Peter's Volleys

[pvchen]

Forehand volley:

http://youtu.be/iup6njdrNSs

Backhand volley:

http://youtu.be/gqCCrv74UVU

Hi guys,

Anyone have some advice on how to improve my volleys?
I wish I could improve this part of my game so I could attack more, but even just doing cross court drills, I don't have much pop or control.

There are great articles on the website, and I've tried to implement them, but need some help as to where to go from here.

Thanks,
Peter

[tennis_chiro]

Peter,
you need to learn to hit your volleys, especially your forehand volley, with more of an "inside-out" stroke. You actually do a better job of that with your regular backhand volley. (Inside out means movement of the racket head relative to the intended path of the ball.) This will help you get a little more backswing (just a few inches) on the shot and feel like you can actually apply a little power from your shoulder to the shot.

don

[don_budge]

My thoughts on the Volley…by don_budge

Forehand volley:

http://youtu.be/iup6njdrNSs

Backhand volley:

http://youtu.be/gqCCrv74UVU

Hi guys,

Anyone have some advice on how to improve my volleys?
I wish I could improve this part of my game so I could attack more, but even just doing cross court drills, I don't have much pop or control.

There are great articles on the website, and I've tried to implement them, but need some help as to where to go from here.

Thanks,
Peter

Here's a couple of "thoughts" Peter.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin/showthread.php?t=2145&highlight=thoughts+volleys

[stotty]

You need to hit down the back of the ball slightly. It looks like you aren't creating any underspin on medium height and higher volleys.

I always like to get students to use heel of the hand for guiding and firmness. A lot of my students respond well to feeling the the heel of the hand playing a significant role on contact.

As tennis_chiro suggests, taking the racket back a tad more will help. You have virtually no backswing sometimes. You cannot generate power from nothing, you need some take back.

When a ball comes at your body, instead of falling backwards, try to move around the ball using the outside leg. This is really important for you to learn as don't seem to be coping well with balls coming right at you.

Pat Cash did a couple of articles which are in the archives somewhere. They are extremely good if you can locate them.

[don_budge]

The Art of Practice…in the case of the volley

Here's a couple of "thoughts" Peter.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/bulletin...oughts+volleys

This will help you get a little more backswing (just a few inches) on the shot and feel like you can actually apply a little power from your shoulder to the shot.

don

You need to hit down the back of the ball slightly. It looks like you aren't creating any underspin on medium height and higher volleys.

Before talking about any specifics please consider these drills...use your imagination!

1. Both players start at the baseline and one of the players advances hitting balls with a rallying partner who keeps the ball going. The advancing player gets all the way to the net and then retreats all the way BEHIND the baseline...where he immediately advances to the net again. Up and back, over and over. He should complete the whole trip to the net and to the baseline hitting a maximum of six shots. Here you can throw up a lob when the approaching player reaches the net for some overhead practice.

2. One player starts at the net and the other starts at the baseline. The one at the net starts retreating as the rally commences and the baseline player advances to the net. One player is retreating as the other advances...up and back. Working in tandem. Control the rally, work together.

3. Both players start at the net. Both players retreat to the baseline together and once they reach the baseline they both advance to the net together until they are close enough to shake hands...or kiss if they are of the opposite sex. Or if they are both girls...just kidding.

You get the picture. To advance to the net you are in effect hitting approach shots. The approach game of yesteryear was the "cat and mouse" element of the game of tennis. This missing element robs the game of its integrity. What remains is a "pseudo" form of tennis. Be that as it may...the loss of technique and tactics is largely a product of engineering and not some devolving of the human species or more specifically...tennis players. Coaching on the other hand just may of devolved with the influence of engineering...hard to say. Or not.

By practicing these three drills you will arrive at a couple of conclusions. Working up and back is much harder work than moving side to side. Volleying is as much a process as it is a technique. Do these three drills for an hour combined with playing points serve and volley with only one serve. Let me know about the relative energy consumption with other tennis workouts.

When playing balls in the mid-court and forecourt it is imperative that the weight is forwards and preferably on the front foot but as Meatloaf laments...not necessarily so. The mid-court game may be a parallel with the in between game and the short game in golf where the strokes are performed with the weight already positioned forwards and not shifted from front to back to front.

When retreating from the net and playing balls while moving backwards you begin to see how this really works. If you can get the weight going into your shots while moving backwards you really understand the principle. Stopping your momentum backwards in order to lean on the ball. Play around with this drill. When moving in stay low with the level of the ball and work on hitting different spins on your approaches and half-volleys. Underspin, topspin and sidespin. Work on controlling your depth of shot...vary it. By doing so, keep in mind that what you are really practicing is upsetting your opponents balance.

Surge forwards when the ball is in the air to get as close to the net as possible when you meet the ball...when your paths collide. The shorter the stroke the crisper the contact. The shorter the stroke the better chance of using the "sweet spot" of the strings...better control and better placement is the order of the day. Practicing the volley in this manner is the proper way to practice volleying. Why practice balls standing at the net when in reality you never get that opportunity in a game? Except maybe in doubles.

