thomas daniels
Semi-Pro
The return of serve is one of the most important shots in the game, the other being the serve.
So spend some extra time working on the both of these shots in practice.
Here are a few things that can help you improve your returns.
Be mentally ready.
You shouldn't get ready to return a serve until you have mentally recovered from the last point.
I see this a lot in junior matches.
Players just go to the other side of the court and they are still thinking about the last point.
And end up missing the return!!
"Your next point is always the most important point in the match".
So, make that your playing theme for the whole match.
Picture what you want to do.
You should have some type of idea of what you want to do with the return.
Ex. Chip and charge, get it back deep and work the point, or take a nice big swing at a short second serve and attack the net.
Now when your opponent does serve, flow with whatever happens and adjust from there.
The cool thing about doing this is.....
You are taking a proactive mindset to each return and you will start feeling more confident in your returns.
Get your weight into your returns.
In practice.
(Work on timing your hop step at the same time that your opponent makes contact with the ball and then stay low and use the ground force to push off the court at contact as you are uncoiling into your return and get your weight moving forward).
Your objective here is to use the pace of the serving.
So, the faster the serve, the more compact your return should be.
And for those sonic serves, all you need to do is block the ball back with a firm wrist and then work the point from there.
Last tip.
Never miss a return!!
In practice, measure how many returns you are missing on a daily basis.
Then focus on lowering that number as soon as possible.
The major problem with juniors and adults is that they don't take the return serious enough and they don't work on it enough in practice daily.
Do this for 2 months and the results should start showing up in your matches.
So spend some extra time working on the both of these shots in practice.
Here are a few things that can help you improve your returns.
Be mentally ready.
You shouldn't get ready to return a serve until you have mentally recovered from the last point.
I see this a lot in junior matches.
Players just go to the other side of the court and they are still thinking about the last point.
And end up missing the return!!
"Your next point is always the most important point in the match".
So, make that your playing theme for the whole match.
Picture what you want to do.
You should have some type of idea of what you want to do with the return.
Ex. Chip and charge, get it back deep and work the point, or take a nice big swing at a short second serve and attack the net.
Now when your opponent does serve, flow with whatever happens and adjust from there.
The cool thing about doing this is.....
You are taking a proactive mindset to each return and you will start feeling more confident in your returns.
Get your weight into your returns.
In practice.
(Work on timing your hop step at the same time that your opponent makes contact with the ball and then stay low and use the ground force to push off the court at contact as you are uncoiling into your return and get your weight moving forward).
Your objective here is to use the pace of the serving.
So, the faster the serve, the more compact your return should be.
And for those sonic serves, all you need to do is block the ball back with a firm wrist and then work the point from there.
Last tip.
Never miss a return!!
In practice, measure how many returns you are missing on a daily basis.
Then focus on lowering that number as soon as possible.
The major problem with juniors and adults is that they don't take the return serious enough and they don't work on it enough in practice daily.
Do this for 2 months and the results should start showing up in your matches.
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