taking the ball on the rise you've heard me talk about that in other videos but there I kind of
introduced it more as a tactical tool and I've had a lot of requests to actually go over the
mechanics of the shot of the actual shot taking the ball on the right so that's exactly what
we're going to do in this video I'm going to show you exactly how to execute balls on the rise and
I'll show you some drills so let's get going why would you want to take a ball on the rise your
number one reason for taking the ball earlier is to put pressure on your opponent you're basically
taking time away from them so think about that you're getting a higher maybe a little slower
ball and it comes up on the rise gets to its top and then drops and by the time it drops back into
your Strike Zone you might be somewhere back here and of course you have to lift that ball you have
to hit the ball higher over the net and that just takes a little longer so taking the ball on the
rise means that you're rushing your opponent you take time away away from them so as examples for
really aggressive player who do that a lot taking the ball in the rise in fact they're taking more
than 50 percent of the ground strokes in their matches on the rise are for instance Carolina
and of course Carlene Garcia and on the men's side of course the master of that
is Novak Djokovic of course when you're taking the ball on the rise you'll most likely do that
very very close to the Baseline and that then allows you to maintain an incredibly aggressive
Court position because the closer you are to net the more angles you can use you can open
the court and that is definitely another way you can hurt your opponent in addition to being closer
up to Baseline and being able to open the court more with angles you can also be more aggressive
by hitting flatter a little bit because the net basically the closer you get to net come with me
the closer you get to net the lower than that is of course it's the same height but it feels that
it's lower you don't have to lift the ball as much you don't have to slow it down with rotation so
you can flatten out your strokes and the Angles and yeah that's that's really nasty that's why
you're using the balls on their eyes by taking the ball on the rise you can also interrupt or mess
with the rhythm of your opponent especially when you're playing the dreaded Moon Ballers because
what they really like to do is they themselves a lot of times will sit somewhere back here and
send those Moon balls off Pace High balls back to you and what you're doing if you're letting
them drop you're back here as well and that slows the ball down because again it drops past its peak
so if you're moving up and taking the ball on the rise you're messing with that timing
you're messing most likely also with their Court position because the ball is a little shorter so
you're manipulating height depth and pace of the ball and again if you can close in a little bit
more you can also open angles and by the way that is just one of the many ways you can actually put
pressure on The Pusher if you want to learn about more ways on how to beat those dreaded players
check out the singles Playbook by fuzzy yellow boss it has a ton of strategic moves on how you
can beat any kind of player from yes The Pusher to a counter puncher to a certain volume you've
got it all all you have to do is hover over the QR code and you get a video explaining exactly
what you need to be doing to win more matches against any type of player and I'll pop the
link Down Below in the description so let's keep going another reason why you may have to
actually take a ball on the rise is that if somebody hits the ball deep and pretty fast
you might not have the time to move back because the ball's already at you by the time you're
reacting you're too late and you shank the ball so that is when you see a lot of times those
squash shot looking balls or people are literally sitting low like that so that's more of a
defensive play but you have to know how to do it why again is it more difficult to take the ball
on the rise simply because the ball still has a lot more pace and rotation right after it has
bounced if the ball comes up after the bounce and you let it travel over its top and it comes down
it has simply lost some of its juice the problem of course might be that you're in
a very passive Court position but to time a ball on the rise to me takes a little bit
of experience when you're taking ball on the rise it has to start with your perception with
your eyes you need to see where the ball lands you need to see how fast it is you need to see
what type of rotation it has and to compute all of that and then get your body into the
proper position and maybe having to adjust your actual stroke to a faster incoming ball
that's kind of calling for a little bit more experience but of course I'm not going to let
you hang high and dry we're also going to do some drills and these are the drills that will improve
you're taking the ball on the rise so in the first drill I'm just feeding balls of different height
different depths and with maybe even different rotation and I'll just ask my player to call out
up when they think they have to move up to hit the ball on the rise or when they can just hold their
position and in any of those balls they're trying to keep the ball between their shoulder and their
hip because that is your Strike Zone that you really want to work with and of course it's your
feet that allow you to maintain that good strike zone so up when the ball is a little shorter and
you have to move up to it to take the ball on their eyes hold when the balls basically come
into you into the right Strike Zone but still it's either on the rise or the top of its bounce up
I could have said hold
up and the next progression then is simply to do that in a rallying format
definitely up hold
and then I'm out of breath the next drill works on your racket ahead speed and potentially having
to shorten up your take back because one thing that I've noticed with players that are newer
to taking the ball on the rise they have issues adjusting their swing they're trying to still
swing the exact same way with a big wind up when they're actually moving up to take the
ball on the rise and they're also taking away time from themselves not just from their opponents by
moving up you're shortening your own time to prepare for the shot and you want to work on
that by yep shortening up your take back the other thing that you're working on in that drill is to
maintain a very low and solid base the ball has more Pace the ball has more action right off the
bounds so if you're somewhere up right here the ball will bully you so you want to work
on really staying low have a wide base here wider than shoulder width and again accelerate against
that ball because one of the things that is really counterintuitive is when a fastball is coming in
that you still want to accelerate against it if you're trying to just kind of equalize kind of
neutralize the pace you're going to start guiding the ball and again that's where the incoming ball
is going to bully your racket another great drill is where somebody's simply feeding you
deeper and faster balls and you just don't have the time to move back and you're working on
staying low and keeping your balance so let's look at how Caroline Garcia does this drill [Applause]
another drill that really works on the low base and you have to manipulate the ball is the pinch
drill you can either do it Cross Court double style alley is good or you just do it through
the middle but what you're basically trying to do is you're taking every ball on the rise
because you're not allowed to step outside of the Baseline when you hit the ball one more thing to
consider especially when you're a little newer to taking the ball on the rise it is a higher risk
shot again because you take it off a faster ball basically and if it's just the perception of that
I would suggest to go predominantly cross-court because to time the ball
on the rise and change direction of a ball that you're maybe not as familiar
with that's really hard to time and yeah even the pros have trouble with that
another time where you may be forced to take the ball on the rise or you're choosing to
do so to be more aggressive is the return especially when somebody has a good kick surf
let's assume they go wide on that kick serve and you were to let the ball drop all
the way so that you can rip it right here chest high waist high you're going to be
in a position where usually only Daniel metvedev or Rafael Nadal return and they
can do it but we want to try to maybe take that ball on the rise and that's definitely
big time where you have to shorten up your take back and here's a great drill for that
I think I pretty much covered it all let me know down in the comments how
often you're choosing to take balls on the rise and if you're really
comfortable doing it so let me know down in the comments and I'll see you back here soon