The Way of the Dodo

There is an element of the game that seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird. I'm thinking, of course, of the serve-and-volley tactic. It wasn't that long ago when nearly every player on the men's professional circuit, and a fair number on the women's side, practiced this dying art with skill and alacrity. Even players who were not tall with a long reach, or who did not have a huge serve, such as Rod Laver, folowed their serves into the forecourt, where they used their anticipatory skills, agility, and "soft hands" to win points quickly, as if with a parry and a thrust.

It made the game seem more "manly" in many respects. Practitioners of the s&v tactic were risk-takers; they were players who preferred to be in control of their own destiny; who would rather look silly stabbing at thin air than let the point turn into a war of attrition.

This philosophy extended beyond the mere s&v, as players looked for any opportunity to shorten the court, and point. Short ball? Good enough for me, I'm going in! Second serve? You bet I'll be chipping and charging! So what happened to have caused these effective tactics to be placed on the endangered list? In a word (no, better make that four), racquets, strings, technique and surface.

The advances in racquet design and technology have had enormous impact on the game, particularly among the professional ranks. The racquet speed that players generate today demands a racquet that not only can withstand off-center hits, but can deliver a solid, accurate placement on them. In the days of the Dunlop Maxply Fort or the Wilson Pro Staff, off-center hits generally resulted in a weak shot or an error. Racquet-head speed could be your friend and your enemy, on the same day. So most players opted for a swing style and speed that allowed them to maintain a high standard of ball control.

Remember, serving speeds have not risen dramatically, at least not when measuring the game's biggest servers, oveer the past three decades. Roscoe Tanner had a big bomb, as did little Colin Dibley, whose serve was clocked in the 140s. But ground strokes, and particularly returns of serve, have gotten dramatically more powerful. But watch clips of a match featuring today's players side-by-side with a match from the 1960s or 1970s, just as racquet technology was beginning to be explored, and you'd think the latter players were in slow motion.

This means that any foray into the net will not yield as deep a penetration into the forecourt as is desired to make a forceful volley. The opponent's reply will simply arrive too soon to get in optimum volleying position. This is one of the reasons the swinging volley has gained in popularity. Hit from the service line or farther back, it can penetrate through the opponent's defensives more quickly than the traditional "punch" or "catch" volley.

String technology has also left an indelible mark on the game, to the detriment of s&v. It has often been said that the Luxilon and other polyester strings, as well as the so-called "blends, in which a natural gut string is mixed with a synthetic is like playing with the banned "spaghetti racquet." Consequently, players are able to apply spins that result in revolutions per minute that were practically unimaginable 30 years ago. The passing shots now dip below the net more quickly and at a shorter distance from the net, making it less likely that a volleyer will get a ball above the netcord to work with.

Advances in stroke technique have also worked against the s&v. Open-stanced forehands and two-handed backhands essentially allow players to face the net to strike the ball, their hips parallel with the net, as they generate power from their back, or anchor, legs--pushing off the ground the way a baseball pitcher usd the mound rubber. This results in tremendous force being applied to the shots. In addition, it allows players to get a better "look" at the net-rusher and to disguise their passing shot. Furthermore, the open stances allow players to get back toward the center of the court, or to "bisect the angle" more rapidky, as the position of their feet and the distribution of their weight are more optimally suited for changing direction and getting a good "jump" on the ball.

It's no accident that plyometric training has been applied to the tennis stroke much more frequently and effectively since the general acceptance and practice of open-stanced stroke production. Explosiveness is built into the open stance approach, and professional players are maximizing this element in today's game, to the harm of the net rusher, who finds it more difficult to gain good positioning at the net, more difficult to "read" opponent's intentions, and more difficult to get to balls which are now hit with amazing power and accuracy.

Finally, court surface changes, from a macro perspective, have made the s&v tactic less effective than it once had been. In 1969, when Rod Laver achieved the Grand Slam for the second and last time in his career--winning the singles titles at each of the four major events, or Slams--three of the four Slams were vied for on grass courts. Today, two of those--the Australian Open and U.S. Open, have switched to hard courts. Despite the lack of solid evidence that the pro tour has abandoned all but hard courts, there is no question that the game's most prized titles have an effect beyond the lure of fame and fortune, and ranking points.

[NOTE: I'm off to catch some Zs. I will return to finish this tomorrow.]

