Backhand Poach in Doubles

[bottle]

My favorite doubles shot is a poach BHV on the return to my partner's serve.
If I hit a soft, pushed volley while trucking well I am fairly accurate, aiming at the net person's feet or right hip. My shot usually doesn't come back, but if the net person is really good, he or she can hit a soft bloop crosscourt to the service line I just vacated. A great partner who goes specifically THERE may be the answer, but I'd rather put the ball away myself since great partners aren't always available. I need better racket work and probably have tried many tricks. I need to hear from anyone who does this well. I'm very interested and would make any technical change. What do you do with your racket to bang the return really hard at the net person's hip?

[johnyandell]

Bottle,

I am pretty sure I know what the problem is. The Poach volley is inside out--but players try to hit it technically like they are volleying down the line in singles.

It's all about the diagonal of the target line. You HAVE to turn your shoulders unitl they are parallel to the target line (or pretty damn close). AND you have to do this WITHOUT increasing the size of the swing and in particular the size of the backswing.

Practice with a cone--set it exactly where you want the ball to bounce. Now don't even move your arms--turn your shoulders until your right shoulder points at the cone. Now you will naturally crush the ball. Better yet send us some video. See the Your Strokes area for how to film it and where to send it.

John Yandell

[bottle]

Thanks

I'll try that great idea, which, duh, hadn't occurred to me.

[bottle]

Thread theory wants more fishing here. The reply was terrific, but opens up new questions about inside out mechanics-- the easier hard volleys for me have been outside in. There is nothing more frustrating in tennis than setting up the poach, fooling the receiver, taking off and finding oneself in perfect position, then hitting a well-aimed shot that comes blooping back to an awkward place. I love my new shoulders position which is helping me get more stick on the ball for sure, but am influenced by TennisPlayer's new footage of the Federer and Tilden BHV-- with fantastically simple arm work similar to John Alexander wearing a sport jacket and sitting at a table slowly extending his arm over and over from his still elbow. (This occurs in the old Australian Master Tennis video series.) One wonders-- does power then come all from the body with weak but effective arm work, or from vigorous
muscular effort within the arm, or is it totally non-muscular...can the arm be passive and snap from linear body travel cut off, slight rotation of shoulders cut off, slight rotation of hips cut off, or a combination-- what's best, in
ANYONE'S opinion? I don't need a perfect answer incidentally. I just want to explore.

[davehagler]

volley - make it simple

a lot of what you do with your volley depends on the kind of ball you get. Backhand volleys should be (they are for most competent volleyers) easier than forehand volleys because your backhand is your "front" side and when you hit a forehand you have to get the racquet out in front of your body. On your backhand if you turn your shoulders your racquet is out in front of you. If someone hits the ball at you with tons of pace you can hit a very good volley without moving your feet at all. HOWEVER, whenever you have time to move you should. If you look at video of really good volleyers like Rafter, Edberg or Henman you will see that they move their outside foot (right foot on a forehand and left foot on a backhand) first. The outside foot step is usually small, then these players really move through the ball. The amount of racquet work varies. Most good volleyers seem to hit better when they get closer to the ball - although they can all hit lunge volleys well when they are extended. Some players (like a certain american with a huge serve) can hit lunging volleys well but that is about it. Another misconception is that great volleyers use one grip and one grip only. Great volleyers are flexible and adaptable. If you extend this to other areas of the court this is why Federer is so good. There is no way that a player can effectively hit a forehand volley that is two inches off of the ground with the same grip they would use to hit a backhand volley that is two inches off of the ground. How about a ball that is shoulder high - would the same grip as the two inch high shot work?

Volleys are fun, because sometimes they are mostly footwork and at other times they are mostly racquet work.

In terms of your poach, if you poach from the add court and are right handed the ball should be coming in to you at an angle (ideal) if you are closing moving forward at an angle. The biggest mistake I see is players trying to poach and moving parallel to the net. If you are poaching from the deuce court I have to assume you are hitting a lot more forehands than backhands.

The short answer is to do as John suggests, but really move though the shot so your sources of power are the opponent's pace and your forward momentum.

Later

[johnyandell]

Well said.

[bottle]

I'm a little pitcher, fill me up.

