The Mogul Contact Move

The Mogul Move: a drop step, crosssteps, skimming into a mogul step–and a cross over recovery.

In the last article we began analyzing the patterns of defensive footwork. These are Contact Moves used by the top players to neutralize opponents and to transition from defense to offense.

The Contact Move is a unifying concept I have developed to make sense of the diversity of movement patterns out to the ball, during the hit, and then in the recovery phase. (Click Here.)

We started our analysis of defensive moves by looking at the Power Move. This is the footwork pattern used by top players to hit on the full run. (Click Here.) We saw that top players use the Power Move to go for broke by attempting running forehand winners.

Now let’s look at a second defensive pattern, what I call the Mogul Move. The Mogul Move is a defensive contact move players use when they are forced wide, but not so wide that they have to hit on the dead run. Instead they move one step beyond the ball and recover.

You also see players use the Mogul Move when they move forward or backward on an angle toward the…