Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. In today's video we're going to cover
the positioning on the return of serve.
Pretty much everyone knows that we must position ourselves close to the doubles
alley when returning serves. What is the exact reason for this? Well the
interesting thing is that when I teach beginners who have never played
points before and they return serve for the first time they will actually
position themselves in the middle between the middle of the court and the
singles line and this actually makes a lot of sense.
Because now they can cover the T serve and they can cover the wide serve. There
is a reason why we cannot wait here and we must be close to the doubles alley
and the reason is the trajectory of the serve. So if I'm standing and receiving
serve on the deuce side the server will be serving from right to left, the
serve will have a leftward trajectory from the servers perspective. So now
imagine a serve going right into the corner there towards my forehand side
and the second bounce because of this leftward trajectory might be outside
doubles alley. So I have absolutely no chance to cover
that serve, therefore I must position myself closer to the doubles alley so I
can I cover this leftward trajectory if indeed the server serves towards my
forehand. However, if they serve towards the middle I can allow the middle of the
court to T to be open because that serve most of the time will also have
a leftward trajectory or sometimes it will go straight through the court so I
have a chance to get that ball and the ball will not be going away from me
unless it's a heavy kick serve that might be bouncing away from me but even
there a kick serve is gonna be a lot slower and I still have a chance to get
that serve. So we can allow the middle court to be open and we must always
position ourselves closer to the doubles alley. On the ad side it's the exact same
thing we must stand close to the doubles alley even on the outside because the
server is going to be serving left to right and the serves are going to have a
rightward trajectory from the server's perspective so if we stand in the middle
here between the singles line and the middle of the court. A serve serve to the
corner will have a rightward trajectory and the second bounce is going to be
outside doubles alley and we have absolutely no chance
to get this serve. Therefore we must position ourselves on this side closer to the
doubles alley and from here we can cover the wide serve and we can cover the T
serve as well.
How close to the baseline can we stand we're returning serve? Well there's
really no rule how close or how far back you must stand it's going to depend on
who you're playing against. At the recreational level many players will
have soft first and second serves especially at the 3.0 3.5 level. In that
case it doesn't make any sense to stand behind the baseline. In that case you
must step up a little closer and you can wait for the return well inside the
baseline. On the 5.0 level there's some big servers out there and then you can
adjust your stance you can simply go back and then give yourself a little bit
more time when returning serve. On the elite level where serves can reach 110
120, 130 miles an hour and then we have the option of
even going further back. And this is going to depend on your playing style as
well. If you are somebody who likes to get the return back and play and get a
rally going and you're gonna have a much better chance of doing that and when you
stay any far back. Rafael Nadal is the king of getting returns back in play and he
sometimes stands so far back that you cannot even see him on camera and he
gets the return back in play because of this extra time from this further back
stance. Other players such as Novak Djokovic who really do not back up too
much because they're more of a agressive return style player and in that case they
have a solid stance and doesn't really vary that much. So if you are
somebody who likes to take cuts at the return and it likes to take the return
aggressive then you might pick a stance it's a little bit closer to the baseline
and of course it's going to depend on your opponent so some opponents are
going to have a bigger serve where you would stand here and if you play somebody
who has a weaker serve then you can adjust and come come forward a little
bit. So we have to be very flexible and when it comes to a how close to the
service line you're standing or how far back behind the baseline you're
standing on the return of serve.
So now I'm going to get a couple of real easy slow serves and I'm going to have
position closer to the baseline I'm not a big fan of standing too close to the
service line on somebody that has a weak serve because even then sometimes the
ball can bounce up a little bit too high and you end up in a compromised position
so against weak servers the closest you should get is maybe two meters
inside the baseline. So let me try it out. Go ahead. Okay and there easy serve and
I only have to take one or two steps to get to the ball to perform the return
Now I'm expecting a bigger serve so I want to give myself a little bit more
space. I don't like going too far back because I like taking the ball
aggressive on the return. I like to take cuts at the return and from too far back
and it needs to be more spin and it's more difficult to hit the ball hard.
So one meter behind the baseline is about right and let me try it out
Perfect so there I felt like I had plenty of time I had to maybe take one step and
that serve was actually shorter than I expected and it still gave me enough
time to step up to it a little bit and then finish it
Now I'm expecting a monster server and it he's been acing me all day long and I
can't get to any serves so I'm gonna have to be forced to go back a little
further just to get the ball back and play. So let me try a serve the return of
serve from all the way back here to see if I get a better chance
Okay I actually got it back I didn't hit a good return. Let me try one more.
aaaah that was a little bit better
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