The Non-Swinging Drive Volley

[tennis_chiro]

I finally got video that demonstrates what I mean by a shot that requires a classic drive volley and is not really suitable for hitting a swinging volley because the player is on the move too much to be consistent with a swinging volley.

Here's the shot in actual match play. This is a player I've been working with and he volleys really well, but he needs a great classic drive volley to take advantage of his opportunities to transition to the net off forcing shots.

http://youtu.be/xGRabfFItzU

I would argue that he is in total control hitting this shot and there is no need to hit it any bigger. This shot has a big backswing for a regular volley, but his right hand goes back only a few inches more than on a regular volley to just past the right shoulder while the racket head goes back about 2 feet more than a regular volley. For me, a true swinging volley would be at least twice as long a stroke path and prone to too many errors in this situation. And I'd rather see this ball hit with just a little bit of underspin to stay lower after the bounce.

It's my contention that this shot is not part of the repertoire of 90% or more of the current players, even at the highest levels. Of course, if you do play this shot, it will not always be a winner as in this situation and you have to be prepared to play a legitimate volley off the following passing attempt; unfortunately, that skill is largely absent for most of today's players as well. It's also important to be able to hit it with great accuracy and move behind it in a hurry to be positioned to intercept that attempted pass. Both of those things are much tougher to do with a swinging volley.

I'm interested in your comments.

don

[stotty]

I like the way the way he executes the shot but I am not sure it is anything other than a conventional high volley. I suspect he is using a forehand grip as he is slightly nearer to the ball when he makes contact than a player would be with a continental grip.

I find the shot compact and even think he could afford more backswing than he is allowing himself. I think the backswing on a volley depends very much on whether the player is absorbing pace or trying to generate it. In your clip the boy is trying to generate pace off a dead ball. So he is going to have to take a bigger backswing and move through the shot as he strikes it...he moves through the shot wonderfully and I think this is the greater key to his success in the clip

There seems to be some confusion in the tennis world about the term "swinging volley". For some it is just another word for a drive volley (hit with topspin), for others it means a volley with a much longer swing.

I have stood just yards away from Edberg who has a very compact forehand volley when he is absorbing pace. I have also seen him take fairly lengthy cuts on shoulder high dead balls. The key for me is to keep the upper arm and shoulder doing much of the work. This way a player can plough into a shot confident he can take a more lengthy backswing. The upper arm/shoulder is the post, the foundation of controlling a high forehand volley, which, after all, is a very difficult shot for most of us. An awful lot of players fluff the kind of shot the boy is playing in the clip.

[klacr]

I like your students volley. I agree with stotty when it comes to it being a conventianl high volley. The issue is not so much in the shot, but in our terminology.

The best part of the video though is the way the way the young man quickly reacts to his opportunity to hit this shot. i love that he does not hesitate and is willing to move forward. Kudos to him. He springs up to the net and has a purpose. So many players (at all levels) would have let that ball float back, let it bounce and start the point from there.

[QUOTE=licensedcoach;34141]

...I have stood just yards away from Edberg who has a very compact forehand volley when he is absorbing pace. I have also seen him take fairly lengthy cuts on shoulder high dead balls...QUOTE]

Lucky man!

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

I'd be interested in seeing what Geoff Williams has to say on this matter.

[GeoffWilliams]

It's a good snap back forehand volley, not quite the type that I use now to put away high balls. Not the claSSIC RAFTER BLOCK. The snap back volley allows you to put overhead type pace on high volleys, and they just don't come back or if at all, are floaters. The block volley cannot develop this type of pace. He also uses his non dominant arm to set up the shot, and to coil his upper chest. Critical to do that on all sitters. The only time a typical block only volley should be used in on low balls, or touch volleys/drops.

[hockeyscout]

I asked my daughter just now, what did you think?

She said she would have blasted that ball right at that guy, exactly down the middle at and made him eat tennis ball, and if he got it back, give him a second feeding.

