Need doubles service return help

[krussell]

What do you guys do when you are having a terrible day returning? Recently we lost a tight match in the finals of a doubles tournament, and it really boiled down to a handful of poor returns from our side. The other team served well and deserved their victory, but I think we made it too easy on them.

Their lefty hit twist serves to my forehand all day (I was playing deuce side) and it basically caused me to lose all confidence in my forehand return. I eventually just stepped 3 feet inside the baseline and chipped/sliced the high twisters back before they could get too far outside the court. I still ended up giving their net player tons of easy sitters.

I think my problem was all footwork related -- getting set up in an open stance too early and then not being able to adjust to the ball after the bounce and having to reach. Is the correct approach to try to take baby adjustment steps while executing the forehand swing? This sounds easy but I've found it really hard to execute against really good lefty kick/twist serves.

How do you go about practicing this particular return? Lefties who can really hit this serve that makes a sharp right turn after the bounce are in short supply among the guys I usually play with.

 

[dewey4262]

Taking the ball early is the best way to deal with twist serves in my opinion. Stand inside the basline for the return of serve and hit the ball at it's peak. Early preperation is key. This is by no means easy but with practice it will get better. Maybe BB will come and give you some good advice.

 

[krussell]

That's my intuition as well, but I still looked pretty foolish half the time because even though I know what the ball is going to do, my mind still refuses to believe that the ball is really going to bounce that way when the in-flight path looks just a lot like a good jamming body serve. Heck, I wish I could hit that serve with the same effectiveness that most good lefties are able to. The ones that can disguise their twists and their slices with the same basic motion can really make you look stupid out there.

The key to this has got to be detecting the twist very early - maybe from small tip-offs from the toss or knee bend or even the server's swing path. I'm clearly not at a point where I can do this though. All I know is that detecting that it's a twist after the bounce is not a good place to be...lol.

 

[FiveO]

Did you know that in some ancient cultures when a child was determined to be left handed he/she was immediately put to death for being an evil spirit or otherwise corrupt?

Your reaction and dewey4262's advise is correct. You have to move in. Most players tip their twists on the toss when it goes behind their vertical center body line. Immediately you should begin to move forward to catch the ball on the rise before it reaches its peak. Let it reach that peak over and over again and you'll feel like you've been combing your hair all match. You'll be making contact consistently above shoulder height and out of your strike zone. Your arm will go numb. Because of the extra time afforded by the two arcs (one before and one after the bounce) and the height of the bounce, the tendency is to stand up straighter, set your feet too early and take a bigger swing at the return than usual. Keep your swing shortened as you would when returning a flat bomb, but on a higher plane. Keep your knees bent and your feet moving on a forward diagonal to the right until bounce and then hit through the ball to ensure you negate the spin. A ballpark guesstimate as to where you should load your plant foot is directly behind the bounce or even just to the right of it.

The added problem with a lefty (especially with a good kick) is compounded by the fact there are (thank everything that is holy) very few of them. Very few to practice against and familiarize yourself with. When playing a left its fairly common to see what you recognize to be the his slice or kick pre-contact and actually make an anticipatory move in the wrong direction unconsciously responding to a right handed player's version of the spin. Initially, it can be mentally taxing translating the visual leftiese into rightyish to make the adjustment. See a few and you'll move more automatically. The only way to practice for it, barring kidnapping another lefty from some rival campus, is to find a righthander with a real jumpy sliced heavy topspin serve and to attack it with your footwork, getting it down and cross-court w/ a short swing through contact over and over again. Its close but not the cigar, because topspin serves tend to be pretty consistent spin and jump-wise. Kicks on the other hand can have varying degrees of hop and like a knuckle-balling pitcher, the server isn't even sure how much bounce he's going to get from serve to serve even if he has great direction on it.

On behalf of all righties, good luck.

 

[krussell]

That's some good advice. I do take comfort in the fact that even the pros have trouble with extreme kick/twists serves (see Roddick's flailing high backhand attempts against many of Lubijic's twists this past weekend). At least in singles for the most part if you get it back deep you have a chance. In doubles you have a really really small window to hit the return through, and feeble underspin returns get poached big time.

I need to work on stepping in and taking the ball on the rise with a short but forceful stroke and drive the ball cross-court...maybe aim more cross-court than normal to account for the spin.

Like you mentioned, the worst part is that the twist/kick comes in varieties of action. I knew it was coming since it was the only serve he ever hit (and the toss was always behind him with a deep arch and knee bend). The problem was it didn't always take a sharp reverse bounce. I'm sure the server probably had no idea what it was going to do either. That's part of the the beauty of this serve. He could have told me "here comes a twist serve out wide to your forehand" each time and I still would've had lots of trouble with it.

 

[FiveO]

I feel your pain. But take heart its not insurmountable. Keep it short. Keep your feet under you. Take it early and commit to the hit. Being from GA you've probably played on red clay. If you haven't recall that hard-court with cracks running through it we've all had to play on at one time or another. Stay low and light on your feet and treat the varied kicks as bad bounces. That's how I treat it and it works, if not to put the server on the defensive, at least to consistently neutralize him and keep your partner speaking to you.