Put it into practice: Counter drops & trickle boasts with Jethro Binns

Jethro played professionally and represented Wales in national and international competition before his career was curtailed by serious injury. Moving on from the end of his days on the PSA tour he created the SquashSkills brand with Peter Nicol and has since spent many hours studying the skills and techniques of the game’s very best players.

The counter drop and trickle boast are both great shots to have in your arsenal. When your opponent drags you into the front corners, the ability to be crafty and creative with a variety of shot options can give you a significant edge.

In this interesting and insightful series, Jethro takes us through both the tactical and technical aspects necessary to implement these attacking variations into your game, as well as breaking down some of the movement considerations that are crucial to maximising their effectiveness.

If you watch the elite players in those front corners, you’ll see their fantastic ability to manipulate the ball with various subtleties of different angles and racket face adjustments. Developing your own racket skills in this way can make a big difference to your game, so in this series we present a number of examples from some of the finest shotmakers in the world, to help provide you with the ideal models to aim for.

The aim of this blog is to give you some ideas of drills and practices you can use to start exploring the nuances of the counter drop and trickle boast, with a selection of progressions you can use to develop your proficiency and increase your confidence to allow you to really start to excel in those front corner situations.

To this end, we’ve put together a selection of brand new solo and pairs sessions for you to try, all built around the main technical points that Jethro introduces in this comprehensive video series. Watch through the playlist videos first and then click through the links below to check out these challenging new sessions, and see how you can start putting your newfound knowledge into practice.

Put it into practice

Solo session

This session is structured around some individuals drills and routines you can work on to start building your control in the front corners.

Pairs session

This pairs session consists of a series of routines and games to try out with a partner, to get you thinking about using different variations in the front corner in rally situations.

Related content

How to counter attack with Simon Parke

Former World Number 3 and U.S. Open Champion Simon Parke explains how he was able to turn defence into attack by counter-attacking.

Peter Nicol on the counter drop

Peter Nicol walks us through both the basics and intricacies of the technique required to play the counter drop, as well as identifying the correct times to play such a difficult shot.

Let us know how you get on with the sessions, we’d love to hear your feedback!