A smart strategy for a powerful player who likes to threaten with it from time to time. Let em see and feel power, kill them with smart off-speed and placement or sucker them into an Olympic track meet to beat them down.

Real life example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaw_P5ZX4r8

I think I gotta get her to cut back on her MMA fighting

[GeoffWilliams]

I asked my daughter just now, what did you think?

She said she would have blasted that ball right at that guy, exactly down the middle at and made him eat tennis ball, and if he got it back, give him a second feeding.

Real life example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaw_P5ZX4r8

I think I gotta get her to cut back on her MMA fighting

Too bad Roddick never got the chance to put one of those into Fed's face at wimbledon! He might have won one.

[don_budge]

Opportunity attack…drive volley placement. Bing, bang…bye.

I finally got video that demonstrates what I mean by a shot that requires a classic drive volley and is not really suitable for hitting a swinging volley because the player is on the move too much to be consistent with a swinging volley.

http://youtu.be/xGRabfFItzU

I would argue that he is in total control hitting this shot and there is no need to hit it any bigger. This shot has a big backswing for a regular volley, but his right hand goes back only a few inches more than on a regular volley to just past the right shoulder while the racket head goes back about 2 feet more than a regular volley.
don

Fundamentally correct in every aspect of handling a high forehand volley. I stopped the video and you ain't lying…the racquet head is back much further than it appears to be initially because of the camera angle.

But even though he takes this bigger backswing the most important elements of the swing are intact. First of all he holds onto his "U" shape with his arm and racquet…John would surely like this aspect. Secondly his "swing" is actually accomplished with a majority of the motion supplied by his shoulders and torso and not just his arm.

This is indeed a classic drive volley as you have appropriately labeled it. He follows up an "opportunity attack" with a clean finishing volley. He wins with the proper placement of speed, spin and placement.

He recognized immediately that his opponent was going to hit defensively and he swooped in to seal the deal. Opponents will often give you a "tell" about what their intentions are. In this case his opponent probably hits two handed and he set up for a defensive one handed slice. Your boy anticipated correctly.

[hockeyscout]

I finally got video that demonstrates what I mean by a shot that requires a classic drive volley and is not really suitable for hitting a swinging volley because the player is on the move too much to be consistent with a swinging volley.

Here's the shot in actual match play. This is a player I've been working with and he volleys really well, but he needs a great classic drive volley to take advantage of his opportunities to transition to the net off forcing shots.

http://youtu.be/xGRabfFItzU

I would argue that he is in total control hitting this shot and there is no need to hit it any bigger. This shot has a big backswing for a regular volley, but his right hand goes back only a few inches more than on a regular volley to just past the right shoulder while the racket head goes back about 2 feet more than a regular volley. For me, a true swinging volley would be at least twice as long a stroke path and prone to too many errors in this situation. And I'd rather see this ball hit with just a little bit of underspin to stay lower after the bounce.

It's my contention that this shot is not part of the repertoire of 90% or more of the current players, even at the highest levels. Of course, if you do play this shot, it will not always be a winner as in this situation and you have to be prepared to play a legitimate volley off the following passing attempt; unfortunately, that skill is largely absent for most of today's players as well. It's also important to be able to hit it with great accuracy and move behind it in a hurry to be positioned to intercept that attempted pass. Both of those things are much tougher to do with a swinging volley.

I'm interested in your comments.

don

An athlete demanding utter perfection

I don't get caught up in the end volley (the outcome). It was created by many scenarios way before the stroke happened.

It was solid, however, I do want to go back to what I call cause, and where it all started to go right for your player, and where it started to go wrong for the other guy.

Now, the big question I have is to you as a coach, and it'd be something I'd ask the player is how pleased we're you with your fundamentals on that return to serve?

Are you happy taking it off the wrong foot, or could you have stepped through it better and just taken it for the winner?

