Is "Hit on the rise" another candidate for Myths section?

[maverick1]

First, I will admit that I am not a good Tennis player(about 3.5). I don't want to type the annoying IMHO in front of every sentence, but that is implied

I am wondering whether it ever pays to deliberately take the ball early and on the rise.

OK, you rob the opponent of a fraction of second in reaction time. But disadvantages seem to be too many.
You have to judge the bounce of the ball before playing the shot rather than seeing how the ball actually bounces before swinging. That introdces a lot of error. Even the best in this business, Agassi, seems to use abbreviated , thru-the-line strokes to reduce his errors. That has to be affecting the potential pace and topspin he can put on the shot. Doesn't that offset the advantage of reducing the opponent's reaction time?
For lesser mortals than Agassi, won't the errors be too many?

Does any current pro actually take the ball early on purpose? I am not talking about returning kick serves or returning very deep balls for which they are caught out of position. Say a groundstroke is landing slightly short with typical pro pace and topspin while the receiver is near the baseline. Is there any evidence that, in this situation, pros prefer to rush forward to take it on the rise as opposed to waiting for it to reach the peak of its bounce and teeing off with a powerful forehand?

[johnyandell]

Well Agassi did it on thousands and thousand of balls. Federer does it all the time. Youzny did it at the Open and beat Nadal. Safin does it. Bahgdatis, Andy Murray. I could go. I mean all the attacking baseliners.

Remember a lot of pro balls would bounce over the shoulder if they didn't play it early or move back and elevate.

The flaw in your thinking is that what the pros do or don't do here might to 3.5 tennis. It's a bad idea if the basic stroke patterns are flawed in any way.

[jayfro]

First, I will admit that I am not a good Tennis player(about 3.5). I don't want to type the annoying IMHO in front of every sentence, but that is implied

I am wondering whether it ever pays to deliberately take the ball early and on the rise.

OK, you rob the opponent of a fraction of second in reaction time. But disadvantages seem to be too many.
You have to judge the bounce of the ball before playing the shot rather than seeing how the ball actually bounces before swinging. That introdces a lot of error. Even the best in this business, Agassi, seems to use abbreviated , thru-the-line strokes to reduce his errors. That has to be affecting the potential pace and topspin he can put on the shot. Doesn't that offset the advantage of reducing the opponent's reaction time?
For lesser mortals than Agassi, won't the errors be too many?

Does any current pro actually take the ball early on purpose? I am not talking about returning kick serves or returning very deep balls for which they are caught out of position. Say a groundstroke is landing slightly short with typical pro pace and topspin while the receiver is near the baseline. Is there any evidence that, in this situation, pros prefer to rush forward to take it on the rise as opposed to waiting for it to reach the peak of its bounce and teeing off with a powerful forehand?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ9ZgENI7Yo Fed Versus Paradorn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7myEuOLItE&mode=related&search=

Agassi versus Fed 2005 US Open. Even the mighty Andre backs up when need be.

[johnyandell]

Well said. You saved me an article!

[maverick1]

I understand that pros do hit on the rise quite a lot, and they are more than capable of it. I also understand that I, as a 3.5 player, am better off trying to avoid hitting on the rise. If anything, I am the one being skeptical about the benefits of hitting on the rise.

But is it ever BETTER to hit on the rise, even for top pros? Given the choice of hitting a ball on the rise from a certain point on the court or hitting it from a further 5 feet back in court when it has reached its peak bounce, which would the pros prefer? Assume it is equally easy to be at either position, and assume the ball height is equally comfortable in both cases(say in one case the ball is a little below optimal height and in the other a little above optimal).

If the answer to the question is NO, then you have a legitimate candidate for the "myths" section because qute a few coaches speak of it as a desirable goal, to "take the ball early as possible".

