A Fives Revolution

Eleven-time Kinnaird Cup winner John Reynolds give his verdict on the 2016 Barber Cup final and how the game has changed in recent years:

The game of Eton fives is undergoing many changes: a women's game is establishing itself, the game's first public courts have been built at Westway, there has been a resurgence in court-building (at Newbury, Cambridge, Berkhamsted), there is a network of coaches that has helped the game revive and thrive at dozens of schools around the country – and we’re wearing better fives gloves.

There has also been a revolution on the court itself: over that period, at the top of the game, the balance of power has swung from the cutter to the server.

You could liken this to the way that in tennis the return of serve has become more successful in recent years but the change in fives is down to a change in technique rather than slower balls (introduced in tennis to tackle the dominance of servers using bigger raquets). But it’s also a change for the good – it means there are more rallies and that’s the fun bit of fives, after all.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a good cutter could be confident that two out of three cuts would not come back. The proportion of cuts returned has risen to the point that, in many matches, more cuts are now returned than not.

The 2016 Barber Cup final between the Old Olavians and Old Salopians at Eton on 14 February bore out this change. Many of those playing – especially the Olavians – successfully employed return-of-cut tactics which were not used 15 years ago.

The best returners of cut now use more variations – as a result the cutter has more to contend with and finds it harder to slip into a rhythm.

The most important of these innovations is that servers tend to address the ball more side-on than they used to - and as a result of this sideways stance they can skip up the left wall to the front wall AFTER they have served the ball. Getting out of the way of the ball like this means that many cuts pass back court - where previously a good line to the server's left foot would have had a good chance of success, now the ball will pass fairly harmlessly back court. And a difficult length to servers' toes will hit the ground before the buttress and bounce up into the air – servers can then play aggressive shots where previously it would have been a defensive parry.

The cutter needs to be careful that his line is such that the ball will not pass back court and has to worry about length too - he needs to try to shoot the ball flatter so that if the server gets out of the way it won't pop up. I have seen cutters' rhythm so disrupted by the new tactics that their confidence unravels - and they lose points in clusters.

In the old days, the server either stood in the buttress or moved to the front wall as soon as he had served and before the cutter cut. The cutter could then ask for the ball to bounce in a different place according to the server's movements. And good cutters could be confident of getting into a groove that the server would struggle to knock him out of.

There were exceptions to the rule: Robin Rumsam of the Old Cholmeleians could step over the ball as it bounced at this feet and then slam it back court as it came up from behind him. But such an approach was rare.

It's my impression that Howard Wiseman - for whom we have so much to be grateful, from decent gloves to the network of coaches - developed and began to teach the skip to the front wall about 10 years ago. At first it was his fellow Old Olavians who employed it but other top players fairly quickly caught on.

Anybody who doesn't these days is behind the times.