Did this player give you an epic error?

Notice any give aways in this scenario?

Don_Budge mentions the tell tale sign, great, my suggestion would be can you extrapolate something sooner in the process than you did so you can make this even cleaner (the end outcome).

What about the movement into the court? Was the player balanced, and did he take clean optimal steps to the ball? Can you redo this point 50 to 100 times, and see what might cause a better outcome?

Was this point a result of good racket work, solid footwork or just a lucky break?

How can it be cleaned up even more?

Why wasn't your opponent able to jump on your return better?

Did you get that ball deep enough to be able to compete with a better player at the next level? This one is important to me.

What were the issues with his footwork (the opponent)

Why did the play collapse for him so quickly?

What can you learn from his misfortune?

Are their any similar plays you've catalogued as a coach which you can see optimally how they compare?

And the most important ...

What were the other alternatives that could have happened?

How would have you reacted to different scenarios?

What do we do to add this play into our practice catalogue?

How could you build that better?

What are different things you could have done in this scenario?

Lets practice them?

And, 100 percent most important of all!!!!

What is the next?

And,

Okay, lets do that again, and lets do it MUCH MUCH MUCH better the next time.

Over and over.

Its a good positive clip, and a nice start to getting much better and cleaning many things up and ironing out wrinkles. Perfection is the key in tennis, and quality well thought out reps are of upmost importance (-:

[hockeyscout]

Now to the other kid, the one who lost!

How about we pretend to be the other players coach now (the guy who lost the point). What do we have to tell him? Did he make this guy look like a star on this point. What happened? By doing this, we'll be better able to understand the true net value of what happened on the side of the court of the guy who won, and what can really be taken away.

[tennis_chiro]

Response to Comments

I'll try to respond to a few of the comments here. I was hoping for some comments back and this is great.

Stotty:
The reason I titled the thread "The Non-Swinging Drive Volley" was largely the point you have previously made that on the other side of the Pond, there is no distinction made between what I call a Classic Drive Volley and a Swinging Volley (sometimes there doesn't seem to be any distinction over here either). I think there is a big difference.
As for whether he could take a bigger swing, certainly he could, but my point is that there is no need to hit the ball any bigger than he did. I don't think even Monfils could have gotten that ball back in that position. However, Monfils would probably have done a better job playing the return and it would have taken, as HockeyScout pointed out, an even better return to get such a weak response. But given a better player might force him to play a tougher shot, if he is making this move off a good return, my player better be ready to make a regular volley off an attempted pass. The continuum from hitting a regular volley or even a block volley on a very fast pass to hitting this Classic Drive Volley is possible, but if you made the move thinking you were going to make a full swinging volley with the associated strong forehand grip (even semi-Western), you are going to be too late on that sharp volley.
And in that sense, you are correct that he is close to a forehand grip. One of the things we are working on is that he hit this shot with his continental grip with a little underspin. We practice the move with a volley off a very fast ball as well as a floater like the one he took advantage of here. Once a player hits his approach shot and positions himself at the service line or in front of it, I want him in his volley grip. (If he switches grips on volleys, I want him in the forehand volley grip.)

KLACR:
Yes, it is what we USED TO CALL a conventional high volley. But how many times have you seen the members of the top 10 make that move when presented with a similar opportunity. Most of them could develop this shot in short order, but the accompanying and necessary volleying ability on the subsequent attempted pass is quite another story. They prefer to let the ball bounce and hit their big forehands. This opportunity is presented often, but if you can think of instances where you have seen top 10 (or any other players of this era) make this move, I would suggest the fact those instances are exceptions is what makes them stand out. This play should be absolutely routine and it is anything but.
We are used to seeing players settle under floaters that give them enough time to set up and hit their swinging volley from no man's land. My player would already have left the building. He would have taken the same ball a little earlier as an overhead.

