Hitting Deep.....Anyone?

[shavenyak]

Just curious, when I learned to play the focus was on hitting the ball deep. If you didn't hit the ball (at the very least) in the back half of the baseline box your opponent would make the approach (or put it away) and you were hosed.

Watching Wimbledon and the US Open this year, it's not uncommon to see players routinely hit balls that bounce INSIDE the service line with little to no penalty. Is there not as much benefit to consistently hitting deep anymore?

 

[Andres]

With the insane ammount of spin the players are hitting with these days, the ball still reaches the returning player around the baseline.

If a shot lands short and stays short, it's breakfast time, but most of the time, the ball still reaches the baseline.

 

[paulfreda]

Also, the game has become mostly a baseliners game and far few player will take the net. So hitting short often is not penalized unless it is sitting up high for a putaway.

But hitting deep is strategy fundamental # 1 for most good players. Cuts angles down, keeps opponent on defense and takes time away from him.

 

[Cup8489]

with the amount of spin most groundstrokes have now, even if the ball lands short, it will kick up enough that you'd have to be pretty adept at taking the ball on the rise to take advantage of it landing short.

 

[BreakPoint]

Just curious, when I learned to play the focus was on hitting the ball deep. If you didn't hit the ball (at the very least) in the back half of the baseline box your opponent would make the approach (or put it away) and you were hosed.

Watching Wimbledon and the US Open this year, it's not uncommon to see players routinely hit balls that bounce INSIDE the service line with little to no penalty. Is there not as much benefit to consistently hitting deep anymore?

Because very few pros, especially women, have any idea how to take a short ball and attack it with an approach shot and follow it to the net to put away the volley.

Did you see the women's final tonight? Did someone tell Jankovic that you are not allowed to cross the service line during a point or else you lose the point, like a foot fault?

 

[J011yroger]

It is very obvious from watching that they are 4.0 players at best, because following TW logic, balls hit that short would be punished at the 4.5+ level.

J

 

[coloskier]

Just curious, when I learned to play the focus was on hitting the ball deep. If you didn't hit the ball (at the very least) in the back half of the baseline box your opponent would make the approach (or put it away) and you were hosed.

Watching Wimbledon and the US Open this year, it's not uncommon to see players routinely hit balls that bounce INSIDE the service line with little to no penalty. Is there not as much benefit to consistently hitting deep anymore?

This is the reason why Nadal got beat by Murray. Murray waited for a short topspin backhand from Nadal, and then pounced.

 

[alfa164164]

I forget which coach (maybe Paul Annacone) making a comment along the lines of your question. Bacially you are right that in the past the focus was on depth, but I believe this top level coach was saying his focus was on creating angles in the court, regardless of the depth of shot. It was this opening up of the court that created opportunities in the modern game, not the depth. It struck my because it was such a quantum leap / paradigm shift in strategy.

 

[bhupaes]

After watching lots of pros playing, I would say that even at that exalted level, short balls do matter - although they do come at a very fast clip and jump pretty high. It seems to give the receiver a lot more time to prepare and to change direction (for pros, anyway). I remember watching Agassi at the SAP open in San Jose, and he was hitting every ball within two feet of the baseline.

 

[Power Player]

It's a good observation, because I noticed a lot of Nadal's shots were bouncing around the service line.

 

[GuyClinch]

The high level players I hit with - hit such that the ball seems to "jump" after it lands. This provides "effective" depth even if the ball doesn't physically land that far back.

It is very obvious from watching that they are 4.0 players at best, because following TW logic, balls hit that short would be punished at the 4.5+ level.

If you watch videos of pushers though YOU SHOULD BE finishing those short balls. It's not like pushers hit with that kind of action..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YxD3xyfuEQ

Those are the kind of balls rec players deal with. And 4.0 players CAN deal with them.



Pete