Use variety and disguise to achieve the element of surprise!

You’re serving. It’s the third set of a tight match, which has see-sawed on several service breaks. In this service game, you’ve worked the court well to get to 40-30. A hold here will not only consolidate the service break you earned at 3-all, but will put you firmly in the driver’s seat, up 3-5 with the chance to break for the win or, failing that, serve out the match. An awful lot rides on this one point. What you may or may not realize is that the match may very well ride on what you choose to do with your first serve.

Conventional wisdom would have you play a relatively safe serve hit with three-quarter pace to the weak side or directly at your opponent’s body with plenty of topspin for a wide margin of error, and to look to attack the second ball. What you don’t want to do at this crucial moment is needlessly throw away your first serve by going for too much, thus be obligated to play a safer, more predictable second serve. By going for broke on the first serve (and missing) you unwittingly hand over the advantage to your opponent by failing to utilize the server’s most precious commodities — variety and disguise, which together equal the element of surprise.

Much has been made of the parallels between serving in tennis and pitching in baseball, and for good reason. In baseball, if the pitcher is able to “get ahead of” the batter, meaning to advance the strike count ahead of the ball count, he gains a huge advantage. Why is this? Because if the pitcher is able to get the count to 1 ball and 2 strikes, for example, then he has three pitches with which to get that last strike. He can essentially “waste” two of the three. Of course, no pitcher worth his salt would ever waste a pitch, but he might elect to throw a hard-breaking ball low and off the outside corner in an attempt to fool the batter into swinging at, and missing, a “bad” pitch — one that is unreachable and well beyond the strike zone. By getting “ahead” of the batter, the pitcher opens up his options and can then utilize the element of surprise by using his twin commodities — variety and disguise — to earn that last strike, perhaps even avoiding the strike zone altogether and therefore making it very difficult for the batter to get good wood on the ball should he make contact with it.

On the other hand, a pitcher who gets “behind” the batter, taking the count to 3 balls and 1 strike, for example, is obligated (by custom, external pressures, and ego/pride) to throw a ball well within the strike zone — to play it safe — or suffer the consequence of walking the batter. Now that he is in the unenviable position of needing a strike to keep the batter off the bases, he is paradoxically also more likely to throw a pitch that the batter can hit hard, as the pitcher’s options are greatly reduced and the batter can predict with greater success the type, speed and position of at least one of the next three pitches. The element of surprise has been temporarily suspended. The batter now has the advantage.

The exact same kind of thing occurs on the tennis court, in two distinct ways. The first is by the score: a server who is up 40-15 has more options and can utilize the element of surprise to great advantage. The second, by the count: the options available for the first service delivery are far greater than for the second delivery, for obvious reasons. Like the pitcher, the server is obligated, out of a need to keep the receiver from earning a free or easy point, to place the second delivery well within the “strike zone” — in this case, within the receiver’s range of preconceived, hence predictable, scenarios. The only advantage the server still has on the second serve is that he can place the ball to the receiver’s weaker side, if he can find one. All other advantages have been lost due to the first service fault.

So, it should be clear that if a server cannot get his first serve in, he hands a large share of the advantage over to his opponent, the receiver. Conversely, should he succeed in getting a high percentage of first serves in, doesn’t it stand to reason that the advantage is on his racquet? Well, not entirely. Common sense tells us that even if the server gets 100 percent of his first serves in throughout a match, if he places the serve in the same place with the same pace and spin every time, he will have succeeded merely in achieving a very high degree of predictability, and again the pendulum of advantage will have swung over to the receiver.

How, then, can the server gain true advantage? He must utilize the precious commodities of variety and disguise to achieve the element of surprise and he must get a high percentage of first serves in the court. Why both? Because it has already been established that, by definition, second serves must be hit with more predictability, less variety and less disguise; therefore, less surprise, than first serves. Else the server would risk double-faulting too often.

Here it should be stated that many athletes, tennis players included, are risk-takers and will opt to utilize the element of surprise to the fullest even on second serves, albeit often at the expense of winning. And it should also be stated that there are times when a second serve should be delivered with all the surprise the server can muster, in order to keep from becoming so predictable that he has almost no chance of winning a point on his second serve.

