how to improve my defense ability

[tonygao]

recently I have been playing against many players who are 0.5 to 1.0 above me. after losing lots of matches, I just realized that the biggest gap between me and them is not in the ability to attack, but in defense. under pressure they can still return deep and retrieve the sharp angles shots. but me, the quality of my return becomes very poor as soon as the incoming shot is deep and heavy. and with sharp angle shots, I can only return one or two,and then, a winner or a force error will end the point.

so how to improve it? just doing lots of running to improve my mobility? is there any other drills or specific exercises?

 

[JohnMartin]

the key to make quality return on powerful shots is balance.

even if you are on the dead run, you should be able to hold your finish for a couple of seconds (if you want to).

see how Murray defend.... how quiet his head/upper body is... a great model to copy.

I would not copy Djokovic - too much head movement..... not something average people can do.

 

[user92626]

so how to improve it? just doing lots of running to improve my mobility? is there any other drills or specific exercises?

It's simple. Start doing a lot of the the stuff that you want to do. Familiarize yourself with the actions. That's all.

Try these "exercises":

-Get a bucket of balls, position yourself at odd places and lob the balls into court.

-Rally with random skilled people and determine to get every ball back that you can get your racket on. Not just balls that are in and nice.

-Do new players a favor. Hit with them and act like a ball machine. Run down and put every shot back to their middle of the court.

I play 3vs3 occasionally. My lobbing and passing and retrieving skill isn't too bad. You learn by doing.

 

[GoudX]

My defensive play microguide:

First things first, it helps to be healthy, with strong legs, a high lactate threshold and good cardio if you want to defend well enough to effect the outcome of points then you need to be able to be able to run down enough good shots in a row that it pressures your opponent into making a mistake.

It is very important to position yourself well, start by making sure you are recovering to cut off the angles - you want to be half way between the down the line shot and the angled cross court rather than on the centre mark.

You must also make sure you are keeping well balanced and reacting quickly, you need to work on split stepping whenever you need to react, and positioning your feet/body when hitting on the run.

As far as actually swinging the racquet goes: You want to set up with a very compact swing, as you want as much control as possible. Your goal is to hit a shot which is difficult for your opponent to attack consistently and which buys you time to recover. There are three types of shot that work very well when defending: the first is a deep topspin lob which buys time due to it's depth, and is hard to attack due to its depth and kick so the opponent will struggle to take the ball early. The next is a blocked half volley, where you take the ball early and redirect it to the open court - which buys you time as it is not particularly fast and is hard to attack as it forces your opponent to hit on the run. Finally a low slice, or a floating slice with lots of spin will stop your opponent from being able to attack as effectively, and will buy you time.

 

[anubis]

recently I have been playing against many players who are 0.5 to 1.0 above me. after losing lots of matches, I just realized that the biggest gap between me and them is not in the ability to attack, but in defense. under pressure they can still return deep and retrieve the sharp angles shots. but me, the quality of my return becomes very poor as soon as the incoming shot is deep and heavy. and with sharp angle shots, I can only return one or two,and then, a winner or a force error will end the point.

so how to improve it? just doing lots of running to improve my mobility? is there any other drills or specific exercises?

Two things that can immediately help your game:

1. Court positioning. You're likely simply out of position and therefore scrambling to get the ball. If your opponent is to the left of the center line, then you stay slightly to the right of the center line... and vice versa. If he's in the middle, you should be in the middle. Always make small adjustments, even after you've hit the shot. Never just stand there with your feet flat on the ground.
   
2. Go for more depth. There's an exponential relationship between how defensive you have to be with how short your shot is. The shorter your shot, the more defensive you have to be. The deeper, the less defensive (and more aggressive) you can be. If all your shots are painting the service line, then it's really no wonder.

good luck!

 

[LeeD]

To me, most important is to have a specific target when forced to run, or playing defensive shots.
While it's mostly going to be a sharp CC to the opposite corner, it can be DTL or even sharp short angle CC's.
You have to decide beforehand, and hit that shot until it's proven not to work out for you.
None of your lazy stretching retrieves that go slow, high, and up the middle.

 

[tonygao]

To me, most important is to have a specific target when forced to run, or playing defensive shots.
While it's mostly going to be a sharp CC to the opposite corner, it can be DTL or even sharp short angle CC's.
You have to decide beforehand, and hit that shot until it's proven not to work out for you.
None of your lazy stretching retrieves that go slow, high, and up the middle.

I thought high loopy and deep returns up the middle are good defensive shots, am I wrong?