Cat and mouse. The more possibilities that you possess in your approach game the better chance that you can play the role of the cat...cat usually eats mouse. But when approaching the net conventional wisdom says to play the approach down the line. When playing an approach down the line you can vary your approach in depth, spin and speed. I recommend using underspin and sidespin on lots of approaches because the change in speed and variety of shots is often enough to get the opponent off balance for an instant as you get yourself in position to make the kill or setup volley. By gaging your approach shots perhaps you learn to eliminate some parts of the court that you must cover.

Besides conventional wisdom there are other possibilities after you have established the down the line effectively. Now you have opened up the rest of the court for the element of surprise. The sharply angled dink or drop shot is very effective on a player that has been set up to expect the slice deep in the corner. The deep ball into the other corner becomes a more viable possibility as well especially if they have dealt with a couple of short sliding balls down the line.

Play in the mid-court should have the element of surprise in the attack. The opponent should never or rarely be played to be beaten outright with speed alone but with a combination of speed, subtlety and guile. This seems to be a high order of business at the top levels of tennis today, the way it is currently being played but even there many times the top pros reveal their ineptness and even inexperience when they use topspin or hit crosscourt in the wrong situation only to their shot sit up and their opponents are ripping passing shots by them...fractions of millimeters from the lines at millions of mph.

Mardy Fish and Roger Federer are two pros that approach a bit more often than the rest of the clan but they too show deficiencies in their repertoires. Both use topspin and crosscourt too often. Approaches are set up shots and should be played to the weaker aspects of the opponents games. Strong gripped players like the ball high...why give them a shot that they like to hit? Another aspect of the modern game is speed...a softer approach buys you an instant of time if properly played...that moment may just be enough for you to seal the deal.

Try these drills on for size blake_b. Use your imagination. Next time you are out by Fort Bowie near the Chiricahua Mountains shout out to the twilight...three times...Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. I did this and it helped my approach game...my approach to life that is. Let me know what you think. Let me know what happens. Someday I will tell you what happened to me. Life will never be the same.

But back to the point...blake_b, when I was playing competitive tennis this is how I liked to workout. Recently I have been over emphasizing this type of work with my students along with Mark's conditioning exercises. I find that they leave the court panting for breath...which I really like. And they are very amused as well. The game is so boring as it is played today. Dreadfully boring. Why not spice it up a bit? Beef up your service motion and tactics while you are at it.

tennis_chiro...can you add anything to those drills above. Once you mentioned that you had another variation. East coast tennis_chiro...do you copy!!!

Interesting comments by both tennis_chiro and licensedcoach (aka Stotty).

I like your very abbreviated stroke and suggest that this is the best possible way to build a volley stroke. We can expand upon this tight motion as we progress.

For the meantime pay close attention to the post that I quoted above in this post from my thread about "thoughts on the volley". It was post #14. This is how you practice the volley…moving forwards and backwards as in this case. While you are at it you practice the shots that will carry you to the net…the approach game.

Your videos I think are fine and you will evolve naturally keeping in mind that every ball hit in the air is hit with underspin. Just a bit more rotation of the shoulder going back and then forwards will give you all that you need for a backswing as you are moving forwards. Your shorter and abbreviated swing is going to work for you when you start moving…the more movement the less swing one might say…fundamentally speaking.

By practicing the volley from a stationary position you are accomplishing very little once you have the basic idea about what it is you are trying to accomplish technique wise. Look at my practice regimen and work yourself to the bone on this. It is going to pay huge dividends in your game in general.

As I suggest throw in some serve practice with that work in progress of your serve…serve and volley. Stotty hits it on the head…underspin. A modicum will suffice for now…no exaggerations.

I ask my students the rhetorical question…what is power? My pat answer…control is power. So what is control? Control is a combination of three things…speed, placement and spin. In the case of the volley there is heavier emphasis on the placement and spin…you need speed but only enough to win the point.

Play around with these ideas...

[pvchen]

Thanks for all these thoughts, guys. I'm going to try to process and then take to the court.

How does my initial arm and racquet position look? John Yandell speaks about getting this U position. I'm wondering if my racquet needs to point up more at the start.

[stroke]

One of my favorite forehand volley tips is that the forehand volley is kind of like doing chest flys at the gym, on a machine where you are sitting down with your elbows and forearms resting on the pads and you squeeze your elbows together with the weight resistance. As you notice, the weight gets much easier as your elbows are closer together. The weight is most difficult when your elbows are spread in the starting position. I think you can apply this principle to the forehand volley and get more stick on your volleys.

[bottle]

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/modern_legends/johnmcenroe/mac_volleys_overheads/mac_fhv/mac_fhv.html?MacFHVCourtLevelFront3.mov

The hands are close together then they get apart and then close toward one another again.