Here’s the situation …
You’re in a tight singles match, it’s your serve to the deuce court, and you’ve decided to bang your 1st down the middle to the “T” and stay back.
Heck yeah! Your serve stretches out your opponent, and the best they can do is to float a short ball back to the middle of the court and just past the “T” on your side.
That return of serve is just absolutely sitting there, just beging you to do something BIG …
And typically what we do is just that – we unload big time with the swing as we go for an outright winner to one corner or the other.
And you know the typical result, we find a way to screw it up and either find the bottom of the net or the fence on the other side.
And then depression sets in … 
Dude, we can change that situation with a simple tweak to your mindset.
This is first and foremost just an approach shot opportunity. There aren’t any pros out there who can consistently stand there and unload and hit winners off of those short returns of serve.
In the video below, watch what Marcos Baghdatis does with his feet as he plays his shot when he gets a short return of serve.
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For me it is usually more of a two-shot experiment to see what works best. I’m assuming the ball is coming back and looking to make a volley. I’m gonna do both drops and slice drives and hit down the center, etc. Just gotta try different stuff to see what works against my opponent, rather than assume any particular shot is the best against a specific opponent. See their footwork and habits.
I think my topspin backhand, and slice drives both sides are gonna make 2013 very interesting. Really big key is getting those shoulders turned, keeping my eyes on the contact zone longer, and getting my spacing right.
Good way of thinking about this short ball. There’s always a chance your opponent can guess where you’re going to approach to – so, always be ready for a volley or an overhead.
Brent
Brent – excellent situation and pointers! tks,
Morning George.
Glad you liked this one.
Brent
Brent – I am curious why he didn’t take the shot in the air and volley it back for a winner and not give the opponent any time to react. But I understand your scenario and what you are trying to point out. If you let it drop, you have to think of two shots to win this point. Make a good approach shot and make the opponent make a good shot to beat you.
Absolutely Tim.
Totally commit to your approach target which means to take your time.
Don’t rush the approach but be sure to commit the forward footwork.
Brent
Great video Brent. A key point to me when moving through this approach shot is to bring your back foot through after you make contact, and keep your momentum going forward. I often see world class pros hitting open stance from this area of the court, the weight transfer is more lateral. I often wonder why their weight isn’t shifting towards the net. Federer shifts his weight beautifully on the short floating ball. He either brings his back foot through as his weight is shifting or he uses a hopping step. With the hopping step he makes contact than hops off his front foot as he comes forward, either way you seldom see his weight shifting laterally.. You do a great job with all your videos and I enjoy watching them. Rich
Morning Rich.
You’re right about so many top players having lateral weight transfer.
Probably a problem with having enough confidence about being up inside the service line.
Nice description of what we should be doing.
Thanks.
Brent
Brent, i think a lot of the misses I see come from indecision. I see a lot of people “stand up” and kinda freeze as they swing…
I love getting this shot, cause I know Its over for the other guy….My swing thought is simple ….get down, get though, and step into the wedge!…… thats it.
Notice how low He starts this approach, almost launching himself into the ball.
Good feedback Anon. Thanks.
Brent
anonymous is Eric Carlson
EC!
What up dawg?
Brent
The key here is to balance the amount of spin, pace and depth. Once that ball drops too much, you will need to add some spin and adding too much could give your opponent a nice pass opportunity on a ball that sits up. Djokovic will often loop this ball to the corner with a lot of height over net, and spin to give himself some time to move up and to put his opponent on defense. Whatever you choose to do, be sure it’s a choice that you can repeat 9-10 times. You never want to cough up an UE on this shot. Even a deep slice can be effective, just don’t miss.
Kdub. You’re right.
Tom Stow wanted us to make contact at the top of the bounce to give us the best geometry.
Too much topspin with this approach shot will realistically sit up over there and not move through the bounce.
And for sure. Rehearse over and over and over …
Brent
Hi Brent,
As always, your instruction is terrific. I have been working on this exact concept with my instructor. We have been focusing on taking the short return in the middle and aggressively attacking it with an inside out forehand. And I have been very conscious of moving through my serve and setting up in front of the baseline, even when I’m not serving and volleying. The aggressive mindset, especially moving through the second shot and treating it as an approach, has been awesome. I find myself hitting a lot of winners or getting easy set-ups for volleys, and I volley well, so it’s just fine with me to finish with a third shot at the net to the open court. What I’ve also found, which is perhaps even more important, is that the aggressive mindset really helps even when my opponent hits a strong return. I have been handling those tough service returns so much better because I am moving forward and hitting through the ball. Thanks for reinforcing these ideas. I’m playing pretty reasonably at 4.0 but my instructor keeps telling me I’m headed toward 4.5. We’ll see.
Cheers,
Richard
Hey Richard.
Make sure you don’t get predictable with this approach.
