Attack Slow Serves With Short Cross Returns

If your opponent serves their second serve at an angle, meaning it's somewhat of a wide serve, then they give you a good angle of return.

So when that happens, return the serve with a short cross court shot that pulls them outside of the singles sideline (or perhaps even further). 

Wouldn't it be nice to start a baseline rally in this situation? 

Namely with your opponent starting the point from outside of the doubles line and you starting the point from the middle of the court.

So instead of thinking of how to hit a winner on a return of a slow serve, be less greedy and hit a good short cross court and pull opponent out of the court.

That just means that you are starting a baseline rally in a much better position than your opponent and you have much better chances of winning it.

If Slow Serve Is Down The T

Sometimes, your opponent's slow serve may land down the T, which is closer to the center of the court. 

In this case, you may not have a good angle for your return shot—placing the ball in the far corner may be difficult. 

Here's how you should approach that situation...

1. Hit In The Direction Of Your Follow-Through

So what does hitting in the direction of the follow-through mean?

The follow-through does across the body so for a right-hander the forehand follow-through gors to the left and the backhand follow-through goes to the right.

So if your opponent served down the T on deuce side and you're a right hander, you will hit your backhand down the line in the direction of the follow-through.

Now that will not pull opponent out of the court but it will pressure them in terms of not having a lot of time to react as I will be hitting a good fast ball.

That again doesn't mean you will hit a winner, it just gives you an advantage in the rally and better chances of dictating the rally and eventually winning the point.

2. Run around your backhand to hit a forehand: If you are expecting a serve down the T, you can pre-position yourself into a forehand position as the ball is served.

Go For It: You should be able to hit a heavy ball here with your forehand, and place the ball at the deep corners of your opponent's court. 

Cross Court Returns: At this point, your opponent should, again, be deep inside one end of the court. Simply return any shots to the other end of the court to claim your point.

When To Play Drop Shot Returns?

Another option to consider when returning slow tennis serves is to play a drop shot. This shot may be useful, especially when your opponent has adjusted to your deep returns.

After your aggressive returns, your opponent may start retreating deeper behind the baseline to buy time to reach the balls at the corners of their court. This, however, leaves the front court wide open for you to exploit. 

In this case, simply play a drop shot and place the ball closer to the net. This will not only be effective because the opponent is far behind the baseline but also because of the element of surprise.

Wrapping Up: Put Pressure On Your Opponent 

Slow tennis serves from your opponent can be an opportunity to immediately apply pressure and put them on the defensive.

Your goal is not to try and hit a winner as those are way too risky and you'll actually be losing in the long term.

Instead look for ways to applying pressure and making opponent run which puts you in a better position on the court. 

And that will then result in you winning more points that losing them in the long term.

That gives you enough margin of error to keep the ball in the court on almost all shots while still putting your opponent in a very difficult situation.

There are three very likely scenarios that you’re looking for:

• your opponent gets to the ball but misses so you force an error,
• your opponent gets to the ball and hits it short, which allows you to finish the point with the next shot, or
• you hit a winner because you missed your target a little bit.

There is also one scenario that’s not in your favor, and that’s when you miss your shot more towards your opponent and he can then hit a good shot that neutralizes you or even puts you under pressure.

This is part of the game and the probabilities you’re dealing with, and it cannot be avoided.

Because there are three scenarios in your favor and one against you, you’re still winning in the long term.

2. Deciding in advance

The return is the only stroke in tennis besides the serve where you have enough time to decide in advance what to do.

You may think that, because you don’t know where the serve will be directed, you can’t decide your return direction in advance, but you can.

You simply prepare two plans depending on where the serve goes.

Have a clear target and trajectory for the case of returning with your forehand and another plan in case the serve goes to your backhand.

You can choose to direct each of your strokes to the weaker side of your opponent, but you can also choose different directions of your returns when you feel that you can hit a better shot in that direction.

For example, you can decide in advance when returning on the deuce side that, if the second serve goes to your forehand, you will stretch your opponent wide with a short cross court shot, but if it goes to your backhand, you will hit down the line as it’s easier to hit the ball accurately when swinging in that direction.

This little trick of preparing your “answers” in advance can do wonders for the consistency and accuracy of your returns.

3. Hitting the ball on top of the bounce

Returning the serve when it’s on top of the bounce is an optimal position from which you can create a lot of pressure.

If you hit it on the way down, you’ll have to return it possibly from behind the baseline and that will give your opponent a lot of time to get to it.

You’ll also have to hit up, and you won’t be able to hit it very fast.

That’s why it’s best if you step into the court and hit your returns right when the serve reaches the top of its bounce.

That also allows you to swing freely through the ball without having to adjust to its trajectory.

