Mastering the Chiquita: Small Shot, Big Impact

If I play against a pair of tennis players, I am looking at two shots, the Chiquita, the lob. And the Chiquita is almost the undiscovered weapon for them. Hey, team, in this solo episode today, I'm going to discuss the Chiquita. What is the Chiquita, what makes it effective, the technique that you would use for it, what when you would use it, and some common errors that we see with this shot. And I mean, first up, what is the Chiquita? The Chiquita is a soft shot to the feet of your opponent. Now, this is obviously slightly vague because it's saying it goes down to the feet of opponent. You could think a faster topspin shot is a Chiquita, but the purpose of it is that it goes low and soft at a slow pace with the view that you, you produce a shot that is easy for you to attack on the next ball. Now, there are many ways to attack on that next ball. You might be hitting the Chiquita so it produces a short ball that you would then use to lob your opponents. For example, you might hit your Chiquita, come forward, and then approach and hit the next ball on the volley. Or you might be using the Chiquita just to get yourself out of trouble or neutralize the point from the previous shot. The idea of it being that you are forcing your opponent to play below the height of the net. And this is something that when we work with players around the world, it's really understanding that this is a setup or neutralizing shot. This is not going to be a topspin forehand angle winner. And this is also not something where you get this tennis rush of a chip and a charge. You hit down to the feet and you charge the net regardless of what happens. This is something that is used to disrupt your opponent's rhythm, really. And this is one of the shots that we're always encouraging players to use. When we work with our RGB players or whether we work with beginner or newer players, it's still the same thing. The idea is learning to slow that ball down and aiming for, for a target zone down towards the feet. And this is very unusual. If you've come from tennis, you would never hit this shot. If someone hits an approach shot, you're never going to think, oh, I'm going to hit that next ball soft down to their feet. It just wouldn't be worth the risk. And, and so this is a shot that needs to be used and needs to be practiced. And if we were to go into the technique of it, it's really just a scoop shot. More than anything. It's, you get yourself into a good position, you use continental grip like you would all of your shots. You have a relaxed stance, you're not needing power on this shot. You don't need leg drive, you don't need a big rotation and swing. You are basically having a shortened backswing and for the most part you are hitting this shot flat. Now, there are times when you might play with a little bit of slice. If the ball is coming up above waist height, you might be more comfortable playing a slice. I know particularly for me backhand and really forehand, it's easier when the ball is higher to play a slice, but. And there will be times when you get to a higher level and you put a slight bit of topspin on it. Now, I'm not recommending this for players that are beginner or intermediate level because what often happens with topspin is you need to get that right mix of racket, head, speed, generation and brush on the ball. If you over hit and you hit too hard when you're hitting the topspin, that ball will float up for your opponents at the net. And really it's about playing this ball softly down to the feet. And actually, and I'll mention the dreaded pickleball word, but, but when I went to the US and I played pickleball and someone was teaching me how to dink, which is their terminology, hit it down in towards the kitchen, they, they said to me, right, try and make sure that the peak of the ball is on your side of the net so that it's dropping down over the net. And the dinkin pickleball is very similar to the chiquita in paddle in that you want that ball to be dropping as it's going over the net so that your opponents have a ball that is below the height of the net. And so when we're talking about almost the technique for this, it's really important that you've got soft hands. This is extremely difficult to do if you are squeezing the grip hard or you're a little bit wooden with your swing because you just then don't have that same grip control on the ball. So, so really it's good body position, nice balance. You don't need a lot of power generation through the legs or through the, the torso, through the rotation, soft hands and you are gently putting that down towards their feet. So I mean, if we think about when we would use this, you would use this at different times. It's one of the ways to approach the net. So you can use this shot to take the net. There are three ways to take the net. You either have a complete lob, it goes over the head, you hit a high lob, you come up and you block that next ball, whether it's a bandeja or a vibra. Or you can use the chiquita. Now, that would be when you hit soft down to the feet of your opponents and you come forward all the way to the neck position. The purpose of this is that you are basically using that gap in front of your opponents. And if they go down low, below the height of the net, it means that they're contact, they have to hit the ball up. And you are basically taking advantage and contacting that ball that's just been hit up so that you can move forward. Now, you can only use the chiquita when moving forward if your body weight is already in a good position to come forward. As an example, if they hit a good volley and it's deep towards that back glass and you're coming back to defend, you can't hit a chiquita from there and take the net because your body weight is going in the wrong direction. It also makes it much more difficult to have an accurate chiquita. You need to be really accurate when you're using this shot to come forward. And if we talk about almost the best times to use this, when you can come forward off the chiquita, it's really either trying to find that space soft down the middle