 

[DefensiveTennis]

I thought high loopy and deep returns up the middle are good defensive shots, am I wrong?

Deep down the middle that has sufficient pace and spin that does not make it attackable for whatever level you are at is a good defensive shot.

 

[dominikk1985]

more explosive first step. with the first step you really want to cover a lot of ground. concentrate on really exploding off that outside leg after the hit and on the first step after split step. you will be a lot earlier on a lot of balls.

http://www.virtualtennisacademy.com/videoplayer/index.php?action=detail&id=581

many players are starting out too easy and then try to accelerate when it is too late.

 

[Topspin Shot]

Check out my guide to footwork. It might help.

Here's a quick little one minute guide to some footwork techniques. It doesn't cover everything because A) I don't have time and B) I can't think of everything.

1. The split step. What you do every time the other guy hits the ball. You want to time your hop, which can be off both feet or one, so you are at the top of the hop when the other guy is at his contact point. By the time you land, you should know where you have to go. If you have to go to the right, land on your left leg and push off. If you have to go to the left, land on your right leg and push off.
2. The steps in between the split step and your setup for your shot are kind of intermediate steps. They should be fairly small, but don't overdo the smallness. Oftentimes, you'll want to take bigger steps if the ball is farther away. Line the ball up with your back leg.
3. When you are about to hit the ball, you have to get your back leg down first. The back leg is the important one, the leg you plant so you can get a strong foundation. If you have time, you can always step with your front leg just before or during your shot. This goes for volleys as well as groundstrokes. Reaction volleys are often hit from open stances, whereas volleys where you have more time often involve stepping with the front leg during the hit, not before the hit.
4. After you hit the ball, you have to recover. Pivot off your back leg, which should still be planted on the ground. If you leave the ground during your shot, make sure to get the back leg back down. Often, the back leg will the outside leg. Recover to the spot where your opponent's reply is most likely to come. A bit of a crossover step with your outside leg crossing over in front of your inside leg may be necessary. Simple court geometry. If you're at net, you want to be positioned more to cover the down the line pass, whereas if you're at the baseline, you want to be ready to cover the crosscourt shot more.
5. Once you've recovered, just hang out there with your weight on the balls of your feet until your opponent is about to strike the ball. At that point, it's time to hit the split step again.

Rinse and repeat. And when you serve, you've got to split step when your opponent returns the ball. When you return, you have to split step when your opponent serves the ball.

 

[Shroud]

Do you practice defense?

One thing that really helps me is to practice. I'll hit against the wall and purposely hit every shot cross court. This forces you to run like crazy. So a forehand cc against the wall means you have to run way over to the backhand side. Then when you get there, hit a cc backhand that forces you to run way to the forehand side, and just repeat as a long as you can.

This is hard to do for long. Slice works the best and if you keep doing this drill, you get in better shape, get quicker, and practice your defensive shots.

 

[rkelley]

Lots of good answers on this thread. The basic takeaway should be that there's no one, easy answer, but there's certainly a lot you can do.

You can kind of break this down into two parts: getting there and doing something once you've arrived.

The getting there part is first and probably most important. Just like the pros (and as others here have said) you need to:

• Watch your opponent's set-up (he'll often give you many clues as to where he's going to go)
• Watch the ball off his racquet
• Split step at impact, racquet forward, aggressively moving to wherever the ball is going.

If you do this stuff the number of balls that used to put you in a defensive position will decrease. You'll get there with enough time to set-up.

If you are in a defensive position then there are a number of things that are posiblities depending on fh or bh, the specifics of the ball, etc. I'll let others comment on this. I don't feel super qualified to say much here since this is an aspect of my own game that I'm still working on (I've got some tools in the toolbox, but I'm no Djokovic).

 

[Bergboy123]

I feel like two of the biggest things for defense are Anticipation and Speed.

First of all if you are anticipating the shot well, you'll almost be on your way before it's left his racket, giving you plenty of time to at least get TO the ball, maybe even get into a good position.

Secondly, when I was working out my legs and getting stronger and faster off the court, I started to notice that I was getting to more balls and harder balls than I ever had before. I was amazed at how much of a difference it made when I was literally a faster mover than before.

 

[LeeD]

I find high, slow, deep defensive returns working ONLY in levels below 3.5. Anyone better just comes inside the baseline and volleys into a corner, taking time away from me.
Some guys wait patiently atop the baseline, set up, and bash a high defensive deep shot into a backhand corner.
To succeed at 3.5, you need definite direction close to the sidelines.