Namely, if you were to hit the ball while it was still rising, you would have to close your racquet face a bit to compensate for the angle of deflection from your racquet. If you were to hit the ball on the way down, you would need to compensate again and add more lift to your stroke.

Therefore, hitting on top of the bounce is the easiest way to control the ball. And because you’re returning the serve inside the court, you’re giving your opponent less time to react which increases the chance of him missing the shot.

4. Creating enough space between you and the ball

While the idea of creating enough space between you and the ball may not seem like a key piece of advice in this situation, I feel the need to include it because I’ve seen players jam themselves too close to the ball in their eagerness to attack it.

For some reason, the intention of playing an aggressive shot makes players come too close to the ball very often, so I am including this suggestion here in case this happens to you, too.

You need enough space between you and the ball in order to swing freely and loosely, which will create a lot of racquet head speed without much effort.

If, on the other hand, you get too close to the ball, you’ll muscle it. While it will feel powerful to you, it won’t have much speed because muscling the ball actually slows down the racquet face.

It also works the other way, of course – if you only know how to muscle the ball, you’ll probably jam yourself into it.

So hopefully keeping in mind a good distance from the ball will also help you develop a more smooth and effortless swing.

5. Seeing the ball clearly

One of the most common reasons for missing an aggressive return (or any other shot, for that matter) is taking your eye off the ball.

The reason why I point out keeping your eye on the ball again in this situation is that you are hitting an aggressive shot, which means your racquet will travel very fast through the air.

That also means that any small mistake in its path or angle will result in a big mistake once “multiplied” with the high speed of your swing.

Therefore, you really need to focus on seeing the ball clearly after the bounce and keeping your head still while making contact with the ball.

You will be tempted to look at your target, especially when you have already made up your mind where you will hit your aggressive return, but you must resist the temptation.

Trust that the ball will go close to your chosen target even when you don’t look at the target. Focus on making a clean hit.

6. Recovering immediately

As I mentioned initially, you might also miss your shot slightly towards your opponent, which won’t put him under much pressure. In fact, he can respond with a good shot.

You need to be ready for that, which is why you need to recover immediately after your return to the middle of the possible angles your opponent can play, just in case your return doesn’t land where you wanted it to.

You could also approach the net after your return, but you must do so very quickly and expect a good reply from your opponent, no matter how unlikely it is.

In summary, punishing those butterfly second serves is very doable. You can turn most of those situations in your favor following these six tips:

• Look to force mistakes rather than attempting to hit winners (you will still hit plenty of winners in the long term when you miss your target slightly).
• Decide in advance where you will return.
• Create enough space between you and the ball.
• Hit the ball on top of the bounce.
• See the ball clearly after the bounce.
• Recover immediately.

And if you happen to be one of those players who serves easy-to-attack second serves, then sign up for the free three-part video series on how to boost the effectiveness of your second serve and prevent any attacks on it.

And because you’re applying that on almost all forehands, backhands, serves, overheads and volleys, you very likely unknowingly apply this way of hitting the ball also on your returns.

But the one key difference between returns of a fast serve and receiving all other types of shots is that now you’re receiving a much faster ball!

And as you know, hitting a fast incoming ball with a fast moving racquet will result in a very fast outgoing ball. That outgoing ball will very likely sail long or into the net because you know you need to aim very low in order to keep it in the court.

Therefore, it’s crucial that you learn to swing SLOW when meeting that incoming fast serve.

By swinging slow, you will not add more speed to an already fast ball, and you’ll return it at a speed that allows you to control the ball well.

And in order to do that, you need to imagine just MEETING the ball well in front in your optimal contact point instead of HITTING it.

The mental image of meeting the ball in front will very likely change your return of serve technique without the need of much analytical thinking or mechanical corrections.

It will naturally shorten your backswing and slow down your swing towards the ball.

Just make sure that you also practice the one-foot push off into a split step and time it well.

Meeting The Ball Return Drills

While the change in the mental image might change your return technique and swing speed immediately, some of you may also need some specific drills that help achieve that change.

The following return of serve drills help you first break down the old habit of swinging fast towards the ball and then help you develop the right feel for finding that ideal swing speed that will result in a controlled and deep return.

Drill #1: Meet the ball and return to your own service box

Have a partner serve you medium-paced serves from the service line (so he can hit all serves in and create some time pressure for you despite not swinging at full speed).

Your goal is to just meet the ball in front and let it bounce off your racquet and land on your side of the net.

Aim for your own service box, but if you manage to keep it even shorter so it doesn’t cross the service line, that’s fine, too.

While this sounds very simple, it’s actually not because your habit of swinging towards the ball fast will still be there. You’ll need to battle it for a while in order to change it to just slowly bringing your racquet to the contact point and meeting the ball.

