Thanks Ray.

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dear viper

in this case, nicol david is talking about rachael grinham's deception. rachael gets to the ball quickly, then holds her shot. (ie prepares early but hits late) this breaks the rhythm of the opponnent and makes it difficult to pick which way the return is going. this, in turn, makes it harder to make a tight return, leading to the inevitable result.

rachael has an extremely strong forearm to enable her the whip the ball across court, or drive it straight, from exactly the same preparation.

although not true in this case, i have also seen similar language used to describe a tactical "hold" one player has over another. the tactics one player uses prevents the opponent from playing the type of the game they prefer.

this can vary during the course of a game as one player, then the other, establishes dominance (usually with better execution of tactics) at varying stages of a match.

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