between the opponents or with angle towards the fence. Now, often angle towards the fence is better if you as a pair are good at closing. Because if you hit chiquita down the middle, you've got to think the volier, they still have the angle. Like if they cut that off, they get into position in the middle. You and your partner still have the gap down the middle and you have the gaps to either side. Whereas if you hit it towards the fence, it means that the partner that is down the line can close that gap down on the net side. And then you on the cross court, for example, would come forward and cover the middle. And that way as a pair, you are effectively closing gaps. And if you think about how you can come forward, I'm just going to describe this for you and hopefully you can picture this is if you're a right court player and you are hitting your chiquita with your backhand, so that's a ball that's down the middle, it's better that you play the Chiquita down towards the diagonal fence and then you come forward to close the net because your body weight will go in the direction of your chiquita. You don't want to play that backhand down the line towards the fence for two reasons. One, your body is not going in the direction of the chiquita and therefore you can't really block that line. And secondly, it's exposing the gap down your line. So you have to be quite conscious of, of where to play this shot. And obviously that's the same from the left hand side. If you're a left sided player and you're going to hit your forehand Chiquita. And I'm, I'm now assuming that all the players are right handed, but the same applies for, for a left hander. If you're playing your forehand down the middle, you want to go to your open side to the, the angle, the, the diagonal shot down towards the fence that will help you and your partner close the gap. Now something that's absolutely key with this is that you hit at a speed that they can close the gaps because you as the person hitting, you know you're going to hit a chiquita, right? You're already, you're thinking about it, you're processing, you've probably recognized the ball, you think, right, this is chiquita time and you're going to hit this and you rush in because you know you're going to hit it. But you've got to remember that your partner needs to process. So they need to see that you've hit it and go after that. So they need a little bit more time, which means you need to hit slower. That is almost the, the biggest common error. And we'll come to common errors in a little bit. But the biggest common error is players hitting this shot too fast. And it's definitely tennis players have this issue and, and I had this when, when I was coming from tennis. It's almost like we think of this as a chip and charge and so we hit a medium speed down towards their feet and then we charge in and then we look back and our partner's still at the back and we're just, well, why didn't you come with us? They're like, well, I didn't know you were going to hit it. So that's why you really need to take that speed off. And if you use the angles correctly, which we're talking about Chiquita down towards the fence, it's your partner who is down the line that will close that Gap. So it needs to be slow enough for them to come. And the speed also allows them to get further up the net. Because what we often see with a faster shot is you might read it's a Chiquita, or you might know, but you can only get to a small step inside the service line, and therefore, you can't make the most of that Chiquita. And so we've really got to understand that, you know, soft is really the way forward here. And often what happens is when we go and we. We do our clinics is we go to our group and. And wherever this is around the world, it's almost the same. We say, right, we're going to do a Chiquita drill. We do a drill. We set up the drill, we. We get them into points. And then I end up stopping everyone and saying, right, you need to hit another 5 to 10 miles an hour slower than you hit. And they're like, no way. And then I do an example of how far I can get out the court with a soft Chiquita versus the speed that they're hitting. And then there's a realization. It's like, right, this is really slow. And so that's something that we need to get into the habit of doing that. And so, so when we look at this in a. In a tactical setting, it's almost like if you want to use this tactic to come forward and take the net, it needs to be very slow. It needs to be right down towards the feet. Of course, once you hit it, you can then always see what the response is before you commit. I think that's an area that players forget. It's not like you have to approach. Like if, for example, you hit up the high lob, you can decide if the lob is deep. You can go forward a little bit if you want to block, or you can stay back. And it's the same with the Chiquita. You can hit your Chiquita if it's not so good and it floats up a little bit, or. Or maybe it's not got the direction that you're looking for. You don't need to rush to net because if it isn't good and you rush to net, more than likely you've opened up a gap. And this is a. A patient shot, so you need to hit it. Watch how it goes. If you've hit it well, you will have the time to go up to net. Don't think that I've got to make the most of this as soon as you hit it, because the whole Point of it is that it's slow and it's soft, it's down to the feet. They've got to hit up. So. So you have time to come forward. And if you don't hit it that well, you can stay back, be patient, try it again in a few shots. Time, use the lob. So it's almost understanding that and really understanding the time to use it. Remember, we said, like, the best time to use it is when your body weight is going forward. So either it's come off the back glass and is already going towards your opponent, which already means your body weight will be going with it and into the shot, or it's a short ball and you want to play this down towards the feet. The reason we don't use it as much on a defensive ball is because when you're in the defense at a high level, it means that if you try a