Ground Shots... Continued

Remark:

The key to net charging is timing. I see a lot of times the players hit a strong shot and follow it up with a net charge but lose the point or do not even meet the ball. Why? That is because they did not anticipaate right and if they did, did not move up fast enough and missed the ball entirely. Then, I see them standing, wondering with the hands on the hips! I call this phenomenon "Missing the Whole Big Ball". More on this phenomenon later, see infra. I have seen Federer doing that a lot, at critical moments. His anticipation is good but he does not get up to the ball often. I call this element as being "Slow Footed". I rarely see Nadal missing the whole big ball. He does not just get to the net, he actually dashes to it and always takes a high volley which of course is elementary. He rarely misses on the net wheareas Federer misses quite a bit.

End of Remark.

Now we will find some more convinving arguments to convince you of the need for strong ground shots. I will do this by presenting many cases and analysing the situation purely analytically. The analysis is not exhaustive but I will keep adding scenarios as I find them or see them.

Case 1:

Net Play with You Serving

First of all if you cannot control the placement of your serve, do not even bother with the net charge since a poor placement will give the ball in the opponent's hand most probably. I mean they may have to take less than 2 steps. In that case your serve is going to get crushed even if it is a canon ball seve or a kick or slice. This is because you are playing world class players and your serve is not going to intimidate anybody. It will be a probem for them only if you can place it.  To win, you must know your own capabilities. If your serve is not that strong, do not make it worse by following it up on the net. Not going to work. Case in  point is Mardy Fish. He has a fairly good seve but is not something that the opponents cannot read. I have seen him making repeated attempts at the net following his serve. His net game is not a problem for the players. Indeed he makes more points by just keeping the ball in play and waiting for them to miss one. He has a pretty good reach and retrievability. It is this consistency that is winning him the last year's matches and some today. He could do even better by not charging the net and using his good ground strokes instead.

Lesson:

Know your serve. If you cannot fully control its placemnnt, Do not bother with the net. The results will only discourage/disappoint you even more.

Case in Point:

In one of the seven matches that Djokovic beat Nadal in, at the very end of the match, Djokiovic served out wide in the add court. His serve as you know, is not that powerful. It can be countered. But since it was a quite a bit out, and Nadal did not expect him to follow it to the net, Djokovic sneaked up right after the serve and killed a backhand volley on Nadal's forehand side. That was masterful play. Notice that he usually does not charge the net but will, when he sees an advantage. Great perception and guile. I guess these are the things that make for the differences in players. It is not for nothing, that Djokovic beats so many people. He knows his strong points. One of those is his control from the baseline and NOT net play.

Continuing, let us assume now that you have control over your serve so you can place it halfway decent. What are your options? Let us assume you are serving in the duce court and you are serving wide. Assume also you served quitre wide (remember we assumed you had control over serve placement). If you were playing a non top-ten person, they may not be able to return at all. Then you are done. You got your point and the net play did not get it for you.

If  you are playing a top 10 player, they will have read your serve and can return it running from outside the net over and into your backhand side. This will more or less be a down the line shot. So since the serve is so wide and you served at least a 100 miles an hour serve, you cannot  run to the net fast enough and so the return will come at your feet if you do not miss it entirely. Even if you had a chance at the ball, the volley canot be  killed since you are going to be unstable and your return volley will be week. It will get killed by the opponents in the next shot. I see that repeatedly. Instead you have a stronger response. Stay back, or rather move slightly to your left and simply tap the ball back with your back hand into the opponent's back hand side. Indeed that is the whole point of serving out wide to get the court vacated. Your serve gives you an advantage and control over the play. So you already have an advantage and control over the soon to follow (if at all) rally. But if you charge the net, you not only neutralize this advantage, you actually give them the control back and that right on your own serve. You are actually trying to build an advantage on top of an advantagfe, commonly known as greed and you know the results of that. You lose even that which was secure and guranteed and you had it.