PS: Although I am inexperienced at Tennis, I do have some background that causes me to be skeptical about hitting on the rise. I played Cricket very seriously most of my life, including for my college. The issue of where the ball bounces relative to the batsman's( "hitter" in baseball terms) position, called "length", is the primary factor that makes a ball hard to hit. The basic goal of the bowler("pitcher") is to land the ball on a spot that forces the batsman to hit on the rise if he wants to score. If the bowler errs on either side, the batsman is hitting either a half-volley or waiting for the ball to get "closer to the peak of the bounce", and usually both are easy to score off. But hitting on the rise is unsafe at every level of Cricket. The Australian Glenn McGrath has become the most succesful fast bowler in history by virtue of one thing only - an exceptional ability to land the ball at a precise spot.

[johnyandell]

I can't really speak about the cricket analogy although from what I've seen it's a lot harder to get clean contact than in tennis.

But you don't have to make anaolgies to see that the ball is hit on the way up all the time by the top players. I think they know what they are doing and why.

This ability is one of the things that separates the mini-levels at the very top of the game. It's why Federer with his compact swings and classic grips can hit the other players off the court.

[maverick1]

Sorry John, I don't mean to be a pest. But there is a miscommunication here. I am happy to read and learn from anything you have to say on Tennis. You always write something insightful, and more importantly, well substantiated. But I feel my question remains unaddressed.

I never asked if the pros CAN or DO hit on the rise. Nor did I ever ask if a 3.5 player should learn to hit on the rise. The replies have all addressed these questions.

My main point/question in the original post was: " I am wondering whether it ever pays to deliberately take the ball early and on the rise."
In my previous post, I elaborated the same thing as I clearly as I am capable of. But that question has not been addressed

What you have said is that the pros do hit on the rise all the time. But that could be ONLY because they have no choice. You pointed out yourself that at the pro level, the ball is hit so fast and can bounce so high that there is no choice most of the time but hit on the rise.

jayfro made the point about the player needing to adjust to the ball and not the other way. He also made some other good points that are probably helpful to most of us, but that post was even further from addressing my question.

I can't tell from your posts if you agree or disagree with me that given a choice between hitting on the rise and hitting at the peak, a pro would want to hit at the peak, even if it means hitting from farther behind on the court.

I don't know if you agree that there is a belief ("myth"?) among some coaches that the top players deliberately take the ball on the rise, in order to cut down the reaction time of the opponent.

I looked at the Fed/Nadal forehand videos you recently posted, where you asked for observations about their hand movements. What I noticed was that each hit the shot a little more on the backfoot than his typical forehand. Anytime someone leans a little on the backfoot, what that tells me is that they are wishing they had a little more room between the bounce of the ball and their point of contact so they could watch the movement of the ball after the bounce a little bit better. In other words, they are wishing they didn't have to hit on the rise so much.
Both of them could have been leaning forward more into their shots and hit it a foot closer to the net but then that would have meant taking the ball a bit more "on the rise". I see those videos as supporting my hypothesis that even the best players prefer not to have to hit on the rise.

[johnyandell]

The players that hit on the rise are doing it because they prefer to, or chose to. And because of the results they produce. Yes, it pays if you can. It definitely takes time away,

Again that is the point about Federer off the ground like Agassi before him. Nadal and Hewitt are at the other extreme. But don't confuse hitting on the rise with the stance--many or most the balls Roger hits on the rise are semi open.

In general it is more difficult which is why you see more players stand further back with more extreme grips. Either they learned with those grips which make it more difficult. Or the difficulty pushed them to the grips. Or it's their mental style. So in that sense, for some players, yeah they "like" it further back. I've said all this before.

Some are inbetween. Lendl once told me that hitting on the rise was much more difficult but he had to when he played McEnroe. Against other player he didn't. So it wasn't a question of "prefering" it was a question of what worked. That's in the middle.

That's as clear as I can make my view. So if you remain unconvinced, let's agree to disagree.

[maverick1]

Ok, John.
Thanks for answering.

[jhm36]

Hi Guys,

On a specific tactical level I often have trouble when playing someone who usually hits the ball at its peak or later if they take the ball early. It can really catch me by surprise and suddenly they've hit a winner when I had been able to get to most of their balls.

