| Login Form |
|---|
|
|
TENNIS ARTICLES Tennis Articles US Open - Big Serve Return! | US Open - Big Serve Return! |
|
|
|
| Oct 08, 2009 at 01:02 PM | |||
|
The US Open - The Big Serve Return! Tennis players know how damaging a BIG serve can be and in this era Ivo Karlovic is the master of all BIG SERVICES. These ATP Tour serve statistics will tell you the rest: ACES1 Karlovic, Ivo 773 in 38 matches 1ST SERVE POINTS WON1 Karlovic, Ivo 85% in 38 matches SERVICE GAMES WON1 Karlovic, Ivo 92% in 38 matches BREAK POINTS SAVED1 Karlovic, Ivo 70 % in 38 matches These are staggering facts and devastating news for whoever is facing Karlovic. To put these statistics in perspective, Ivo wins 20 points per match or 5 games a match where his opponents do not touch the ball! Now if we sprinkle these Aces around a full 3 set match at crucial moments of Karlovics serve he just can not be broken. Or can he? We will see that later. In 10 first serves that he gets inside the court he wins almost nine of them! In every 100 service games he only loses his service 8 times! When an opponent gets a sniff of a break point in every 10 break points, they only manage to win three of them. That is only three games won out of a potential ten! Now, that Ivo Karlovic has a fantastic serve, we all know, but how do you counter it? Here are some tips you must apply on the return of service to have a minimal chance against servers like Karlovic. 1- You must develop lightning fast reactivity : a.- At the readiness moment you move your feet lightly in place, the adrenaline from the brain starts sending the message to your body of 'fight', a certain relaxed tension heightens your concentration and all of your senses. b. - At the eyes/brain level your eyes see what will happen before contact and send the message to your brain milliseconds before your opponent ball contact. c.- At the brain/neurons level the electrical impulses to your leg muscles and arm flush trough your body with lightning speed. d. - At the feet level it means that when you touch the ground at the split step, it feels like your feet barely touched the ground and your body is immediately propelled in the direction of the ball as if you were weightless. f. - At the arm racket level as an extension of your self it reaches, stretches and strikes the ball. It is important before a match to activate your fast twitching fibers or reactivity muscles with quick short movements of the racket arm and quick in place short sprints or mocked returns with fast short movements. (Always warm up to a sweat before any quick exercises or movements). Now to the business of preparing before the match: - If you have the opportunity, scout or have someone scout your opponent for serving patterns and weaknesses. - If you have access to tapes observe your opponent and learn how to read his serve and patterns. For example: Some players mouth where they are going to serve. Several have a slight ball toss change that tell you left, right or center. Many look at the spot they are going to serve (at the beginning of the ball bounce routine or at the end just before they toss). Others change their grip when they want to slice wide or flat. Another very important fact and often ignored at the highest levels, all games are tied to a certain inner rhythm each player has. For example some like to play fast others like to play slow. Breaking these rhythms can be crucial to winning matches for example: - Some servers like to serve fast. For these players, within the rules (20 second rule), make them wait the full 20 seconds between each point before you are 'ready'. If he misses the first serve and you 'happen' to have stopped the ball, do not just abruptly toss it to your back for the ball boy/girl to catch it, 'kindly' take your time, turn around and give the ball to the young boy/girl. Then move inside the baseline or to the baseline and acknowledge to your opponent that you are ready to return his/hers 'second serve'! Note well I am not proposing stalling or unfair tactics, I mean clearly within the rules to break that inner rhythm from your opponent and you must understand that is you against him/her. Meaning if you let that inner rhythm work for your opponent he/she will wallop you quicker than the blink of an eye and you may not even get into the match! - On the other hand slow servers like Djokovic for example especially on second serves. The first time he bounces the ball twenty times or goes above the 20 seconds between serves. Just lift your hand, interrupt play, calmly walk to the umpire and tell him that you were looking at the clock and 'Djokovic's' (whoever it is) is taking much more time than what is allowed. From then on if it happens again go back to the umpire and on the other hand make sure you are always ready early just to rush your opponent that tad little bit which will make him double fault or serve less well. As you saw above whatever you do on your side of the court is under your control and through your actions you can influence and sometimes even control what your opponent ends up doing. So how do I position myself at the return of serve? Some coaches and teachers will tell you to stand behind the baseline 3 to 5 meters (9 to 15 feet!), I say, just don't. In my judgment 1 meter (3 feet) from the baseline is the best position no matter how fast or how slow you are. But you must make specific adjustments to your return. And below I will explain, why. Pictures speak a thousand words and this graphic of the return of service position will clarify in your mind the importance of staying close to the baseline, no matter what you are told!