Well said, but not the only option available for dealing with different-sized volleys. People used to hitting continental just may not hit the high eastern volley as well. I don't think I'm a contrarian, but I wonder-- when the oncoming ball is a little bit high, we're very close to smashing, aren't we?
And what is the grip we use for that? Continental. So do we really want to adapt an elaborate, variable grip scheme for just the balls of in between height?

Some sort of invention or special adaptation here has seemed predicted throughout the history of tennis instruction. Rod Laver tells how Harry Hopman taught everybody to run their thumb up the back of the racket for a high BHV. Personally, I'm trying to change my fond, accustomed grip less by using the convoluted yet healthful arm positions shown to me in a bar by a martial arts student and innovative tennis pro. That would be back of hitting hand facing ear for the high FHV, palm of hitting hand facing ear for the high BHV. The experiment has been going well so long as I take the high ball late and employ the same hitting structure as a Kramer BHV only with arm folded at start and finish (with arm similarly and belatedly increasing length-- but inside of a compressed not open U). It's kind of neat being able to hit high balls close to the head.

If this shot doesn't prove the best I can do in match play, I will, of course, abandon it in a flash. For me forehand volleys on poach to backhand side occur 30 per cent rather than 90 per cent of the time; but, I'll work on this by starting farther from the net, and thanks for that.

[bottle]

The Real Deal

Note how no one challenges or refutes or supports. Why no indignant reply from some tennis-playing expert in iron palm? A mere graduate student in biology, one would think, might question whether I heard my information correctly in the late night bar. Did I get things backwards? Was it palm facing ear for the FHV and back of hand for the BHV?

But, as Rick Macci says in his article here, The Andy Roddick Serve,
"It's scary, you know, but to be honest, the average club player doesn't want to go through that. The reason why people don't improve is they don't experiment. They are afraid of what will happen in the short run if they experiment." Not just club players.

So, are tennis players in general a bit dull? Could they, with just the slightest change in basic attitude, start coming up with fascinating discoveries as Roddick did with his serve and Lendl with his forehand?
These two guys-- and Chrissie, Monica, Valerie, John, Pete, Jimmy, Bjorn and a dozen others-- were kid scientists of the first order. And kid scientists are the real scientists, always. They had mentors or didn't, but in each case they were the one who did it. Why don't we lionize them for THAT? And since they're alive, except for Arthur and Vytas, why don't they go ahead with new, equal discoveries?

[bottle]

Pigeon Pie

No one wants to talk. This may be good. Nothing wrong with talking to oneself. One won't go blind. Waugh said people can call you anything they want so long as they don't call you pigeon pie and eat you up.

The alternative volleys are simply not bad enough to dismiss-- not yet anyway. I am eighty-eight per cent sure, however, that my idea of how to hit them has been all wrong along with my assumption that they are designed for high balls alone.

Dave Hagler further delimited the discussion when he expressed his preference for trailing poaches into the alley. This means that despite your closing path toward the net, you crossed the oncoming ball and maybe got hit. Will tennis pros ever understand that what they say, no matter how brilliant, has no substance whatsoever except in how it is received?

So, we start with Brown's unquestionably interesting advice: back of hitting hand to right ear, palm of hitting hand to left ear. In the future: getting Brown's name straight, tracking him down in Washington, D.C., finding out if what I came up with resembles how he himself hits these shots, and whether that matters, and whether he hit them on the Hampton-Sydney tennis team.

[bottle]

Frog's Tongue Nabs the Beetle

Tuesday night doubles quad was just rain-canceled at the Joe White Tennis Center, Winston-Salem, NC . Shea Brown, the former pro there who occasionally phones in, is either in D.C., Florida or England. The scorpion
tail/rolled up frog tongue volleys he knows might be very good for a trailing poach. Think about it.

You've successfully run past the oncoming ball. If you have a straight arm
FHV like Henman or Federer, your hand will be trailing so far behind you may miss altogether. If you have a bent arm like Rafter or McEnroe, there's a better chance of making contact. But why not squnch up your arm, back of hitting hand close to your ear? The best solution may be hitting from that close-to-the-head cochleate position-- no?

