hey guys in today's video I want to show you different ways how you can attack the net on
the professional tour serve and Volley has pretty much died out which doesn't mean that players
don't come to the net they come to the net quite frequently and it's not all about serve and Volley
they're actually many ways to come to the net and that is what we're going to cover in today's video
now you can see here I'm playing with the head Prestige racket which is one of the
greatest rackets that's ever been made I made a video ranking the top
five rackets of all time you can check it out the head Prestige made it on that list
and the reason why I'm playing with it today is because it's a great racket for the Volley now
my college coach mel Purcell always wanted me to play with head prestige he thought that me
being tall and being from Croatia I should play with the racket that Goran Ivanisevic used
I was always more of a Wilson guy back in those days but for the purpose of this video
because I'm going to be coming to the net attacking the net this is the perfect racket
for that and guys we're going to start off with Serve and Volley even though this is not
something you see frequently on the ATP Tour this is something that players do utilize from
time to time and it's definitely something that you should utilize at the recreational level now
when it comes to any of the things that I'm going to be talking about today it is super important
that you do have sound Volley techniques sound Volley fundamentals or my advice is that you
don't come to the net so we're going to start off by me tying the shoes because I'm going to
be running up to the net after my serve and you call that serve and volley now first I'm going to show
you what you shouldn't do so this might surprise you but you shouldn't try to serve flat or slice
and come to the net and I'm going to first do it and then explain why you shouldn't do this
so reason number one why you shouldn't be serving flat or slice for that matter is that those serves
are going to be the fastest serves especially when we're talking about a flat serve which happens to
be the fastest serve so obviously you're going to have less time to make it to the net the ball is
going to come back much quicker and most likely you're going to be volleying in transition around
the service line or even further behind so for that reason it's not wise to hit flat serves and
come to the net it's very similar on the slice serve I will say however that the slice serve is more
suitable for serve and volley compared to the flat serve but even here that ball is going to come back
pretty quickly and you got to be quick now you're probably thinking what about Pete sampers Boris
Becker guys with humongous flat serves thattheat used to be serve and volleyers that is an exception because
those guys had absolute bombs and it's quite obvious when they make their first serve that the
ball is going to come back weak so in that case it's perfectly fine two serve and volley so if you
happen to have a bomb like sampras or like Becker by all means you can serve a volley on all your
serves so what you should do instead is something that the greatest serve and volley players in the
history have always done players as Patrick rafter or Stefan edberg that has kick the ball and
come to the net so let me do it first and then I'm going to explain why this is such a good strategy
so guys when it comes to serve and volley when you're kicking the ball that gives you more time
to get to the net the flight path of a kick serve is much longer than a flight path of
a flat serve or a slice serve for that reason this little extra time is going to
allow you to volley inside the service line where you have better chances to play a quality volley
just make sure that when you decide to come to the net to something that you determine
prior to the serve starting and when you hit the kick serve make sure that it is indeed a quality
kick serve if you hit a weak kick serve and you come to net you're gonna get passed real quick
and guys another way you can come to the net is to come to net off the return you can do it with
a chip which is basically an abbreviated slice now this is something you don't see
at all anymore on the pro tour but at the rec level it still has a time and a place and it is
very useful and surprising your opponent or maybe putting pressure on your opponent because they're
going to have to come up with a passing shot and if you strike your chip well the ball is going
to stay low and they might have to hit up on the ball increasing the chances of them missing long
now you can do this off the forehand chip but it's not something I recommend because you're less likely going to be good at chiping
the forehand because you don't do it as often as on your backhand you have more muscle memory
built up on your backhand slice for that reason only chip and charge with your backhand return
now the danger is that if you don't hit your chip well enough or if you play against a high
level opponent that they're going to pass you because let's face it a chip is a slow shot
so you're basically looking for the opponent to mess up it's not a shot that you're gonna
hit a winner on so it is an aggressive shot in the fact that you are putting pressure on your
opponent but fact is that if you don't hit it well and you're playing against
a powerful opponent you're going to get passed and it's one of the reasons why you
don't see this play on the pro tour because there's simply too much power in the game
so you can see there I was able to hit my chip deep and I actually got a defensive
shot for my opponent so if you manage to hit a quality chip this can be a fantastic play now
