| Serve and Return | ||||
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Advanced PlayersCommon errors: -
1. Do you watch the ball long enough, or is
your head dropping too early?
2. Does your arm that you place the ball up in
the air with, drop too fast, so as you go to
make contact with the ball the dropping arm
pulls your head down too early?
3. If you are serving long, is your ball
placement not in front enough?
4. If you are serving into the net, is your
ball placement too far in front?
5. If you have not got enough speed, try to
stand tall and hit the ball at the highest
point and once you feel that you are really
stretched on the contact, then start to slap
the ball down with your wrist.
6. If you start to net with pace, then you are
possibly snapping the wrist over too
quickly. 7. If your serve has no penetration, are you actually jumping and landing inside the court? You should be landing at least over the baseline, to be having any kind of penetration. Club PlayersCommon errors: -
1. If you are netting, are you looking at the
target too early and dropping your head,
pulling your shoulders down? You should
finish with your chin held high and your
back more or less straight bending only at
the hips yet still able to see the opponent.
2. If you are serving into the ground, is your
wrist just snapping over the ball or are you
throwing the ball up too far in front?
3. If you are hitting the baseline, with your
serve way long, are you throwing the ball up
behind you? Or are you pushing the serve,
with your wrist leading, rather than your
racket head leading? 4. Are you having to walk around to hit the ball? In other words, are you chasing your ball toss? Learn how to hit a serve keeping the front foot still, as this will give you the initial control that you need to begin serving well.
5. Exactly like with the ground strokes, when you
have not been playing too long, the first thing
you need to do is get control of the serve and
then be able to hit the serve with direction.
Practice serving in different directions, but
not too hard. Once you have control and
direction, then you can think about increasing
the pace.
1. The common error here is not watching your
opponent put the ball up in the air. If you
watch their toss, you will start to pick up
earlier which way the ball is going. This
will allow you to prepare earlier and be
able to make more returns.
2. A second error made on returns happens when
you contact the ball and you are looking at
the target, rather than the ball. Watch the
ball for longer and try to see it hit the
strings of your racket.
3. A third error on the return of serve is when
a player hits the ball and starts to recover
to the middle of the court and finishes the
shot pulling away from the ball. If by just controlling the ball and rallying well the other person starts to hit winners all over the place, then yes you have to take a bit more of a risk and start to take more initiative yourself. But until that point comes, where they are actually not making mistakes, then you can stick to the above.
by David Sammel |
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