Net Approaches in Pro Tennis: A New Analysis

[arturohernandez]

You must be extremely proud of your daughter...because I sure as hell am. Work on the physical conditioning. If you can get her to be stronger, faster, quicker it will be a deal breaker. There is no reason she couldn't serve and volley provided the serve is good enough. Surely it is a longer road to hoe. Surely it is the more difficult. But to stick with it is the challenge. It takes courage to look down the road four or five years. The other girls are more or less following the herd and what if anything differentiates one from the other.

Crack the whip. Hire a personal trainer. She can do it I tell you. Good on you arturohernandez teaching your offspring something more important than tennis. It's about life...life choices.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Just yesterday she asked me why she is not better at doubles. I told her that doubles is simple. Get to the net and then volley between the players.

I told her she has to come to the net as much as possible. Chip and charge, serve and volley. It does not matter if she gets passed or loses 20 points in a row. Doubles is won at the net. Junior girls tennis will eventually involve heavy net play. Better to start now than later.

[doctorhl]

For some for some reason, getting passed while approaching the net is one of the greatest threats to a junior’s ego. This fear results in either over hitting the approach or running wildly toward the net instead of really watching the opponent’s racket when advancing and split stepping well in time for a balanced volley. Video the starting and stopping of her advance toward the net. Watch old videos of Edberg and McEnroe to see how they decided when to start and stop the net advance and still manage to stay balanced. McEnroe was a master of closing quickly, but pulling up at the right time and balanced enough to hit drop volleys. Edberg and McEnroe’s footwork timing in doubles poaching was a level above their contemporaries.

[DavidLHagler]

I told Craig at a conference that his stats about net success are like saying a player wins a higher percentage of the hands in blackjack when he doubles down. But one would hope you only double down when it makes sense to do so. Players - especially now, typically come to the net when they are way ahead or to finish a point. This is a very nice article.