Chiquita, you're further back and therefore your opponents have more time to close the net, because that's what they will do is close the net and attack that ball. And at a lower level, it just carries more risk. You're more likely to make a mistake on it. Now, if, for whatever reason, your opponent's hit a bandeka and they're coming back up the court, you're on the defence, but you still see that there's a gap in front of them. They got a nice space, then you can still go for that shot as a neutralizing shot. But for the most part, the Chiquita is played as an attack, really. And the idea being that it puts your opponents under pressure and you and your pair have a chance to move forward. Now, a great result is to hit the Chiquita and actually get a short ball. And then you use the lob because part of the Chiquita is bringing them forward. If you think that they're at the second post, roughly at the net position, you hit a good Chiquita, they have to come forward. They have now opened up a gap behind them. And so that is another great use of that Chiquita. We move slightly now in towards the common errors for it. We've talked about hitting too hard. That's often difficulty because, like we said, you can't come up and your opponents therefore find it easier. A huge question that comes back to us almost every single time is, I try my Chiquita at the beginning of the match and it floats up and my opponents attack me and I just can't hit it. And my response is always the same, is that this would be the same for any single shot that you don't practice. If you think about your lobs, like if you only feed your opponent short lobs for the smash, you get in a game and then you start hitting short lobs, it's like, well, of course that's going to happen because you haven't been practicing like almost hitting deep lobs. And it's the same with chiquita. You just need to find your range. It's a really easy technical shot in terms of the technique. I'm not saying it's easy tactically to play at the right time and the right speed necessarily, but it's technically it's quite easy. You don't need a lot of body movement. You are just controlling that ball down. And so you will find your range. And the best time to do this is in the warm up. And I know that we have listeners that often say, well, my opponent doesn't get as good a warm up if I'm hitting chiquitas. It depends if you want to win the match. Practice your chiquita. If you want your opponents to win the match and them to have a great warm up, then, then carry on giving them a good warm up. But the idea is if you can practice it in the warm up, you'll find your range and you might hit one a bit high and then the next one you might hit low into the top of the net. And then after four or five of them you will find your range. And especially if you're on a new court or it's a slightly different conditions, it might be slightly faster, different balls. It's always useful to try and get that range. And what I often say, and it's the same when I talk with our GD players, right? And they go into international tournament and I'm saying like, right, keep going for that chiquita. It's the same with all the shots, keep going for them. Because it is the right shot. It doesn't matter that that one just went slightly too high because once you get your range you will see that it's an effective shot. So practice it in the warm up. Play it at the beginning of the match. If one floats a bit high, that's okay. You might be a bit nervous at the start anyway and so you might not be as accurate. One of the things that I'm always explaining to players about the pros is that they try stuff at the beginning of the match. And I say, I say stuff, I mean their shots, Vibras, topspin, three meters, I mean Everyone says Tapia's got an incredible smash, but if you look at the most of his matches, in the first few games of the match, he'll miss half a dozen smashes. But he's not deterred. He carries on. He keeps going for that smash and by mid first set or end of the first set, he's hitting all of them fantastically. And it's the same, there's lots of players like that. Ostero is another one. She keeps going for her shots and, and this chiquita is just like that. If you go for it, like keep going for it and don't feel like you're letting your partner down or you don't want to risk, you know, making it too easy for your opponents. Just you've got to find that range, which you will. And the same at the pro level. They use the chiquita almost exclusively. The point is made up of chiquitas or lobs. Sometimes, yes, they hit the ball fast, either through the middle or to a body, but the majority is either chiquitas or lobs and they're trying to find their way into net. So my advice almost at the end of this, just to summarize this episode, is the best way to get your chiquita in is to use it in a warm up, to use it in your games. And particularly if you've got games that aren't that serious. It's a great way to practice this shot. Now you might say to me, but I come up against a tennis player, they hit so fast I can't use it. This is the best time to use it. And the best way to use it is after one of their fast, flat volleys that bounces down, comes off the back glass. It's already going with good speed. All you have to do is just cradle that ball back to the side to their feet, and they will either look to be too aggressive on a difficult ball or they'll be able to hit up to you. Like if, if I play against a pair of tennis players, I am looking at two shots, the chiquita, the lob. And the Chiquita is almost the undiscovered weapon for them because the lob, they'll smack it and if they got a good smash, they're still effective. If I hit a good chiquita, they cannot be effective. So practice it as much as you can. Use it against tennis players and let us know on our socials, either through Instagram or through YouTube comments and see how it's going. But I hope that's helpful. I hope it's encouraging you to be more confident with your chiquitas. Please don't forget to follow us on whichever platform you are listening to this on and I will catch you on the next episode. Episode.