Sunday, July 15, 2007

What's wrong with crosscourt approach shots?

What's wrong with a crosscourt approach shot, like a wide serve? Here's what's wrong with it...



Its horrendous Angle of Return.

That's Pete Sampras, and that was a first serve. Yet he was easily passed on his way to the net.

Pete didn't try to come to the net behind a wide serve very often, and this is why. When your serve is an approach shot, you should aim wide only as often as necessary to keep your opponent honest and guessing. And that isn't very often.

The ideal net-rushing serve is a centered serve to the "T" that minimizes the Angle of Return, the PASSING Angle of Return. But a serve at the body often works as well.

There are some players who return serve badly when stretched out. So, they may be an exception to this rule of thumb, but they're the only ones.

Pete would have had to hit a much better serve than this to get safely to the net behind it. In other words, he would have had to hit a serve so good it put the receiver in Just-Get-the-Ball-Back Mode.

Then of course, the receiver won't take advantage of his passing angle: he'll just push the ball back to keep it in play. Fine, you can handle that shot as your first volley on your way in to the net.

But consider what serving that hard does to your percentages. If you have lambaste the ball every time you wish to follow your serve, you're going to miss a lot of those net-rushing first serves.

Result? You not only often fail to reach the net, you end up playing the point from a second serve.

Not good. An approach shot doesn't have to force a WEAK return: it has to force an easy-to-volley return that is within your reach as you pass through no man's land. That's all. In other words, it has to draw a floater through the center of your forecourt.

You can accomplish that without whamming your serve. Indeed, a centered kick serve to the backhand or to the body often works very well. And that's a safe serve that you are going to make a high percentage of the time - so safe that we normally use it mainly for second serves.

So, don't take unnecessary risk with an approach shot.

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1 Comments:

At 10:18 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, and I (and many others) keep wondering why Andy Roddick still keeps approaching cross court.

If it worked, we would say: "Hey, you can still surprise the pros with some new tactics!"

But it's not. ;(

 

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