As you can see with one diagonal step and a stretch for all positions only one reaches the ball and it is the 1 meter or 3 feet from the baseline. The other two positions require several steps which if you watch the tennis service video below and the ball speed, several steps are not an option! Now that we have answered the question how close should I be from the baseline? 1 meter or 3 feet. We have to consider how to thwart, confuse and throw our serving opponent off rhythm. As you can see in the picture above from the smiley corner positions you will get to return the cross court wide serves, but you do not stand a chance at the center line serves and the tennis video shows you why. So then your opponent will Ace you on the center line over and over. Oh yes he will, unless you do this: - Stay calm and focus on your opponents ball toss. - Change you return position constantly. (look at the smiley's in the graphic below).
Here is where your home work will pay off! For example if your opponent has a great down the middle serve and loves to serve there, you position yourself more to the center of the court and 'give' him the cross court serve. Ah! But, he will ace me cross court, (you will say)! Sure enough he may! But you are playing games with his mind and perhaps his wide serve is not as good, he may miss (give you a second serve) or even take off a little on the first serve and you get to it. Above all you must keep in mind that you are trying to take his best service away from him, the down the middle serve. On the other hand, if your opponents best serve is cross court wide you place yourself further wide to the side of the court. Either way at this point your opponent has no other choice but serve to whatever place you left open for him to serve to. What have you done to his mind? You cut off the choices he had to serve! He no longer has three choices of serve, down the middle (his favorite serve), wide or to your body. By placing yourself closer to the center line you reduced him to two choices, to your body or wide. Now that you are sure that he will not serve down the middle of the court you can start to mount your offensive on his serve and that is: - Hold your return position closer to the center line, show no intention of moving to return the cross court serve whatsoever. Until your opponent completely commits his eyes to the tennis ball he just tossed, now, and only now (when he has his eyes on the ball) you make a quick move to the cross court serve ball just as he is about to contact.
Chances are that you will get to it and make the return.
This is just the beginning of how you can really drive your BIG server to tears!
Now to further frustrate him, what do you do with those bullet serves?
- Just
block the returns. Do not
take huge swings at those 200 and over Klms an hour serves!
Roger Federer
does that all the time and is one of the best returners of the game.
Yes, block the returns, get as many first serves back as you can and make your
opponent earn those points. Once you have installed enough doubt in your
opponents mind and he is no longer sure of what you are about to do, his first
serve will become lesser of a threat and you might even be able to take a swing
or two here and there at his slower serves. One thing for sure though, you can
not let
Video Courtesy Dr. Calvin Nii Copyrights
www.tennisspeed.com Hope you enjoyed this lesson and that it will help you and your game. Sergio Cruz
Custom Search
Related tennis instruction and tennis video lessons:
Roger-Federer backhand block return of serve Pete Sampras backhand inside the court return of serve James Black Forehand Return of Service! Video Lessons - Tennis Service Pronation!Tennis Serve - Left To Right Motion! Reach Up For Your Tennis Serve!
Back From US Open - The Serve Return! to Tennis Cruz Main Page Copyright © Tenniscruz.com®. All rights reserved.
Please login or register to add comments |
|||
| Popular |
|---|
|
| Latest News |
|---|
| Search |
|---|