Paradoxically again, as tennis is full of paradoxes, the server who gets a high percentage of first serves in with successful results (i.e., he wins most of those points) can “experiment” more freely with his second delivery. Thus he is at liberty to use variety and disguise on his second serve more confidently and to greater advantage than he would (or could) were he not so successful with his first serve. Let that sink in for a moment, because it is a crucial point.

Viewed from the receiver’s side, surprise means guessing where the server is going (which direction and placement); what type of and how much spin will be imparted, if any; and how much pace the serve will have. That’s over and above guessing whether the server will attack the net or stay back and look for a second ball to attack. There’s so much guesswork involved in receiving the first serve — when the server adroitly employs variety and disguise — that the receiver cannot approach the return with confidence or aggression. He must focus on reading the serve, getting good string on the ball, and putting the ball back in play with a modicum of spin or placement so as not to give the server an easy put away opportunity. Quite a different story than when the receiver is facing a much more predictable second serve, which conventionally is played with less variety and disguise!

Now let’s see what happens when we take the conventional wisdom I spoke about at the beginning of this analysis, where you have a 40-30 opportunity to hold serve, consolidate the break and sit in the driver’s seat at 3-5 in the third set — what I’ll call the wisdom of restraint — and turn it on its head.

What happens when we adopt this wisdom of restraint as our general serving tactic, and not reserve it merely for those times when getting our first serve in is imperative? To put it another way, what happens when we play as though getting our first serve in is always imperative? Consider again the mental approach of the baseball pitcher. “Get ahead and stay ahead of the batter,” must be his overriding thought. Throw strikes early, but use a variety of pitches and placements in order to keep the batter guessing and to minimize the risk that the batter will get solid wood on any pitch. Then, once ahead in the count, tempt the batter to swing at a “bad” pitch, either striking him out; forcing him to ground out or fly out; or throwing him off-balance and ensuring he won’t be able to hit for extra bases, minimizing any damage he can possibly inflict. It’s the philosophy of containment.*

*I think it is worth noting that only a small handful of baseball players, the legendary Pittsburgh Pirates catcher, Manny Sanguillan, being one who comes most readily to mind, consistently swing at the first pitch. Most batters “look” at the first pitch to get a feel for the pitcher’s stuff. What better time than that to slip in a pitch inside the strike zone? That said, too fat a pitch, one that is right over the plate with little stuff on it, will occasionally get rocked into the upper decks.

Applying the wisdom of restraint and philosophy of containment to your service game — by fully utilizing variety and disguise to achieve the much prized element of surprise — can help you hold serve more easily than you ever dreamed imaginable. Yes, on occasion your opponent will guess correctly and hit a winner off of your more conservatively struck first serve, but over the course of a game or match he should not be able to guess correctly often enough to inflict serious damage (i.e., break your serve). I say “should not be able to guess correctly often enough” because this depends entirely on how well you employ variety and disguise.

By variety I mean any and all of the following:
> varying the placement of your serve
> varying the speed or pace of your serve
> varying the type of spin you use
> varying the amount of spin you use
> varying the position on the baseline from which you serve, and
> varying what you do after the serve (e.g., staying back or rushing the net)
I believe the only variable I haven’t included is choosing which hand to serve with. So, if you happen to be ambidextrous like Luke Jensen, then add that to the list.

Disguise can be achieved in a number of ways, but most commonly through one or more of the following:
> disguising the service type through a single, unchanging tossing motion
> disguising the service placement, pace and spin by establishing and then breaking a few simple patterns, or
> disguising your intention by maintaining a high degree of variety, of course!
Variety allows you to achieve a certain degree of disguise and disguise gives your variety a supercharge. Use both successfully and keep the receiver guessing on his heels.

Turn your service tactics on their head and begin viewing your first serve as an imperative. Get ahead of the receiver and stay ahead of him by getting a high percentage of first serves in using the twin commodities of variety and disguise to achieve that precious element of surprise. Adopt the wisdom of restraint and the philosophy of containment: take some pace off your first serve, aim 1-2 feet inside the lines, add more topspin for a greater margin of error and diminish your opponent’s ability to inflict serious or lasting damage by reducing the number of second deliveries you place into the service box.

And then start putting more stuff on your second serve, adding more spin and pace as your first serve percentage goes way up and your points-won percentage takes off. Before long, your second serve will begin to resemble your first serve, about the time your opponent begins screaming “No mas!”

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