So yeah, at least playing against me, taking the ball on occasion can leave me flat-footed and watching the ball fly by me and give the other person an advantage.

It seems to me like I'm having a startled stiff legged response to the hit. It doesn't seem like the problem really is that the court has been shorted by the person stepping in and taking the ball early or that I'm robbed of that tiny amount of time that I'm use to having by them hitting the ball early. It's more like my mind freezes for bit when I see that the ball has been hit early, that something unusual has happened, and by the time my mind unlocks and I get to moving my feet that the balls is out of reach.

I get use to reading the body lanauge and swing of the other person and when they change that and come out with something new and agressive like taking the ball earlier the little computer in my mind has trouble dealing with the change and locks up every so slightly, but that's still long enough to cause me a lot of trouble getting the ball back. I'm caught by surprise, and surprise freezes me up. It's similiar when someone pulls a dropshot on me out of nowhere. "Huh?" my brain seems to say, wasting time when it should be saying "run get that ball."

That 'stalling' in my mind seems to be causing me more trouble than the other person shortening the court by taking the ball early. Anybody ever actually measures how much time difference there is from hitting a ball early and waiting until it peaks or drops a bit? Is it really a large enough of a difference to be causing trouble for people to return the balls? Could be, of course, I've just never seen in numbers.

Another way to ask this could be what's the difference between letting the ball peak and hitting it harder than normal and taking the ball early when both methods send the ball through the court in the same amount of time.

Right now I feel like I'd rather play against someone who stood back and hit the ball very hard than face someone who was good at taking the ball early.

This sort of thing address any of Maverkick1's concerns?

[jayfro]

First, I will admit that I am not a good Tennis player(about 3.5). I don't want to type the annoying IMHO in front of every sentence, but that is implied

I am wondering whether it ever pays to deliberately take the ball early and on the rise.

OK, you rob the opponent of a fraction of second in reaction time. But disadvantages seem to be too many.
You have to judge the bounce of the ball before playing the shot rather than seeing how the ball actually bounces before swinging. That introdces a lot of error. Even the best in this business, Agassi, seems to use abbreviated , thru-the-line strokes to reduce his errors. That has to be affecting the potential pace and topspin he can put on the shot. Doesn't that offset the advantage of reducing the opponent's reaction time?
For lesser mortals than Agassi, won't the errors be too many?

Does any current pro actually take the ball early on purpose? I am not talking about returning kick serves or returning very deep balls for which they are caught out of position. Say a groundstroke is landing slightly short with typical pro pace and topspin while the receiver is near the baseline. Is there any evidence that, in this situation, pros prefer to rush forward to take it on the rise as opposed to waiting for it to reach the peak of its bounce and teeing off with a powerful forehand?

I am wondering whether it ever pays to deliberately take the ball early and on the rise.

For players below a 5.0 level taking the ball consistantly early probably isn't a realistic option. Let it settle or drop slightly, technique plays a key role in being able to use this strategy effectively.

Say a groundstroke is landing slightly short with typical pro pace and topspin while the receiver is near the baseline. Is there any evidence that, in this situation, pros prefer to rush forward to take it on the rise as opposed to waiting for it to reach the peak of its bounce and teeing off with a powerful forehand?

In this situation I would say most pros would let the ball settle and take a rip at it from wherever they happen to be. I don't think for instance they would try to short hop the ball at the 1-2 foot mark simply to take more time away if the ball will "settle" somewhere between the thighs and shoulders. It's better to let it settle and have better control over the shot you're about to hit.

I hope that answers the questions you had.

[maverick1]

In this situation I would say most pros would let the ball settle and take a rip at it from wherever they happen to be. I don't think for instance they would try to short hop the ball at the 1-2 foot mark simply to take more time away if the ball will "settle" somewhere between the thighs and shoulders. It's better to let it settle and have better control over the shot you're about to hit.

I hope that answers the questions you had.

Yes, thank you.
I think this is very close to, if not the same as what I believed.