Don't give up -  just keep going with the practice as suggested.  All highly refined skills need heaps of repetitive work, eg music, a trade of any kind.  It is all about "the feel".  The feeling when hitting the drop will eventually generate a sensation from the racket hand right the way to the brain, and until this starts to happen you are just going through a motion.

A drop became something I really could execute well.  So a few more ideas about it:-

• Keep practising the wall pats, by standing still about 1/2m from the front wall. 
  
• Keep the racket head controlled. 
  
• Slice just a very small area of the ball. 
  
• Bring the butt of the racket under the ball
• Knees bent
• Limit the body movement (weight transfer).

When you can control this one skill, then travel along the front wall, left to right,  trying  to hit 50 consecutive drops before reaching the other wall.

Do not try the drop in matches as it will be a disaster, but use the boast to bring the player to the front, and the tickle boast from the front, as it is not a shot that requires so much finesse.

At home you could just do some ball and racket drills bouncing the ball on the racket, throwing the ball in the air and catching it on the racket, throw the ball softly onto the wall and catch it on the racket, flicking the ball off the racket and catching it.
The sort of finesse is a bit like catching a cricket ball where you sort of dampen the force as you catch the ball into your hand (or it jumps out) ; so will the ball on the racket, and I guess that will then transfer to the wall pat drill too.  Try, experiment.

Does that help?

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Hi All

I symphatise with ddraver, as I'm still struggling with the concept of the drop shot (although from previous posts i did manage to get some good tips and improve)

My current problem is: I slice the ball as instructed in your drop shop library link and other websites, at the same time trying to aim just above the tin. However about 98% of the time, the slicing creates the completely opposite effect, ie  due to the backspin it hits the front wall over the service line..., leaving it highly exposed for the opponent to kill!

Then when I try to correct this by aiming even lower, it over-corrects and hits the tin or worse.. it hits the floor b4 hitting the tin!!!

Any further tips how I can refine the 'elusive' slice to get to the much dreaded drop that i sometimes find some of my opponents seemingly play with such ease against me!!

Yours in desperation,

Shuaib

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hi ddraver

check this  drop shop library link out first

read it carefully, and in detail. try to practice the skill being mindful of the key points. what you should be trying to achieve is to get control over the ball. At first, height does not matter  control where you are hitting the ball

also check the drills section

select any of the drills that have the drop shot in them. when doing the drill with a partner, ensure that the drop shot is set up so that you have plenty of time to hit it. again, try to get control over the shot. as you get more control, you can make that part of the drill more difficult.

persist - it is not achieved overnight

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