Okay, so I've been having trouble returning short, low balls. Now these aren't drop shots, but they are just topspin strokes that, for whatever reason, bounce well inside the service box, stay quite low, and have their second bounce around the service line. The problem I've been having is that they just bounce twice so soon that I am barely able to get there, and they are perfectly disguised since I don't think even my opponent was trying to hit them. I don't know how to return these... they are too low to hit a good approach shot on, about the only thing I can do is slice it back, but sometimes I couldn't even get there in time since the topspin pulls it back down for the 2nd bounce so quickly.
How to hit these [probably unintentional] "topspin drop shots" back?
Anticipation of short balls is the most important thing in tennis. If a ball is low over the net, it'll probably be short (unless he hits through the ball REALLY well and both of you hit with crazy amounts of pace). If the ball dips early (or before or right as it gets to the net), it'll be short (unless it was like hit from his baseline and went 3+ feet over the net, it'll have decent depth and bounce).
Now, once you recognize the short ball, move up quickly! Those extra 3-4 steps can mean the difference between a winner and an unforced error. I've occasionally caught these so early I've hit full swinging half volley approach shot winners off of these while running through them (albeit from pure luck, but I was comfortable hitting the ball from that low; you can pretty much tell it's from luck when you read that I ran through them even though they were hit cleanly and placed perfectly :shock
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Recognition and anticipation is the key to playing high level tennis. Every missed step adds like a 70% chance that you can't return the ball, probably more. You miss one step and you're REALLY lucky to play a decent ball back. After anticipation is footwork and preparation. Then the stroke itself. Of course, there are other factors like fitness and mental strength, but let's not discuss those yet.
A good split step doesn't just get you on balance and help lower your center of gravity, but it loads your muscles to take a quick burst of a first step when you need it. I can get 2 full steps in before the ball crosses the net on a big shot with a split step and my current shot recognition and anticipation skills (excluding the split step). That is HUGE for me. People who are better than me (especially pros) can probably get 3 or even 3 and a half! That's half the court! If I didn't use a split step and started from a standing position, I might be able to get a half a step in, 1 if I'm REALLY lucky and faster than I thought. But the burst split step only works if you were on balance before you started it. If you weren't on balance, you'll be back on balance, but you won't be able to burst out in one direction nearly as quickly because your body just regained it's balance and wasn't fully prepared to move in all directions. In this case, you'll still be much faster than if you didn't split step. That's why we look to knock our opponents off balance. If we do it well, they won't be as quick out of their split step. If we pull someone wide and get them off balance, if they want to cover the other side of the court, a split step will actually slow them down, and using a split step to cover shots going behind them will increase their odds of getting to that ball greatly, but their first step will still be about 50% slower! That's why the best time to strike is when an opponent is off balance.
Sorry about going off on a tangent, but I felt I had to mention my feelings on how important these things are. An advanced split step is VERY important to responding to high speed shots. Also, if you all haven't noticed already, I usually tend to put up a lot of info, going into detail about everything I think about a subject.