It is actally even worse. Remember, we assumed that you were playing a top- 10 player. Then they may actually hit a good down the line shot, closer to the line. In that case even a slow medium shot will be out of your reah, and your net charge would look pretty suicidal. If the ball is not a liner and you followed to the net, it is still not favorable for you since your return volley will, at best be a week one, see above or will be in your feet. Not good. If  the return does come to our backhand side and you do get on the net, you could have a chance at the volley, but then they know that scenario and chances are that they are not going to let you have that approach too many times. You will have to use variety and guile, see above about Djokovic, and using a particular strategy and concentration can be fatiguing if you are not setup for that ( a lot of matches are lost because of this psychological dimension, see nfra) and that is another dimention of your game, see infra. I will hazard a guess that most people playing have a limited ability for concentration and pretty soon they are swinging the racket as best as they can and forget all about strategy and plan. So looked this way there is another cost of playing on the net. It is taking someting out of you and you may not have too much of that to begin with.

Case in Point:

Have you seen how Jelena Jankovic play? She has great PNL, see the article for that. Her miss rate is quite low and yet she loses to just about anybody lately. She is basically a baseline player which is OK but she makes no effort to make a point. She waits for the point to be ceded the opponent. She was doing much better earlier since the women' tennis was not that fast and powerful as it is today. In this day and age the women are hitting balls a lot harder and their body weight and height is greater and so the older players are not going to last too long unless they use some strategy to compensate. She cannot concentrate on any stategy. She just puts the forehnd ball to the forehand and backhand to the back almost routinely. she does not seem to be making an effort to get a point but rather just waiting for the oponent to drop one. She lacks the critical dimension that I will call "cunning". Basically she is just striking the ball and that is all. That is not tennis. I hope her coach can help her see that. For otherwise she is done. I am sorry. The lesson? If you play on the net or charge a lot, you will be losing your concentration and depleting your limited resource of 'cunning'.

I do not think that is what you are going to want to do. But then why people do charge the net so much? Because the net charging is like a lot of activity, motion and fighting and gives you the impression that you are really trying and putting in a valiant effort. It is something psychological. But a seasoned player does not confuse a lot of action with a lot of effort. Basically you are just playing games of perception with yourself and I would not recommend that. This is the translation when the players say that "oh , I am going to be aggressive..." . This means basically that they will be either charging the net a lot or playing recklessly from the baseline. They usually lose pretty bad or early. Case in point, Bethany-Matic Sands has that style of play. She is basically playing for show and not for wining. In general, if you are working too hard to to get something, there is something wrong. Have you seen Nadal play. The guy just about kills himself to get even the simplest match. I do not know about you but I do not want to struggle too hard simply to get something. I can do without success. In fact, I can do without many things AND THAT is the biggest Success. On wards and upwards.

Technical Aside:

The sever is supposed to have an advantage. The point is to serve the way you want to, to start the point, with control on your side and dictaate the play or the rally to follow but if you charge the net you are basically gambling and putting at risk that which was supposedly secure. I mean what is the hurry? You do have control and it will be only a matter of time before the opponent loses the point. Why expose your self to risk? By not charging you get the ball in play and you give yourself a chance to win the point. But if you charge the net you do not give yourself a chance even. What a shame! Watch Federer play. It takes him about a minute to get his service game most of the time. If the opponent is lucky enough to get a racket on his serve, he is quick to get up there and kill the short or week return and then moves quietly to the other side to seve the next point without even moving a muscle in his face. He follows this serve to the net usually only when he has a sustantial lead and can afford to squander a point or to test some play item of his own. He used to charge the net a lot in his earlier years but not now.

Lesson:

The point of the serve is to keep the opponent off balance. Do not give it up by charging the net. You deny yourself the chance that you had to create, use and take a point easily. And you did not.

The Fundamental Key to win any and all matches:

This is dealt with by a seoparate article. It is very simple but very hard to do. Click here for details. I do not care what your coach told you or what your family told you, if you do not follow or cannot follow my fundamental key you cannot win many matches. For details click here. You will and are paying thousand s of dollars for coaching but I give you the top secrets for nothing!

To continue the analysis...

