Like this new video format very much! Short, concrete, well structured, with quicker speech and without gaps and repetitions. 20-min philosophical videos have their own aura, but new approach is really more effective. Keep on doing that! Thank you!
Nice ,but apart from that, i like to hit short ball at the body of opponents because it is limited the angles. Of course this demand deaph and nice speed in order not opponents has big reactions!
Gracias, thank you for a very clear and practical explanation of coming to the net, something that I always struggle because I love to be aggressive (maybe anxious to finish the point at the net :-) ) but not knowing the right conditions make me stand in a riskier position than the "expected easiness" of a volley to finish a point; looking forward to the next video on the subject, and great editing, congratulations.
You're very welcome! Like I mentioned, this is a very high win rate pattern to exploit. There are other situations when you can approach but I would say this has the highest rate of winning and is simple to understand and to apply.
Great video. Do one about serve and volley, please. When to do it (strategy), what kind of serve is better for this play, how to act if I don't hit the spot I aimed for
Thanks for the good video. Are there any different conditions for doubles, other than using short balls from the outside line of the doubles court? Keep up the good work!
Thanks! In doubles it is very difficult to make opponent run even if you stretch them first because they only need to cover half of the court. It much more depends on the skill level of their groundstrokes VS the skill level of your volleys. In most cases they will not move much and can hit a very good groundstroke at you even if you attack a short ball. The question is then can your volley skills handle such a good shot? So there is not such a straight answer as it is in singles. It is much more "it depends" answer.
Ha…I tried this in a match (UK club typical recreational level etc)…. Just once…I saw the opportunity - the 2 conditions…and it worked! Point won on the volley. Match lost but that’s another story. Looki forward to the next video! thanks again Tomaz.
Great concept. I’m really enjoying your channel btw. I really like how you simplify concepts based on feel. For instance, I’ve recently restarted hitting for practice after a 2.5 year break due to a bad injury (followed by laziness) and noted my backhand felt stiff and mechanical. I rewatched other channels for basic fundamentals but found I was so focused on specific positions etc that I was late on everything. Your backhand advice of basically just preparing early, rotating hips to start the swing and then focusing on contact made a huge improvement. When I do that everything falls in place naturally and much more smoothly without effort. When I think about unit turn, right arm straight, racket tip up, further shoulder rotation, racquet drop, wrist lag, contact, extend, follow through it’s just too much for my brain to process smoothly and it gets stiff and jerky. I’m not sure if my full swing looks aesthetic or text book, but whatever it looks like isn’t as important as using the big muscles and letting everything else go on autopilot. Been hitting on ball machine with slow speeds and feed about 6-9 seconds just working on feeling effortless without tension and I plan on doing this as well as some free hitting for a few months before I ever play any match. Thanks for your guidance!
Thank you Tomaz for this video. Short ball may come after any aggressive shot. In this case, We are going in to hit short ball far away from opponent. How can I come back baseline. What are the conditions or distances from baseline? How to recover after hitting short balls. I think, next video will be about how to approach net. We are also expecting a video to recover at baseline.
In this case we have a short ball, there will be no recovery to the baseline, we're approaching the net. How short must the "short ball" be for you to commit to coming to the net and not recover back to baseline? Generally speaking, the line of no return is at around 3/4 distance from the net. Once your feet cross that line as you are hitting a short ball, you need to commit coming to the net, you cannot back off to the baseline any more.
Great Tip. But what if opponent manage to return a deep shot from sidelined instead of a short ball. I believe in that its better to stay back and wait for rally as only one condition is met ?. Thanks
Great video Tomaz! You are such an inspiration. I love your videos. The quality of content, production and editing is getting better and better. Keep up the good work.❤
Very much appreciated! And yes, I am working now with a professional editor and yes, I am also very happy with their editing skills. Will show them your comment. ;)
Everything looks great. You set the bar very high. The graphics and effects are neat and timely placed. Your editing team is doing a fantastic job. Cheers🥂
In doubles it's very difficult to make opponent run since they cover just half of the court (slightly bigger) so you don't have the same conditions to follow. In most cases your opponent will be positioned well which means they will hit a good shot. So the main question is then whether your volley skills can handle their good groundstroke. If yes, then approach on short balls, if not, stay back.
@@feeltennis Thank you Tomaz! Our team instructor is really in favour of serve and volley but what you say makes so much sense. I will continue to work on my volleys but I’ll also feel I’m doing the right thing when I choose to stay back dependent on the opponents and our shots🤗👍
tennis strategy is super interesting. I wonder how many hours it would take until it becomes instinctual to decide when to come to the net instead of consciously thinking about it .
I would estimate that to around 5 years. That's also the time that you need to make instinctive reactions at the net when you have to volley or smash in the short amount of time you have. Of course, you need to keep pushing yourself to come to the net for 5 years to gain all the experience...
Fun fact: As much as I hold Federer to be the most complete player of all time, this is his one relative weakness nobody is talking about. Very low success rate on his net approach shots due to violation of one or even both of these criteria. Never understood why he did that, but I guess his confidence was that high, knowing he could always win point in every other conceivable way.
If he played a really good baseliner in his prime which would be Nadal and Djokovic, he assessed (likely correctly) that it's higher risk to stay on the baseline than to force net attacks. There was no great option for him when they were at their best, he has a losing record to both. I'll make up some numbers so that you can see an example: if he played from the baseline, he maybe would have won 45% of the points (which means he will definitely lose the match) and if he forced more net approaches (even from non-optimal situations), he would have won 50% of the points. So there is a chance of winning. That also means he loses 50% of the attacks which to you seems like a very low success rate but any other tactics had an even lower probability so he had to choose the better of two bad options.
I would be interested by your opinion on the options when having a short ball and opponent in the middle, which happens. The kind of ball you can't play and go back at the baseline, you kinda must go to the net. In this situation you can be at the net and feel you're in defense if you don't manage to produce a nice attack.
In that case you focus on playing the ball really deep to the weaker side of the opponent to force them to hit on the rise or even like half volley the ball and try to pass you from such a difficult situation. So depth is really the key to make them hit on the rise because it is very difficult to make the ball dip with topspin if you hit on the rise. Most likely they will lift the ball too much and you'll get a higher ball to volley away. Don't focus on power but on depth of the approach shot. Another option to is go straight down the middle at them, in that case you can go for a faster shot and not that deep as you don't want to give them much time to get away from the ball. So your intention is to jam them and prevent a good swing at the ball - similar like serving into the body to prevent good swing at the ball.
@@feeltennis Thank you for the answer, much appreciated. I don't understand why for the option 2 you say "not that deep as you don't want to give them much time to get away from the ball". For me it'll be harder to get away from the ball if it's deep.
@tequilacoca5324 Because hitting hard AND deep is very risky. Power and precision are not compatible, do you understand this? I will not intentionally attempt a very fast shot into a very small target. (very deep). Of course it may just happen but I have to manage risk. So if I hit harder, I aim safer, yes?
Another brilliant video and lesson! Thank you! Now I know why just approaching on a short ball isn’t always getting me the results I expected. Your explanation of getting the opponent on the run makes a lot of sense. Looking forward to trying it out in my next practice match. Thank you!!
More video like this please, i started tennis 2 years ago, with your video and my coach, now im pretty good but i need video like this for take good decision when i play. Thank you so much