make sure that you don't overdo this because your opponent is going to get used to this
play only pull this out every now and then so you can keep the surprise Factor going
okay there it is another chip and charge successfully executed this time I was able
to put my opponent a little bit on the run in a more defensive situation and guys another
way you can come in is off a drop shot and the reason why you always want to move up a little
bit when you hit a drop shot because you want to defend against the counter drop shot but
what will happen when you hit a quality drop shot is that the opponent is likely going to
pop the ball up if they're making contact below the level of the net and close to the net so for
that reason it is wise to come to the net and hit the next shot after your drop shot as a volley
or if you hit a drop shot that the opponent can't get to even better you don't have to volley at all
now what's happening now is that Milan who plays a lot against me doesn't know
what the heck is going on because I don't drop shot this much when I usually play
so this is coming at a big surprise to him and he's not reacting to my Drop shots
and the most ironic thing about tennis is that now that I want him to get my
drop shot I'm hitting like one drop shot winner after the next
and there it is guys when you hit a drop shot this is a great way
to come to the net and finish the volley off in the wide open court but just like the chip
and charge don't do this too often or you're going to lose the surprise factor and guys
obviously anything that the opponent hits half court if you hit a regular approach shot and
come to the net this is kind of an obvious thing but I want to demonstrate it I want to
wait for a ball to be a little bit shorter I'm going to attack it and come to the net
okay there I didn't get a volley but I would have been there with that ball
I would have gone over the net would have been an easy put away shot at the net
so let's summarize the four different ways you can attack the net whether you're playing singles or
doubles you're going to be able to do this more in doubles obviously because there's less Court
to cover and you have less Court to defend and it's easier to come to the net but this applies
to singles and doubles you can come in by serving volley you can come in by chipping and charging
you can come in off a drop shot and of course in come in off short balls with an approach shot
now one thing that's super important is the following coming to the net is very physical
it's very exhausting it takes a lot of energy so you gotta be aware of that when you attack the
net that you're gonna exert a tremendous amount of energy it makes sense right let's say I hit a
kick serve and I stay back and I hit a forehand versus hitting a kick serve and sprinting to the
net that's going to take a lot more energy than just standing at the Baseline and setting the ball
up from there so be aware that when you become an attacking player when you start coming to the net
more you have to be in good shape because you're going to be exerting a lot more energy and make
sure that you don't come in and the following two circumstances circumstance number one would be a
scenario where you're exchanging balls from behind the Baseline and now all of a sudden
out of the blue you decide to come to the net a lot of players do this and now the distance
from behind the baseline to the net is too large it's too far away to the net and you're gonna be
guaranteed to hit a volley in transition most likely a half volley this is going to work very
rarely and for that reason don't come in when you're hitting shots from behind the Baseline
now an exception to that would be when you're hitting very aggressive shots from behind the
Baseline your opponent is barely getting to the ball they're reaching and they have their arms
stretched out now it doesn't matter even if you're behind the baseline you can still come to the net
because the chances of your opponent hitting a quality shot are very low so that would be
an exception where you could come in even when you're standing behind the Baseline when you hit
a super aggressive shot and your opponent barely it gets a racket on it but generally speaking
when you're behind the Baseline do not come to the net and I'm going to tell you a tactic that
does work but I don't want you to do it anyway and that is the moon ball net attack so picture
this scenario I'm not going to demonstrate this because I am not a proponent of this tactic but
let's just say that you hit a moon ball and now your opponent is scrambling back and probably
hitting a moon ball right back to you now what you could do is sneak up to the net right around
the contact Zone because the likelihood of your opponent hitting a moon ball back is very high this
happens very frequently at the lower recreational level and at the junior level so when you execute
this Moon ball sneak attack you are guaranteed to get a high ball mid-court that you can take as a
swing volley or an overhead and guys I never teach my students to hit Moon balls unless they're in
defensive situations and they're trying to stay alive simply because there are better ways to
hit High balls you can learn to be aggressive off of high balls and there's really no reason to hit
Moon balls also most players hate being stuck in Moon ball rallies and from the outside is
this something that's very painful to watch so for those reasons I don't ever want you
to execute the moon ball sneak attack so guys utilize these four ways to come to the net it
can make your life a lot easier because you're gonna have an easier time to put the ball away