Show them the inside out set up, but be ready to also show them an inside out drop shot approach just to keep em guessing.
Brent
Good advice. I also want to show them the inside in, though perhaps I won’t be able to hit it quite as well as Marcos. I was surprised to see him go down in straight sets to Ferrer, but then Ferrer is about to move up to #4 in the world.
Hey, here’s a suggestion – pick a sequence with Kimiko Date-Krum for one of your instructional videos. She seems to play a more classical all court style – hit flat and on the rise – that is unorthodox for today’s pros. Plus she is totally inspiring us old duffers being able to win matches at majors and be ranked in the top 100, even though she is 42 years young. I would love to hear some commentary from you on how she does it.
Cheers,
Richard
Morning Richard.
The inside – in forehand requires a really good set up with your feet so that you can cover a possible crosscourt forehand (if he/she is a righty) from your opponent.
Lot of court for you to cover right after you play that shot.
Inside – in is big time risky but needed from time to time to keep that opponent guessing.
Brent
Brent,
My problem here is creating enough power on this kind of ball to produce a winner or I’m putting them out I’ll use this idea of just an approach shot and see how I do thanks .
Hey Matt.
And there’s the problem – thinking you have to do enough with the shot to hit a winner.
What if your opponent guesses your target and moves there as you’re playing your shot.
You’ll never be able to hit it big enough to overcome that opponent’s anticipation.
This is an approach – plain and simple. Get in and force a passing shot.
Brent
One of my anxieties is what happens on the next shot. So many times when I hit an approach shot, assuming that I don’t hit the top of the next, my opponent will hit a defensive lob back. I hate defensive lobs being played against me. I feel like I’ve lost my golden opportunity to win the point and the simple fact is that I’m not in good enough shape to win long points in singles.
So the result is I end up “feeling” like I have to make a winner, or at least near it.
What’s the fix?
So mix in some drop shots that look like you’re going to approach deep.
Once your opponent has to account for another drop shot, they’ll have to play a bit closer to the baseline if not inside it a hair.
Then your deeper approach will be tougher to lob well.
Brent
Interesting. I don’t practice the drop shot much, so I don’t use it, however that makes perfect sense. I’ll have to work some more on the drop the next time that I get onto the court.
You have just articulated beautifully what I discovered by chance, literally in the past two weeks. I play a woman in singles each week who will occasionally hit a good return and even a winner on my serve, but much of the time her return will come back to me short and sometimes even quite short. When I would get a short return that I could get to easily, i was always thinking winner. Sometimes my ball was a winner, but when it was not, I was usually out of position because I had not moved forward in anticipation of her returning my shot. I did exactly what you said in that I ripped the ball for what I hoped would be a winner. Sometimes it was a winner, but other times I would just blow the shot in my eagerness to make it too good.
Then for some reason, I told myself to stop doing that, but instead to think of the ball I was hitting as an approach shot and come on in toward the net. As soon as I did that, my shots got much more consistent and many were still winners. They were either winners or very good approach shots and the errors almost totally disappeared.
The same thing happens when I am returning her serve. It is usually a serve I feel I can often do pretty much anything I want with. But again, I was blowing so many of these “easy” returns because I was trying to hit a winner each time, so I did the same thing – I told myself the serve I was receiving was almost exactly like any ball I would treat as an approach shot. It was a return-of-serve in name only. I quit thinking of it as an easy serve I could cream, but instead as a ball I could approach on. When I thought of it as an approach shot, I relaxed more and in moving forward, as you said, I found that my shots became much more consistent, and just as many or more were winners. The best thing of all was that if my ball came back I was in position for some fun net play.
I tried the same thing with my other more powerful weekly singles opponent, and it worked just as well with her. Approaching was not a disadvantage because her return-of-serve winners would have been winners even if I had stayed at the baseline, but I had a play on many more of her other returns and hit better balls just because of my new goal of moving forward. She also has a stronger serve than my other opponent, but treating my returns of her serves as potential approach shots also worked well. I thought I ended up hitting better shots because I was more relaxed, thinking to myself that this is only an approach shot, but I can see you are right that the thought of moving forward helps you hit a better shot.
I decided that since this approach – pun intended – had worked so well in singles, I would give it a try when returning and serving in doubles these past two weeks. It is as if my whole doubles game has changed. I love it. No more pressure on my hitting the return of my serve or the return of my opponents serve because, after all, I am now looking at each as a potential approach shot and thus have that idea of moving forward after each shot if my approach is good enough. And I thought tennis was fun before – I had no idea how fun it could really be!
Thank you so much for articulating and elaborating on what I found out purely by accident so recently. I knew it was working beautifully, but it helps to know that someone of your expertise says it is a good thing to do and, more importantly, can explain exactly why.
