At the other club I played with you were supposed to try to win off the feed. The coach would even feed some overheads - and yes they said they expect you should win those. I never played where you are not supposed to try to win off the feed and if they want you to start with a certain type of hit they would always say so. (at least as far as I know) I think the people at this other club played this drill enough that they didn't need to be told no drop shots or angled volleys off the feed, and perhaps I should have known, but I had no idea at all. If the coach thought it was too easy I thought they would give harder feeds plus both sides had equal time at the net and baseline so I thought the idea was to try to get as many points as you could when you were at the net.
If I am at the baseline I try to win off the feed as well. If the net players are too far up I will even hit a lob off the feed. Is that bad form? It seems if the baseline player hits the feed and hits at the net players the person at the net can immediately put that away. Is that the normal course or should we try to hit back and forth a bit before going for a winner? I typically try not to approach the net off the feed and usually not until the point gets going. Any other clinic drill unspoken rules?
Exactly--yeah, I've played drills with some overheads and one is supposed to go for the winners there, but again, as I said, one should think about the goals of the drill. The overhead drills where one tries to hit them well is a bit different. If one considers the drill with overheads taken "aggressively", it does accomplish something for both the attacker and defender. The feeds will resemble (weak) balls that could occur in play so the attacker is practicing something that would occur in play as well as the defenders. Most of the time the 'volley' feeds don't really match balls that would be seen in play, so putting those away don't do anything realistic for either side.
And yeah, typically when both opponents are at the net and the feed is to the baseline, lobs are prohibited off the feed. Once the play starts, then all bets are off. The point of that drill is for the baseline players to get more comfortable hitting better/harder shots at the net people (and perhaps noticing that no, the net players won't typically immediately put the first ball away, at least if it's hit well) and for the net players to get comfortable at the net (not running back for lobs). One of the things the coach mentions is to make the opponents volley at least once (so don't go for a lob or a passing shot). This is partly because a good first shot will make the opponents volley up, and that second shot will be in a more favorable position.
I've also seen for self-fed rallying drills/games that there might be a rule to have the ball pass the net at least three times before the point "starts" just so the ball can approach a normal type of flight before people try to win the point. So I'd say that (unless it's the overhead drill) trying to win off the feed* is defeating the purpose of the drill. And even for the overhead drills, there seems to be an understood rule to not go for sharp angles.
*Note, that doesn't mean that one can't try for a hard, dipping shot at the net for the feeds to the baseline when people are at the net
