So Shamir how was it returning my serve uh your server was very
difficult to return because it was fast um and it was difficult to read it was
difficult to read yeah i didn't know if to go to the backhand or the forehand
yeah listen the good news is you probably won't face
serves like that at the 4.5 level but there are some
general tips that you can do if someone happens to have a big serve so one thing
that people do they're very stubborn about this is they
will stand too close to the baseline so where's your normal
return of serve positioning show me um for a first serve
about right here you're standing right here and a lot of people are stubborn
about this they'll position themselves in the same place
regardless of the incoming serve so you ever watch rafa
yeah now you notice sometimes you can't even see him on camera
yeah like the camera can't catch him he's almost sitting on the lines
judge's chair that's how far back he is now he's
doing this for a reason because he wants to give himself
more time to react to a big serve and this is something that i recommend you
have to be fluid in the way you're positioning yourself
on the return of serve why would you stand here and give yourself
less time to react to a big serve simply back up and right away you're building
time into your return to serve you have much better chances to get it back in
play when you back up you hit that that short
angle slice well you listen you can't overthink it
yes of course you've given up the angle but most of the time the
service coming through the court that angle
is kind of hard to catch sometimes so you are going to give up something
so if you stand closer of course you're protecting that angle
but then you're very vulnerable to having less time when the serve comes
really big so what i'm going to do now is i'm going to serve to you
and i want you to simply back up a little bit and give yourself more time okay okay
Shamir you're close again back up
back it up come on give yourself time
nice return very good
nice shot shamir very good
there were some good returns there but also some mistakes so let me give you
some general tips on the return of serve that you should definitely follow so
usually what i recommend on the return of serve if the serve is coming with a lot
of pace is that you take a quarter take back and also a quarter turn a lot
of players will shorten the take back but they'll make a
full turn and now they can't get out of this turn so when you're returning
you basically are in a ready position you're going to see the ball coming
and you're going to take a quarter take back and a quarter turn like this
and now you have a really good chance to make that contact in front
quarter turn quarter swing now you're making a zero turn make a quarter turn
this is look this is a full turn full turn
this is half a turn and this is a quarter turn
so look in a quarter turn i'm still turned to this side yeah
like this and when it comes to the backswing it's the same thing the full
backswing is going to be here there's going to be half a backswing and
there's going to be a quarter back swing so on a fast serve you adjust the amount
of backswing so if you get a second serve that's super soft
like this the second serve you can take a full swing
and now if i give you a faster serve you do a quarter
swing and anything in between that's all right
anything in between you can adjust the amount of the backswing
according to the speed of the serve so in this case because i'm not giving you
a lot of time i'm bouncing the ball right in front of you
you're going to take a quarter take back also with a quarter turn
should i step in because i'm like stepping in
that's actually a really really good question so stepping in makes
absolutely no sense on the return unless the the
player is serving like a slice that's that's going away from you into the
court you might be able to cut the angle off
but the vast majority of cases when the guy is serving flat
through the court it makes no sense to step towards that ball because you're
reducing the amount of time between the ball and your racket yeah
he's giving it to me i don't need it it makes no sense don't step towards the
ball when the ball is coming fast why would you do this
you don't need to unless he's serving slice you need to cut off the angle
then you can step step forward okay so just if you need to step to adjust step
to the side make a lateral step okay like this like this yeah that's a
lateral step but don't step towards the ball you have less time
better
much better Shamir that was a really good return there thank you so nick when
it comes to the split step like how do i know which variation to
choose because i know there's a few different options you can split forward
you can just stay stationary or you can even kind of split back so
how do i know which one is like the right one to go for okay so that's a
really good question and there's a few different ways to do it and i'm going to
also show you the best way to do it so what andy murray does is he will be in a
ready position and then he will start going forward a
little bit prior to the contact and he will end up making
a step forward so that when he lands he has like an automatic move so
when you take a step forward it's almost like losing balance you will
make an automatic move towards the ball and that is a a good method but what i
find with a lot of recreational level players
is they are reducing the time towards the ball so they're making the timing
more difficult because they're going forward
yeah it's a lot better thing to do is what djokovic does basically
just kind of hopping in place like this you see this you're just kind of hopping
in place and then when the other person is about
to make contact this is when you when you do the split step and then you
react to the ball
