Poaching & Serve/Volley Biomechanics

I feel that intermediate players should serve/volley and poach more often in doubles to help translate that into a team option, as well as, their singles game.

Tactically, I feel you should serve and volley more often as it adds perhaps 15% more power when you move forward through a serve. I would encourage you all to do so for that reason and, as a counter strategy to short, drop angle returns.

All of you have concerns about the difficulty of a first volley after serving–one
reason for this note. In my classes, we isolating the appropriate footwork
and balance to make a strong first volley.

1) Servers: for your homework, serve and volley more often on first serves and focus your attention on the receivers ANTICIPATED body posture at contact.

Poachers and Servers should ask yourself, “Are they about to hit hard or soft?” and, “What is the center of the body doing before contact?”.

Receiver contact with a laterally, extended posture or backward steps results in soft shots 90% of the time! They are offensive opportunities for the serving team.

This will tell you whether split stepping to stretch/move laterally will be necessary.
The educated guess to these questions tells poachers WHEN to go. Go ahead and make
mistakes Poachers as it’s only an educated guess, but a fun one!

This is the study of Basic, Belt Buckle, Biomechanics! 🙂

The Bryan Brothers get passed up the line trying to poach often….but not often enough
to be the second best team in history. Take some chances on what you see!

2) Servers: don’t worry about running forward as fast as you can. Being in balance
when the second shot arrives is WAY more important then WHERE that
happens!

3) Since it takes longer to get there, a spinning serve is actually a better way to give yourself more time to get in balance for the first volley than a flat serve.

“I see!”, said the blind man.

If you pay attention to #1, #2, and #3 a new offensive frontier will open to you for both singles and doubles.

Sincerely,
TennisDr