Hey guys I get a lot of questions that people ask me if it's bad to hit down
the middle for example on a tennis wall. And I have to tell you it's quite the
contrary. You have to master hitting straight down the middle if you want to
develop directional control when playing tennis. And when you watch high-level
players they often are practicing by hitting straight down the middle of the
court. And here's the truth when you master hitting the ball
consistently right through the middle you can hit it anywhere in the court. And
the truth is that if you are having trouble directing the ball
straight down the middle of the court you're gonna have an even tougher time
trying to direct it to the corners. Let's take a look now at the geometry of the
tennis court. I'm going to show you why hitting through the middle of the court
is so crucial. So if I'm standing in the middle of the baseline and I aim through
the middle of a court this is the biggest target there is in tennis.
And the way we identify a big target is in this way. If I happen to miss this ball.
Let's say I'm going to purposely hit it away from my target. So I hit this ball a
little bit late but it's no problem because it still had a lot of space to
go inside the singles line. And the same goes if I hit the ball a little bit too
early and I go towards the left I have mishit this ball but it still went
way inside the court. And another advantage of hitting through the middle
of the court is that the net is at the lowest point right in the middle
And when you start getting moved around on the baseline aiming through the
middle court depending on where you're standing can turn into a cross-court
shot. So let me show you how that works. So I'm gonna aim directly through the
middle of that net and my ball is still gonna go cross-court.
And this of course works from the other side of the court too. If I aim my backhand through the middle
of a court it's still going to go cross court. And guys hitting the ball down the
line from out wide on the baseline is the same stroke as hitting it through
the middle of the court from the middle of the baseline. So take a look here. I'm
gonna hit it backhand down the line and it's basically the same shot as hitting
it from the middle of the baseline towards the middle of the other side.
Now the reason why the down the line shot from the corner is more difficult is
because the net is a little bit higher. We don't have that big target so we're
working with a very small target and also we are going to hit the ball most
likely on the run from this position. So this is why hitting down the line
shots on the run is a low percentage play. So if you learn to rally right down
the middle of the court very precisely just like the pros do this is also going
to help your down the line shots.
Now don't misunderstand me thinking that when you go out there to play a match that you should direct
everything through the center of the court you obviously will have to open up the court
to have a chance to beat a good opponent. However, I will say that even in the
course of a match hitting down the middle can be a very useful tool. Let's
say you are missing a lot of balls you're completely out of rhythm you're
not feeling the ball at all you should start directing the balls in the
biggest target there is which is the middle of the court. Also on the return
of serve there is no better target than the middle of the court and this is what
the greatest returner of all time Novak Djokovic does on the vast majority of
his returns. But the reason I made this video is for you not to be concerned
with directing everything down the middle.
In my experience your directional control will actually improve the more
you learn how to precisely hit right down the center.