Hello Anne, nice writeup. From a doubles perspective, by treating that return as an approach shot, you are now transitioning to involving your partner more in the match to the extent possible which is what Brent talks a lot about.
It helps me to mix approach shots (like hopefully low slices into the service box, drops, and lobs), with deep strong returns to keep them off balance or occasionally challenging the netman. I found that mixing for me is pretty effective than only hitting approach shots because it tends to keep them uncertain what next to expect from me. A lot depends on how many tools one has at their disposal.
I prefer forcing an error or encouraging an unforced error, over hitting a winner (in general) because often my opponents will do a lot of work for me and it seems that winners are less mentally devastating to them than their hitting unforced errors or having errors forced on them. Every time I miss my shot, that is kind of giving them a break and helping to hide their own errors from their eyes.
And, I never see guys getting upset if I hit winner.
A good approach shot or even a solid return of serve rather than a big rip often allows my partner to be part of my efforts. MIssed shots certainly take both of us out of the point.
By focusing on getting the first serve in and taking 10 or 15% off the pace to do so aiming most of the time right at them rather than hitting a lot of wide or T shots also helps my partner get into the point.
I agree, Roger, that in doubles you do want to mix up your returns, but for me in this current phase of tennis (I am 70), I am literally approaching on almost everything I hit, just for the fun of it and to see how it works. And, so far, it’s working pretty darn well. I come in on my low forehand slice when it’s a sharp angle and when it’s deep. I come in if I drop-shot the receiver who is at the baseline. I come in if I hit what my husband laughingly calls one of my “screaming winners.” I come in if I lob over the net person. i am like a woman possessed by the fun of tennis.
I have always loved to play net, but I am more of a finesse player around the net. Now I am learning to hit those volleys from deeper in the court that I formerly could not hit, mainly because I had never been brave enough to put myself in a position to try them. i would miss one, and then make sure to never be in that position again. I never knew volleys from so many areas of the court could be possible for me and just from being brave enough to get out there and hit them. In just two weeks” time I realize that I, too, can hit those successfully. It is easy to practice approaching the net and hitting volleys from areas foreign to your experience in singles because your opponent is ever so happy when you miss. In doubles, it is harder to attempt because your partner may not suffer your learning mistakes quite so gladly.
In addition to that, I am not looking at the approach shot as some kind of lesser or necessarily less powerful shot, I am just giving myself permission not to feel as if i “must” hit a winner, because that feeling alone may make me tighten up enough to botch that shot more often than if I tell myself all I have to do is hit an approach shot. My favorite approach shot is one that turns out to be a winner.
I noticed yesterday in doubles that my “tennis brain” as I call it is already determining when I should actually come in and when I should not, but the psychological advantage of not feeling I need to hit a winner allows me to relax and swing freely so that oftentimes I do hit a winner; and, as Brent says, that idea of coming in allows you to have enough forward momentum as you hit to actually execute the shot better than you otherwise would. Thinking I am only going to approach frees me up to hit away with no tension. When I am “trying” for a winner, sometimes it does not go as well.
I agree with you that the into-the-body serve is a great one. That is another thing I am working on. People stand in close to the service line to receive my serve because, although it almost always hits at the service line unless I slice it out wide or put extra spin on it to drop it ridiculously short, it does not bounce up but a tiny bit. One of my singles opponents calls returning my serve “bowling.” If I could perfect an into-the-body serve, I could make them pay for standing that close and that would make my other serves even more effective.
I like your point that winners are less mentally devastating to opponents than their hitting unforced errors. I have never heard anyone say that before, but I really like that idea. Since the mental part is so major in tennis, that is a good way of looking at the importance of hitting just one more ball. It may not be flashy, but it may just get the job done. And it also points out the importance of good defense. Give them one more chance to beat themselves. You are so right – they never get upset when I hit a winner, only when they make an error. That is such a keen observation on your part. I am so glad you commented.
Anyway, I could go on and on, and you probably feel that I already have. Tennis is such a fascinating subject to me. Most all the ideas Brent has put forth that I have seen so far are very helpful and make incredibly good sense to me. It’s such a wonderful game; there is something new to learn and enjoy each time we take the court.
Watch out Brent, it looks like Anne can match the length of my posts!
Match ‘em, heck, I can exceed them!
Wow you two …
Out of my league for sure
Brent
I’m sorry your comment was too long to read.zzzzzzz
I make all the mistakes you discuss. Thanks for this time I will try to incorporate it along with the forehand slice.
Hey Joe.
Right, the low skidding slice forehand approach can be deadly …
Brent
If not careful this situation can create a bad outcome – short ball, eyes big as saucers, puddle of drool on the court, a wildly aggressive swing and a ball heading straight for the fence!
You got it David!
