It depends on the speed of the ball. If the ball is relatively slow, I might take it on the rise. If it’s a very heavy kick, I would prefer to wait for it and hit it on the way down like most pros do.

Thanks for lesson. If the top of the bounce is going above shoulder level, do you hit as ball is rising or wait till it falls back to shoulder level?

agree Tomaz. Funny thing is that sometimes it’s the bigger/ better servers that are more off balance for that split second after the bounce, because as you say – they are putting more effort into their serve and often landing on one foot and/or otherwise taking a step into the court and because their toss may be a bit off and/or they tossed the ball behind their head a bit to get topspin on the serve – these bigger/better servers can be just a bit off-balance for a half a second following the serve – as opposed to the patty-cakers that just pop the serve over without moving their feet.

I’ve noticed that one of Djokovic’s best returns is the one that takes early and hits back deep up the middle – sometimes right at the feet of the server – causing even great athletes like Nadal to struggle – since he’s forced to try to execute what is essentially a half-volley reply when – as you note – he’s just landed on one foot inside the baseline and is attempting to regain his balance.

Obviously, the ‘chip and charge’ is a variation of this tactic, but Djoker doesn’t necessarily come in; he just steps in – makes good contact – and sends it back deep down the middle and anticipates the weak half volley reply and then attacks. Again – I’ve seen Nadal and others sometimes struggle to get it back into play and even if they do it’s often a weak shot that puts Nole on the offensive.

Good points, John.

Just to reiterate – when an opponent serves, they typically land inside the court on one leg. If you then put pressure on them, they will be in much more trouble than when they are in a rally behind the baseline on both feet.

So the same attack on the same short ball / short serve will cause them much more trouble if they have just served compared to being in ready position behind the baseline.

Therefore we don’t have to take that many chances (power, accuracy) with returns off short serves than we have to when we attack a short ball in the middle of the rally.

On these weak 2nd serves – I agree that one’s mindset should be to simply ‘pressure’ the opponent … which is the same mindset I have when hitting an approach shot.

Ideally – you want to ‘take time away from your opponent’ i.e. – rush him/her and/or make him move. A lot of people are off-balance after they serve and they are often looking at where their serve lands and wondering if it was in, because they don’t have a lot of confidence in their serve.

If you move in and take it early and hit it deep you will often get a weak reply. If they start retreating to play defense, you can mix in a few sharper x-court angles to keep them off-balance and guessing.

You can also ‘fake’ coming in and hope they go for too much and make a mistake or that they throw up a lob – which is often easy pickings if you’ve stayed back because you should have an easy overhead off the bounce that hits in front of you.

I would just adjust the target – as I mentioned before, I would aim into the wide service corner area on the opposite side for both forehand and backhand return.

That would be my “default” return but I would definitely hit some down the line returns just to keep the net player “honest”.

How would you adjust your list in case of doubles ?

Thanks, jjg.

The “switches” that you talk about on the forehand return just happen, I don’t “do” anything. I simply want to make the ball go how I want and my technique adjusts.

I really suggest that you forget the mechanical nonsense and focus only on the trajectory of the ball and the amount of spin you want.

Yes, Robert, these tips are valid for doubles too, especially the part where you decide in advance. Don’t let the net guy distract you.

If you aim at the wide service box corner on the opposite side and know in advance that you’ll play there, it’s very likely that you’ll play very close to that area which makes it almost impossible to reach for the opposing net player.