left?
Your own side wall is a legal redirect. When your body cannot make the angle, the glass can.
A ball has got behind you near your own side wall and you cannot get your body around it. Both opponents are at the net. What do you play?
Your own side wall is a legal redirect. When your body cannot make the angle, the glass can.
Why
Once the ball has bounced on your side you may play it off your own walls, and the contrapared uses that on purpose: you hit into your own side glass and the rebound crosses the net at an angle your swing could not have created. It is the escape shot when the ball has got behind you and rotation is impossible, and against a net pair it is often more awkward than a good conventional reply, because the ball arrives from an unfamiliar direction.
What this means at your level
Beginner
Know that it is legal, and leave it there for now. Focus on not letting balls get behind you in the first place.
Intermediate
Aim high on your own glass, not low. A low contrapared dies before it reaches the net; a higher one carries.
Advanced
It also works as a deliberate attacking pattern from the corner, not only as an escape. Played with pace into the glass at knee height, the rebound crosses low and fast into the far tramline.
Common questions
A ball has got behind you near your own side wall and you cannot get your body around it. Both opponents are at the net. What do you play?
A contrapared: play it into your own side wall. Your own side wall is a legal redirect. When your body cannot make the angle, the glass can. Once the ball has bounced on your side you may play it off your own walls, and the contrapared uses that on purpose: you hit into your own side glass and the rebound crosses the net at an angle your swing could not have created. It is the escape shot when the ball has got behind you and rotation is impossible, and against a net pair it is often more awkward than a good conventional reply, because the ball arrives from an unfamiliar direction.
Why not force a normal shot with an awkward swing?
From a position where you cannot rotate, a forced conventional shot goes short or into the fence. You are fighting the geometry instead of using it.
What should a beginner do here?
Know that it is legal, and leave it there for now. Focus on not letting balls get behind you in the first place.
How does this change for an advanced player?
It also works as a deliberate attacking pattern from the corner, not only as an escape. Played with pace into the glass at knee height, the rebound crosses low and fast into the far tramline.
What do the rules say?
You may play the ball off your own walls after it has bounced once on your side. What is never allowed is hitting your own wall before the ball has crossed the net.
Puzzles like this one
The ball is at your feet at the net. What now?
A ball below the net cannot be attacked. Block it deep and wait for one above the tape.
beginnerThe ball is coming off the back glass. When do you hit it?
Move back with the ball, let it pass you, hit it in front of your body.
beginnerThe ball bounced then hit your own back glass. Still in play?
One bounce on the floor, then any number of walls. Only a second floor bounce ends the point.