Jon Pittner - Racquetball
John Pittner’s parents are both racquetball players. His dad, in fact, was one of the best open level players in the nation. Jon was basically born playing racquetball. He naturally had a unique talent in the sport that led to several championships. When he was 12 he won Missouri’s state championship and when he was 14 he did the same. At 14 he won first in the Legends National Championship in Florida. This was one of his biggest accomplishments. He also came in 2nd in the 24 and under competition in Missouri.
Racquetball takes a great deal of time and practice. When Pittner was fully devoted to the sport he said he would spend around 3 days a week, practicing for 2-3 hours. Professionals get to do it every day.
He is now a freshman here at Evangel, studying piano performance. He says lately he has had to devote so much time to the piano that it’s been hard to practice racquetball. However, he would like to get back into it.
By Ryan Payne
Besides winning, he would say his favorite part of the sport is getting to use his backhand. That, which more often than not is a weakness to players, is one of his strengths.
Pittner is very generous and willing to give anyone tips. He says one of the ways to increase speed in the game is to know what the ball is going/where it’s going to go after it hits the wall. This comes in large part with practice. Also, hitting the ball as low as possible produces shorter and faster bounces which are harder for an opponent to get to. Finally, he said that most people think that the more walls one can hit the ball off of, the better. Pittner says this is isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, he says quite often hitting the ball off the walls results in the ball coming back to the middle, therefore, making it easier for one’s opponent.
For all the amateurs reading this, the official rule on a serve is that the ball can only hit 2 walls. The first wall must be the front wall, and the surface cannot be the ceiling or the back wall.
And a tip for those who dare to challenge Pittner; his favorite serve happens to be the lob which is a high arching serve that tends to end up dying in a back corner.