[bottle]

Still Think So

Lucky me-- not to have found the extraordinary tennis pro Shea Brown with his crazy volleys! I'll keep trying, of course, and when I succeed, expect to discover new arcane knowledge about "iron palm," which I believe is a special branch of Kung Fu. An expert in the martial arts could set me straight in a minute, of course, but all the experts remain silent. Besides, those experts who have fallen under Eastern influence have learned never to greet a direct question with a direct answer.

Or do I do the man injustice-- could it be that Shea Brown is one of the exceptional worldwide tennis pros who give a student just enough information-- and no more-- so the student then discovers the rest for himself and attains complete ownership; i.e., mastery?

On a rushed poach I expect to hit a conventional shot-- BHV in the ad court, FHV in the deuce court. If, in mid-run, however, I determine that I have extra time, I will screw my hitting hand up to the trailing ear for the new creation. The ball will go, not at tremendous speed, but at impossibly sharp angle near the outside line for a clean winner. If my opponents try to keep me at home by hitting DTL, I shall turn my shoulders a lot and hit a little chop reflex volley acutely crosscourt-- wish me luck.

[GimpyGrumpy]

Huh? I tried to understand this but what does it mean?

[bottle]

Every Comment Helps

Thanks. It's a quasi-scientific report on the possible discovery of two new extremely useful shots if you can poach in doubles-- hard, I know from personal experience, when you're a gimp. If you don't mind, I'll just go on, in hopes that you can follow. All you'll probably need do is forget that this is a culture of dumbness in which we worship dumbness for its own sake.
Maybe we saw the film "Forrest Gump" more than a decade ago without understanding the mean implication.

On the surface of things, the two developmental shots seem too long, but, so does a frog's tongue, which does the job. The old volley advice, "play
patticake," is hoping for a comeback. The neuroscientist Ray Brown's axiom
that tennis strokes can't be taught by template seems pertinent, too, as does Oscar Wegner's conviction that tennis is better learned through feel than thought.

If all this is too complicated, then just take the two shots and try them. You can ignore all the rest of my language. I do the same thing when I go out on the court. The only given is back of hand facing right ear, palm of hand facing left ear (assuming right-handedness). Obviously, these extreme positions with continental grip cock the forearm; when then will the forearm release? Soon! For both sides one can steal from that BHV form in which slight, delayed arm-straightening snaps in at the end. The last thing we want right then is twisting of the racket, so the little bit of twisting (forearm
uncocking) occurs first to get itself out of the way.

The total motion, like any volley, must be unified, succinct, semi-but-not- self-conscious. It feels like frog's tongue or rolled up New Year's toy zapping out. The ball is a flying beetle. The motion feels, too, a bit like a hook in boxing. All parts of the arm unfurl throughout. Lower racket edge leads first then upper edge, which contacts the ball. To put this another way, lower edge goes faster at first, but then both edges move at the same speed.

Much of the length of the motion goes toward finding the ball and achieving separation of hand from body. The frog's tongue can zot in a variety of direction. Despite the length of the zot, the volley can be short like any good volley!

For you and anyone else who has faithfully followed this entire thread in quest of a payoff, I need to confess: I haven't used these shots in match play yet and won't for a week since single's league comes first in my schedule.
When I'm successful, though, I'll record a single word: "Eureka!" although you may not think I can bring things down to a single word. Personal, not scientific discovery is what I'll mean. If it doesn't happen, I'll record that, too. In the meantime I don't mind letting the two new shots ripen a bit more.

I wouldn't mind hearing, too, Mr. Gimpy-Grumpy, about some of the weird stuff you've tried in your own tennis career. If I have a hidden agenda, that's it. We ordinary tennis players have let the beautiful animals and brilliant teaching pros intimidate us into subservient silence. But invention, you see, comes from anywhere and usually the most unexpected place.

[bottle]

Possible Application

Gimpy-grump: If they work, then practice and put them in the repertoire of service returns, too. While it is an advantage to limit variation in ground strokes, one can't have enough non-intellectual alternatives when on the spot desperately searching for something-that-actually-will-return-the-killer- serve.

[johnyandell]

Bottle,

I tried to follow this myself--too hard to visualize wtihout some images. Why don't you send us some video so we can see what you are talking about?