Changing Tennis Style & Grips

Peter Bodo has a post over at TennisWorld entitled House of Laver that you shouldn't miss.

I want to zero-in on a point he makes.

It's always been interesting to me that the more radical stylists and clay-court experts - Bjorn Borg and Rafael Nadal come to mind immediately - are the ones who appear to play tennis in the most natural, technique-and-theory free way. In keeping with recent thoughts I posted on Nadal, this impression that he plays like a kid who just picked up a racket, never bothered to find out how to hold the danged thing, then cut a swath to the top, is part of the larger whole. And let's not forget that while the western may be the most natural, it is neither the most elegant nor, necessarily, the most fruitful forehand grip. There is something intrinsically unschooled about those who use the Western grip, despite all the hard work and discipline such players may invest in their games.

The point isn't that this is the best or only way to excel (in fact, he contrasts this with Roger Federer's refined technical style), but players do get to the top this way.

Speaking of Manolo Santana then, Bodo writes...

They broke the mold after they made Santana, but perhaps one day we'll see a player of his ilk once again. It is, in the end, tennis is a game in which the individual always finds a way to express his talents and impulses, regardless of technique and theory.

And I'll wager that even Roger Federer doesn't consciously try to mold his form half as much as those dissecting and trying to copy it do.

This article also points out something important about grips. The standard advice on grips dates to Rod Laver's time, when equipment and court surfaces were much different. Likewise with the standard advice to hit approach shots with underspin.

And so, though the standard advice lives on, the Eastern Forehand grip and the Continental grip are disappearing from the professional tour. More and more players hit approach shots with topspin and never dare to hit them crosscourt.

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The "Right" Spin for an Approach Shot

I'm a little under the weather, so that is why I am not posting as frequently as usual.

We left off last time with question: How do you get your opponent moving backwards with your approach shot?

The obvious answer is With good depth.

But there's more to depth than where the ball lands. A topspin shot has greater depth than an underspin shot landing in the same spot.

Why? Because of the difference in the way these two spins make the ball bounce.

Topspin kicks the ball upward and forward for a high, long bounce that amounts to a bound.

Underspin is backspin that kills the bounce, so that the ball loses forward momentum and bounces relatively straight upward, though underspin shots don't generally bounce as high as topspin shots do.

You set up closer to the bounce point when returning underspin than when returning topspin. In other words, you set up shallower when returning underspin than topspin.

The surface makes a big difference. On grass and other slick surfaces (which ordinarily are very fast ones, like wood), an underspin shot skids more when it bounces. When the ball skids, it doesn't bite into the court and get forward momentum converted to upward momentum. Underspin shots bounce farther and stay lower on fast, slick surfaces because of this.

Which is why underspin approach shots became the rage back when most of the Pro Tour was played on grass: with underspin you kept the ball low and got almost as much depth of bounce as with a topspin shot.

But it's long past time for the parrots to learn a new song. Very little tennis is played on grass or wood anymore.

That depth of bounce on a topspin shot looks mighty good to a tactician planning an approach shot today.

True, topspin bounces higher than underspin. But so what when your opponent is behind the baseline? How many opponents hit down at you from behind the baseline? And, though most players like high forehands, they hate high backhands.

Which happens to be the side we normally target with our approach shots anyway.

No, this doesn't mean that topspin is the "right" choice for an approach shot. It just means that, more often than not, it will be the better choice. There are still situations when underspin would be better. These situations tend to occur most often on the fastest surfaces and at the top of the game though.

More later.

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Approach Shot Strategy

Back to the subject of approach shots.

We left off last time with the question "What's the most reliable way to get people to hit you floaters down the center of your court?"

Let's take the last part first, because it's absolutely simple: to draw a shot down the center of your court, center your feeder shot. It's simple geometry. Hit your approach shot down the line or down the center. Even in doubles, where you usually have to hit crosscourt, don't hit at a sharper angle than necessary to get around the opposing net player.

For, your feeder shot's Angle of Return is always greater than the feeder's angle. So don't hit angled approach shots. Don't. Don't. Don't.

Now for the floater part. How do you suck a floater out of your opponent?

Get him or her moving backward. No, I didn't say "Knock the cover off the ball." I didn't say "Hit a screamer that he or she can barely get their racket on." I said only to get him or her moving backward.

This means that if your opponent is hitting from a closed stance, you want them hitting off the back foot. If they're hitting from an open stance, you accomplish the same thing by getting them leaning backward and contacting the ball at a point farther back than usual.

"Heh-heh!" she says, rubbing her palms together in wicked glee. "At this point the battle plan starts to get interesting. Heh-heh!"

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Strategic Objective of an Approach Shot

My volleys and overhead aren't all that great, but I am very successful when I come to the net, and I do so quite often.

How can that be? I am convinced that it's because I have an excellent approach shot. Because of it, at net, I seldom have to deal with difficult incoming shots.

This particular case, the case of the approach shot, is an good example of how important it is to identify and pursue THE strategic objective in a situation.

Many players can't state their objective with an approach shot, but if you get them to talk about it, this is what you'll hear. They want to hit a forcing shot that is deep and stays low to make their opponent hit up. Basically what they want is a weak return from their opponent.

That's their real objective then. And it isn't the strategic objective. You must hit a really aggressive shot to force a weak return from your opponent. Is that what you should be doing with an approach shot? No. Save the heavy-duty aggression for later, when you're on top of the net.

Your greatest risk in rushing the net is your first volley. You hit it on the way in, while you're still running through no man's land, near the service line. From there your perspectives are poor. You are too far from the net to go for a winner. Worse, back there, you can easily be forced to hit up on a low shot that lands at the service line. Not good.

During a net rush, before you hit that first volley, you have only about a 50-50 chance of winning the point. But if you get your first volley back deep (within four or five feet of the baseline) you have a 75-80% chance of winning the point.

Clearly then, the first volley is crucial.

For your first volley you don't need a weak shot that your opponent barely made. You just need a first volley that you can hit from waist height or above, ideally a floater. You also need a first volley you can reach - not one straight down the far sideline or at a wicked angle crosscourt that wrongfoots you. In other words, you need a ball coming down the center of your court.

That's it - a floater within your reach. That's all. THE strategic objective of an approach shot is to draw a floater within your reach.

It doesn't have to be a titanic shot that nearly forces an error. It's just gotta draw a high shot within your reach. In fact, the best approach shots are often SUBTLY forcing shots.

Now the question is, what's the most reliable way to get people to hit you floaters down the center of your court?

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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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