the problem on your return right now is that you're trying to go down the line
so i want you from now on when the serve is coming fast you're
going to take the center of the court as your target you're going to return
everything right through the middle of the court okay you know who else does
that djokovic agassi they return a lot of their balls
right through the center of the court so a few advantages you have from that is
the biggest target in the court so if you hit the ball a little bit late and
you're aiming for the middle it'll probably end up being a down the line
winner well nobody will know that you can just pretend like you aim down the
line and you hit a winner but in fact you actually aimed
through the middle of the court but you just hit it late so that's the advantage
of picking a big target like the middle of the court
okay and also what i find if you hit the ball very deep and hard through the
middle and the other person has very bad angles to work with
next ball that comes back is probably going to be weaker and you'll be able to
attack the ball
great return
so shamir when you're taking that quarter take back and a quarter turn
it's important that you finish your stroke all the way so your return needs
to finish like a regular forehand and even on the backhand you need to try
to finish it all the way a lot of players
will be very short in the finish they're scared to finish because they think
they're going to miss and i see a little bit of that when
you're playing now you're kind of very gentle here you're massaging the ball
quarter take back but then a full finish i want the acceleration to be there so
you can put some spin on your return okay okay
all right come on
nice shot
nice
Best return so far nice job so shamir when
you decide where to go on the return are you trying
to anticipate the ball by reading the opponent or
reading the toss or anything like that yeah i look at the toss and based on
where the toss is positioned that kind of tells me if it's going to go to the
forehand or to the backhand that's a not a bad way to do it and
especially when it comes to the second serve a lot of players will
throw the ball more to the left if they're right-handed and that that gives
you a sign that they're going to do a kick serve when it comes to the flat
surface it's very hard to know exactly what's going to happen so
much better way to do it is judge the ball after it has been
struck
and now here's how i want you to approach the return of serve you're
going to be judging the ball after it has been
struck and as soon as you see where it's going you make gonna make a
super explosive move if you watch some of the best returners
in the world like djokovic or agassi you will see exactly this they
are not anticipating and predicting where
the serve is going to go they make their move after the ball has been struck
and that's exactly what we want you to do this is a far more efficient and
accurate accurate way of doing it so you're going
to be in a ready position doing the Djokovic split step and now when you see
the ball you make a super explosive fast move towards
the appropriate side you see this super fast move towards the side as soon as
you see where it's going you make it as fast as possible so it's
almost like you're waiting here for the ball to get to you
that's how fast you have to make the move
if you watch djokovic carefully it looks like he has so much time
like he's waiting with this racquet for the ball to get to him that's only
because he made that first move super explosive okay okay so try it out
that's it it was a little bit long but it was a good looking return
nice
best return you hit today excellent good job
that's what's missing you got to make that first move super explosive
and that's even true on the second serve even on the second serve you make that
first move super explosive so in your mind it feels like you're
waiting with the racket to your side as you're setting up the return of serve
yeah okay
And then for the kick serve I can go back
During a kick serve like Wawrinka
yeah i see him a lot of times he's like this and then ball's coming and he's
already starting to move back and then he turns
on the kick serve it depends on the quality of the kick serve so you'll see
a lot of guys at that elite level they actually
back up because the kick serves are hit with so much
action that it's very difficult to time the ball if you were going to take it
early so that's the thing it depends on the quality of the kicker so at your
level 4.5 the kick is probably not going to have
that much action so you might not have to back up that much and you can
try to take it a little bit earlier but just feel it out see if you feel
like you're stepping into the kicker and you can't really control the ball you're
not timing it well and simply back up and hit the ball when it's falling below
the apex okay so just look out for how good the actual
kick serve is all right okay okay Shamir go in your ready position on
the return and i'm going to give you some kick serves and i want you to i
want you to try to judge the kick serve and make a move
accordingly so if i hit it a little bit softer i want you to cut
off the angle and step across the body diagonally and if it's
coming a little bit heavier i want you to do what you said
you saw Wawrinka doing this i want you to back up and hit the
ball below the apex okay all right
good nice shot
okay good
okay there probably should have backed up a little bit
you see that one you needed to cut off
okay and that one you needed to back up so this is why it's so important to
study the ball to judge it
It's hard it's not much of a I don't hear a difference
don't listen to the difference just you have eyes you have to look
you see where the ball you see the trajectory of the ball so that ball