GeoffWilliams:
Geoff, I don't know anyone advocating "block" volleys. It is a necessary shot when someone fires a missile at you, but my coach taught me 40 years ago the old school logic: "If someone is real good on fast balls because they have no backswing at all on their volleys, take the speed off the ball and pass on the second shot." Unfortunately, there are very few people who volley well today and part of the problem is lining kids up at the net to "block" volleys when they have no idea yet how to use the racket effectively. Fun for the beginner kids, but starts them on a bad pattern.
When you talk about a SNAP BACK volley, I imagine a swing that has the butt of the racket coming off the heel of the hand or at least the same kind of racket movement that such hand action creates even if the butt doesn't separate from the hand. I want to see a volley swing that creates a wall like motion through the contact zone (about 8 inches where I would like to contact the volley although the actual contact is only 2 - 4 inches); I want the angular relationship between the face of the strings and the ball to be maintained through that zone; so I minimize the change from that angle at the end of the backswing and the end of the follow through; that was minimize, not eliminate. The face of the racket should be pointed slightly to the outside at the back of the backswing and close to slightly past parallel after the contact. When the plane of the racket shaft goes all the way to perpendicular to the net and beyond, the face is beginning to move too much through the contact zone. This fits perfectly with JY's "u-shape" volley structure.
But you are absolutely correct. If someone tries to make a literal wall to block the volley and move that wall in a motion that keeps that wall perfectly perpendicular to the intended direction of ball, they are going to suffer the consequences and get passed on the next shot.
Also, Geoff, Rafter was not a "block" volleyer. Certainly, when he was volleying a 80 mph Agassi return less than a foot off the ground, all he did was redirect the ball with a simple block where the racket moved very little, but if you look at the Stroke Archive, you'll see he has a swing on higher balls. His technique would not be my choice for a model in that he is a little too stiff; he doesn't get quite enough "inside-out" action; but don't mistake him for a "block" volleyer. If anything gave him a chance, he was going to take more of a swing. The late 90's was a different time, but he did win two US Opens!

HockeyScout:
Certainly, there are always other opportunities to improve. But nobody is perfect. Perfectionism is a nasty trap. We must always look for ways to get better. But sometimes, you have to celebrate the things you are doing well. In this instance, I am trying to point out the use of a Drive Volley to take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself quite frequently in the matches I see; but I don't see that drive volley used nearly as often as I think it should be, if at all, largely because the players simply don't have the shot.

Don_Budge:
Thanks for finding the positives here. You want to see more "Classic Tennis". I don't think players can really execute it without the ability and desire to implement the "Classic Drive Volley" (non-swinging).

don

[klacr]

tennis_chiro,

great responses. Thanks for clarifying. You are doing great work with your students in SoCal. Keep it up

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[stotty]

http://youtu.be/xGRabfFItzU

I'm interested in your comments.

don

What I like most is the sheer confidence in which he moved up and slotted the ball away. He moved in swiftly and without hesitation.

An awful lot of kids over here lose their balls when confronted those easy put aways. The shot takes repeated practice, but the pay off is big for kids that learn to do it.

[klacr]

An awful lot of kids over here lose their balls when confronted those easy put aways. The shot takes repeated practice, but the pay off is big for kids that learn to do it.

Good use of a double entendre stotty

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

Well, what he did well was in terms of analytics. You should never lose a 1-3-5 game, ever! Its the biggest sin in our program. Your kid won a 2-4. The volley on the 4th ball was a result of what went wrong for player at 2-4, and what your's did right in the process of 2 and transition to 4. Everything ties into one, and happened as a result of a chain reaction. Anyways, it was a big bonus winning that point, as the the odds are stacked against the house, especially with the fact his return wasn't world class. So, take it.

We are heavy into this sort of thing, memorize scenarios, count numbers and analytically track how things play out based on mathematical odds. Analytics rarely lie.

Yes, guilty as charged, I've got a family from top to bottom of perfectionists. That's how some people are wired.