If the opponent is hitting the ball cross court on your forehand side ( pretty hard to do since they are outside the court but can be done) you have even bigger problems. This is because such an outside serve is rarely hittable cross court and your natural reaction will be to stay on your left had side since you will expect a shot on your left side. But if they are sucessful in putting the ball cross court you have this to deal with. Your racket will naturally cover your down the line side. Again because of your serve speed you will be short on time and the volley will come down on your feet again, giving you little control and even loss of the point since even you are not going to be expecting it on the forehand side.

    The situation can be even worse if the opponent hits a 'chhota' shot on your forhand side. Then you will be done, slince you canot take that even if you did not charge the net. If you did charge the net, you will not met the ball.

If the opponent did not hit a chhota, you may be able to charge the net and make a lunging volley with your forehand but it might be week or an arching volley or a half volley. You will probably lose the point in the net or your week volley will be killed in the next shot by the opponent. I have seen this repeatedly. You should be able to see this analytically. You are serving fast and the return is going to be fast ( the opponents can only take a running shot at it and hence the return will be fast) and you just cannot run that fast to the net to get the ball. The only redeeming feature is that the opponent may miss his running shot or returns via a lob. But we assumed we were playing a top ten player. They will have read your serve style already and will be prepared for it. This may work but the chances are small, and if you are not the top volleyer you will put it in the net too as many do when charging after the seve because of the very nature of the attack and the imbalance that goes with it. Even if this works once, they will read it and the next time it is going to be more tough. I have seen players charge the net on there serve 3 times in a row and lose every time! I saw Federer do thnis in paticular. Do we learn?

Instead, you could stay on the baseline, take a step forward and take their return on your backhand and hit cross court and then follow that to the net if you want to but probably will not need to since they are way out of the court and a medium return to the empty court will get you the pint. Federer does that often and simply taps the ball ball to the empyt court with his one handed backhand. But ofcourse he has the supreme element of calm  to do that with and most players do not have that.

If on the other hand the opponent sends the ball in the duce crourt on your right side (the ball is short but not chhota) you will still have less time since it could fall in the duce court (if they are really clever and have control) or if they are are really good the ball may have a good length and then you will not even meet the ball. But in both cases you may have a chance to get the ball in play if you stay back. If you slice the serve, then you may get the ball pounded back although it may get you more time to the net. If you kick the seve in again and again they will know what to expect. But even if they do not expect it they can take a step up and pound that seve . Remember you are playing top 10 players. Or if you are serving high they may return high and wait for an opportunity to kill the ball. Watch Federer, he simply taps a strong serve back in to get the ball in play and then waits for an oportunithy to kill it.

Bottom line is this. Serves are a lot fasgter than ground strokes. Therefore, going to the net after a serve will  not give you enough time to get up to the net. Even if you do get there because of your unstable posiition you may not be able to produce a killing volley and the opponent will kill your week return volley. Also rushing to the net is costly in terms of your stamina and energy level. Even if you win your service game, you will be exhausted more for the next service game from the opponent and you will not or have little chance to break them. If this patterns is repeated, you will eventually be broken.

Case in Point

Watch Mardy fish charge the net after a serve out wide in the duce court. Since the net charge is inherently unstable and because of lack of time, he usually gets a back hand volley and since he is late (there is not enough time, that is not his fault) he makes an awakward arching volley back which gives the opponents ample time to go get and kill it. The idea of the net is to take the time away from the opponent but you end up giving the opponent the time and the  shot to kill. The arching slow volley is simply a reflection of the  lack of time and the wrong position where you had to take it and hence is not going to be any advantage for you. If your volleys are of the arching type you should know your net play is dead wrong. You will be broken eventually.

If you serve down the T, then  remember that they will have could have taken a step  to covet their back hand and will go with their forhand to your back hand and the ball will go by you and you will just be looking at the ball go by you. They all cover their back hand, a practice I do not approve of but is very common. It is just so clumsy and can be a disadvantage for you over all since you end up leaving a lot of court uncovered. In the now classical seven-match win over Nadal, Djokovic was pounding his back hand again and again  and then just when Nadal would expect the ball on his back hand, he would put it in the empty court. Although not  germain to the topic here, but if you ever want a point from your opponent just press their back hand relentlessly and even let them expect it. It is very over whelming when you do that no matter who you are playing, see infra.

So even if you serve down the T the situation is not much differnet. 

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