the one that um bounced way out it literally
landed right there you see this also if it lands shorter
come in obviously yeah oh okay yeah think about the geometry of the court if
the ball is hit with kick and it's served from
from the ad side the ball if it bounces here is going to exit the court
this way it's going to exit the court at a very severe angle so that's why i have
to come in you have to cut it off otherwise you
have no chance so if it's deeper then i have to
when it's deeper it's going to be a less severe angle i wasn't even looking at it
and most well this is what i said you have to
judge the ball don't try to predict what's going to happen by studying my
toss on my swing path just look at the ball
it's the most efficient way to do it okay
yeah so if you see the sharper angle you're gonna have to cut that off the
ball is coming through uh the service box more it's
landing deep like this you if it's struck with kick you probably
have to back up okay all right got it
that was a good one, that was a good one
that was a good one why don't you cut it off Shamir
that one was kind of deep though all right don't worry about it bounced weird
do it again
all right much better
nice job all right
much better nice Shamir
Oh that was bad sorry
okay why was it bad
because I was in between moving up and back
well what would you think you should have done there move up or back
back exactly you didn't so you got to back up quickly
remember that first move has to be super fast and then the second step is you set
it up and you back up give yourself a little
more time yeah when you don't move at all when you're standing you're at the
mercy of the ball you have to correct your bad movement in this case you were
hitting the ball way above your shoulder and you gave me a really easy ball with
a winner on that it's hard because in such a short amount of time
you're examining the location of the ball or just look at it simultaneously
you have to move quick you have to track the ball just track it
with your eyes and do that quickly try it
it's a time so you have to act quick you have to like it's like you said just
like a quarter turn quick so you're doing two things quick at the
same time you are the return is not easy i didn't say it was easy
it takes a lot of practice but this is what you got to try to do okay okay come on
nice
good
nice shot shamir beautiful return so shamir this is how you have to approach
the return you have to watch the ball in real time
however you said you like your forehand return better right yeah okay
so sometimes what's a good thing to do every now and then is to run around your
backhand return and hit the forehand from the backhand side
okay right now this is risky because you're gonna have to do this
prior to the contact so this is a proactive move that you're gonna
decide to do prior to the point starting okay okay so it's different from what we
just did and therefore it's very risky because
the guy might see you moving there a little early and he might take you
uh through the t and hit a second serve ace okay so this is why keep this
like as your special little surprise every now and then and don't overdo it
okay and basically you want to plan ahead of time to hit a forehand from the
backhand side and you're gonna have to start moving towards the backhand
prior to me making contact and then give yourself a lot of room this way so you
have good spacing and then when you hit that forehand you
have to go super aggressive maybe even go for a winner because obviously
you're leaving the entire court open so you can't hit a defensive shot you have
to go for it okay okay all right
nice
any return you hit the first move has to be super fast super explosive
the beginning movement always if you do it slow you're doing so slow right now
obviously you're not timing the ball properly you're late
remember first move you want to hit a forehand return from the backhand side
right you decide to do this you go see this
like super explosive super in the beginning without that your toast
man you have no chance
better
nice all right listen shamir the return of serve is not an easy shot
and you don't get to break serve that often when you're playing a good server
it's all about being positive when you're returning and accepting that
there's going to be a lot of mistakes there's going to be a lot of failing
along the way and try to keep a positive attitude but the thing that i want you
to remember from today's lesson is that number one you need to be fluid
in your position and when it comes to return okay
don't get stubborn and stand in the same place but adjust your positioning
according to the quality of your opponent's serve the thing that i found
worked best for you is making that super fast move as soon as you see where the
ball was coming what do you think about that one yeah if i up my intensity
i was able to get there in a better time than when i wasn't with intensity you
can't be slow the return of serve you have to be
unbelievably quick on that first move you have to make
an ultra fast move as soon as you know where the ball is coming and then you
have a better chance to time the ball properly and finally
adjust the amount of stroke you're going to apply to the quality of the serve so
obviously if the serve is coming super fast you're going to make a
smaller turn and a smaller take back a lot of times what happens is even with
that smaller take back the racket still ends up going back so
don't worry about not taking racket back it'll go back on its own
anyway and then when you have a weak serve just do a normal a ground stroke
with a full turn and a full take back all right shamir
there was some really good returns there next time
you play a match i think you're gonna break serve a little bit easier let's do
a racket tap thanks nick no problem