if you want to hit your best volleys in 2023 you got to fix these five most common mistakes
that I see Club players make let's Jump Right In let's get started with the most common thing
we're getting called out on at Club level don't swing and whereas that is absolutely right it's
not the whole truth because there are actually volleys where you can swing when we are saying
don't swing those are usually balls that are coming a little harder and lower at us so if
you're taking the racket back then and somebody's flaming the ball at you of course you're going
to hit it late but if it's a higher and slower ball you can absolutely swing a little bit you
just have to make sure that as you're moving through you keep your legs under your upper
body otherwise you're just leaning over the ball and we definitely don't want to do that so how
far do I want to take it back well on higher slower balls you can absolutely take a swing
because you have more time to still bring your racket forward and make good contact
but rule of thumb the lower and harder the shorter and sweeter you have to keep the swing
when you're setting up for your volley make sure that the tip of the racket faces to the outside a
lot of players come up to the values like that and literally sometimes that so right from the
get-go you want to work on the tip of the racket pointing to the side and you want to lead with the
edge of the racket the lower edge of the racket leads because this way you can now manipulate
the degree with which the racket face is open and you do need to open it a little
bit more when you have lower volleys and you can absolutely close it a little bit
when the balls are higher and you're closer up to net because that's the whole point of
volume so you can hit down on those balls you can open angles but of course if your tip of
the racket is up there you're pointing up to the sky you can't really get under the ball that way
the wrong footwork or no footwork either one is not good because a lot of times let's be honest
in lessons we're hitting the ball right to the player and they're getting there with one step
and then we're also as coaches using another cue that I find really really misleading and
or confusing we're saying use a cross step and what ends up then is that players use one big step
and they're pulled sideways when they really want to put the ball over the net in front
of them of course there's instances when you're being stretched out wide that's when you have to
move laterally but ideally what you want to do is moving up to the ball and not just take one step
take one step with the outside leg and I'll explain what the outside leg is in
a second and then stride forward from your outside leg so that you're moving forward
and I'm going to show you really great drill that I saw at Rancho Sanchez vicar you'll do
the other week where she's moving forward all the time the outside leg is the leg that is
behind the side that you're going to hit the ball on so if I'm a right-hander I'm hitting
a forehand volley it's my right leg and the left leg on the backhand because I'm hitting
that ball to the left of my body so instead of just doing this cross step or this cross
step what I do want to do is I got my split step and then I set my outside foot behind the ball
and then I stride forward that is how I get pop on the ball not by swinging not by doing all kind of
other fancy stuff okay one two so your Rhythm on the volley should not be split step it should be
hop one two the hot one two of course is all great when the ball is coming to you directly to you but
what do you do if you actually have to move a lot more after your split step to the ball what you
want to do then is split move move move one two so that you're always having a wider step with your
outside leg to the ball behind the ball and then you drive forward from that back leg outside leg
you knew it you didn't think really that I would do a volley video without talking about the grip
you have to have the proper grip the Continental grip and I've seen videos now talking about having
an Eastern forehand grip and then switching to a backhand Eastern grip I'm gonna go with no on that
I'm gonna go with a big fat no on that because most Club players that I know struggle with the
regular grip so why give them two grips so the Continental grip is your best friend when it comes
to buying here's how you find it underside of your index finger and the meaty part of the Palm
look at the butt of your grip you have bevel number one as a right-hander you slide one to
the right and both of those checkpoints need to be on that bevel number two if you're hitting
forehand volleys with a forehand grip you might get away with that but here's where that's going
to limit you big time this on the backhand I see so many players do this then and you're not
getting anything on it it really hurts your wrist at some point and you absolutely lose control over
the volley might pop up might go in the net nobody knows where it's going so your
Continental grip is your best friend start really simple by choking up on the grip
because you have a lot more control when you have the racket face closer to your
body so just simply shadow that first and make sure that you set your upper body so
you can stride forward with the proper footwork towards your Target and let's get rid of that's
another coaching cue that I find it looks difficult to deal with is high to low on the
volley yes you do have a somewhat down motion on the volley but you're certainly not chopping
down like a karate chop that's not what you want to do because you're not getting anything on the
ball the racket face is open the ball pops up and yeah nothing good will come with that so
you want to set up behind the ball and yes I do like the word punch because you're rarely ever
punching down or up you punch straight forward and that's what you do you extend your elbow forward
and that is how you get pop on the ball and it also of course totally depends on what kind of
ball you're getting of course if you have a higher ball and you're closer to the net
you can hit down on the ball however you're still not wanting to chop down on the ball because you
give it too much rotation and it's not going to go anywhere you want to make sure that you're really
penetrating through the court and many times when you see a low volley there actually is an upward
motion because you have to lift the ball so you want to be really careful of what kind of ball
you're getting and you have to adjust accordingly so we got some work to do to hit our best volleys
in 2023 check out this video here grab a partner get out on the practice Courts for your volleys