And what you described happens way too often because our brain goes to thinking WINNER …
Nope, breathe, commit to a traget, and then commit the feet to move through the shot as an approach …
Brent
Brent,
My biggest difficulty in this situation is adjusting my technique depending on whether the short return bounces high or is a low ball.
Sam
Morning Sam.
What shot choices are you thinking depending on a short high ball or a short low ball …?
Brent
The audio came through on my iPad but the video screen stayed black.
Hmmm … Not sure.
Anyone?
Brent
Brent,
Great video.This is one shot where 7/10 times I goof up.I really rush and make a mess of it as I usually want my first shot to be winner than think about it as a two shot strategy.Let me see if I can be patient and implement what Baghdatis did hiiting by moving forward and bringing the body weight behind.
Thank You
Santh.
Hi Santh.
Making an unforced error in this situation 70% of the time is just a huge confidence killer.
This is NOT and NEVER will be a put-away outright winner opportunity.
You might play your shot as an approach to a specific target and it then ends up being a winner, but this situation MUST always be thought of as a 2 shot play …
Brent
This is just so true! So easy to overload to hit a death-blow shot, when hittting a controlled, form, and secure shot that is enough to out-play your opponent in most cases anyway!
And when you over-load and miss, you get insecure and hit too loose instead, and the opponent over-plays you anyway. And instead of thinking, give me next ball and I will win it mind-set and you are alert and on-the-go, you get depressed. Does’t matter what I do, what I try, it fels hopeless, I can’t beat this opponent. I hit so good serves, I have the upper hand in many points, still I don’t win the point!
firm shot (not form)
And I guess, being well trained psysically is also very important, so one CAN be alert and offensive. Ad have a good foto- work to get in position. And hit early.
) if one is tired, which also affects the confidence.
If one is tired and pants just if one have to run a little, it’s harder to focus, and keep the confidence high. One tend to play more sluggish (and desperate I guess
I have a question, is it possible to keep track of where the opponent is going, or do one have to take a chance, focus on the hit. If one look at the opponent, at which point of time is it rekommended to look?! Before the hit, during the hit, or ……?
Based on my court placement, where I aim my ball, and his tendencies…I know not only where he is most likely going to go (which is go after my ball), but also where I need to be next (like Brent keeps encouraging us to recognize and get off our duffs). Of course, I really can’t control them and my ability to control myself has its limits, but I can encourage them and myself, so anything can happen.
That said, doubles is even more challenging when ones partner thinks that playing back is better than playing forward (AND) showcasing ones singles skills is the way to go… then it is like having three opponents. The setter doesn’t have a terminator. The terminator doesn’t have a setter. The opponents move in to take advantage of the geometry and hubris cements the probabilities against you.
Yesterday I played doubles with Jack who stays back in fear of lobs, and doesn’t jump over the candlestick of no-man’s land. So, I decided to play the two back formation and the opposing team played two up. Now that was fun.
For the first time that I have seen it, Jack got increasingly upset as the points rolled up against us and at one point walked off the court. The next time he plays, I will bet he will continue to provide plenty of hubris and continue playing back, needling his partners who stay up at the net, without any effort on his part to set up his partners or appreciate the role they play up at the net, nor how much more difficult he makes it for his partners by his unwillingness to play it forward.
I share your pain of partners who will never join you at the net because they fear the lob. I even have one who will join me at the baseline for entire points when the opponents are up and back. If I come in to the net, she goes back to the baseline. It drives me crazy to play two back when the opponents are not both up. I will usually go ahead and take the net on almost any shot just so we are not both at the baseline. My goal is to hit shots the lob queens cannot lob easily. My goal is to force them to hit a weak lob that we can pick off; but someone needs to be up there to pick it off, preferably two someones.
This particular partner wants to stay back and field defensive lobs, and she’s a good net player the few times she will stay up at the net! I think it’s tons more fun when you and your partner are both at net or at least both trying to get to the net. Sometimes when three are back and I am the only one at net, I am tempted to move back to the baseline to produce the ridiculous picture of all four players at the baseline. I just can’t bring myself to do it, though, because it just doesn’t seem like doubles to me. I also have the overwhelming fear that everyone will think it is fine to play four back.
That’s the beauty of singles. You don’t have to care what your partner is or is not doing and she does not have to worry about what you’re doing. In addition to that, you get to hit twice as many serves, twice as many returns of serve and every ball that comes to your side of the net is yours to hit. You can be happy whether you win or lose because you know you have worked on whatever it is you’re trying to learn or improve that day, and you have given your all with regard to effort. But, then again, really good doubles is great fun, too.
Hi Brent,
I’d do the same approach, except that I usually aim to the backhand side then come to the net.
Of course sometime I go for the right side (as in video) so that my opponent will not know the side in the future.
My problem is driving through the ball with my legs and getting the angle on either the deuce or add side that pulls the player out wide.