If your returns still fly over the net, stick with this drill for at least 5 minutes until you make some progress.

You may have to repeat this drill in multiple sessions in order to change your swing.

Another mental image that helps is to imagine you’ll catch the ball with your racquet and strings as if you have a butterfly net instead of strings.

Drill #2: Meet the ball and return to the service box across the net

If you’re able to slow down the incoming serve with your return so much that the ball doesn’t cross the net, you’ve then learned what it means to meet the ball instead of hitting it.

Your goal now is to gradually start adding more speed to your swing so that eventually you can return the ball deep with some pace.

That’s why you’re now aiming for the service box on the other side of the net.

You still want to just meet the ball in front, but now you want to give it a little push or drive in order to hit it a little bit deeper.

Your goal is to return well at least 50% of the serves into the other service box, but 75% is an even better goal to have before moving on to the last drill.

Drill #3: Meet the ball and return over the service box

When you see that you can successfully slow down the incoming serves to the point where you can consistently return into the service box, add another bit of energy to your returns so that now they land over the service box.

Don’t think about technique, but think about energy or force.

If the ball is too short, give it a little bit more energy on the next return.

See where it lands and adjust.

Still keep in mind the idea of meeting the ball in front and then guiding it deep towards the other side.

You may initially feel that, without enough swing speed of your racquet, you can’t do that. I advise you to stick with the idea of just meeting the ball and see what happens.

One mental image that works for me is that I imagine adding force to the ball only from the contact point onwards.

So, the picture in my mind is that I simply stick my racquet in front like a wall waiting to meet the ball. Once it reaches my racquet, I give it some power with only my follow-through.

I see no swing speed of the racquet before contact in my mind’s eye.

I am not stiff or tight doing that. I am only managing the speeds of my racquet in different parts of the swing.

While I know that in reality the ball is gone immediately after the contact and that my follow-through can’t add any force to it any more, the mental image that I have creates some racquet movement towards the ball just before contact.

As a result, it adds that necessary bit of energy to the ball that makes it land deep on the other side of the court.

The tactical goal when receiving fast serves is to go for high consistency returns deep down the middle with not much pace.

Your goal is not to attack your opponent but mainly to keep the ball in play and possibly neutralize his attacks by hitting the ball deep and making your opponent hit his first shot behind the baseline.

Your main goal is depth, not speed!

Remember that you control depth best with height.

Therefore, keep looking for that ideal height of your returns at low speed that still allows you to land the ball deep over the service line on the other side of the court.

2 Keys To Consistent Returns Of Fast Serves

There are two key tips to reliable returns of fast serves you need to keep in mind and always do:

1. Always, always move forward towards the incoming ball, even if the serve was hit at 200 km/h.

While that adds some speed to your returns, it actually helps you control the ball better because you can therefore slow down the speed of your arm even more and meet the ball even more accurately in the ideal contact point.

Don’t over-think the footwork on the return of serve. Just move naturally towards the incoming ball.

In most cases, you should play open stance because of the time that stepping in takes away from you.

However, don’t think too much about your feet. Focus on your body’s momentum towards the incoming ball.

2. Really try to see the ball well after the bounce.

Make sure you point both of your eyes towards the ball to take that quick, clear snapshot of the ball.

The ball is coming in fast ‒ and if you can’t see it well, you will not hit it in your sweet spot regularly. The result is that your returns will be very inconsistent.

The feeling of being rushed may very well make you just take a quick glance at the ball and immediately look over the net to see what happened with your return. That will never result in clean shots and reliable returns.

That’s why the idea of meeting the ball is so important. It helps you calm down for that moment of contact and not imagine a very fast impact.

See the ball well after the bounce and don’t turn your head too quickly towards the other side until you feel that you’ve completed your follow-through.

That’s because it requires you to react very quickly, track a very fast incoming ball and find it in space with a relatively small sweet spot of your racquet ‒ and all that in a very short amount of time.

Therefore, it requires fast reflexes, good ball tracking ability and good hand-eye coordination. In fact, all these skills need to be at a very high level if you want to return fast serves consistently.

The stroke technique is actually quite simple because you can imagine it as only the second half of your groundstrokes. Therefore, it is easier to perfect.

But it’s the reactions, timing and the ability to see the ball well despite its very fast flight towards you that make the return of serve the most difficult stroke in tennis to master.

I will share more drills on returns of serve in the future, very likely in a full return video course that will cover many more topics like returning different types of serves (flat, kick, slice), grips to use, types of footwork and how to practice all that.

But the concept of meeting the ball and the progression of return drills that are described above have almost always helped my students reach that “aha” moment on how to handle fast serves and improved their return consistency considerably in a very short amount of time.

Give the idea of meeting the ball on the return a shot, and share your thoughts in the comments below!