Tennis Volley Tips
What are the secrets to great volleying?
Even when you know a lot about groundstrokes in tennis, the volley is another story. There are some distinctions that may not be so obvious between groundstroke and volley in tennis. Let's see what the main differences are and how they affect your mental approach to volleying.
Sidebar: If you are looking for instruction on volley technique, take a look at How To Play Tennis videos for tennis beginners.
Since you play volley in the air and are closer to the net, you have less time to prepare. You have to be aware of the fact that when the ball bounces on the ground it loses around 40-50% of its speed. That of course doesn't happen when volleying, so the ball is very quickly near you.
It also means that your opponent has less time to react and read you shots. So that means that you don't need to hit the volley as hard as opposed to the groundstroke if you want to force an error or hit a winner.
Tennis volley tip 1
The main mental note to have when you play a volley is that you don't need a spectacular shot, just a »normal« one. (unless of course you play ATP or WTA…)
It takes a while for a player to realize that since that's not his experience from the baseline. If he plays a normal shot from the baseline, nothing special will happen. If you play a normal volley (into open space – check tip #3), you win most of the points.
Thinking that you need to hit good shots with speed is of course the main reason why so many players make excessive swings on the volley preparation. It's their body responding to the command - »hit this ball hard.«
Another difference is that many times when you miss a volley or an overhead it looks that the shot wasn't difficult. That is for those non-experts in tennis. And so it looks that you were clumsy or funny and you could make a fool of yourself. When you play from the baseline and miss a shot most of times it doesn't look clumsy or funny.
So that's another reason why players:
- hesitate to go to the net,
- overhit their approach shots in order not to play the volley at all
- try to finish the first volley they get since there is a big chance that they might miss the next shot coming at them. This of course again produces the big swing on the volley.
Tennis volley tip 2
There are no easy balls. When you're at the net you have 1 or 1,5 seconds to react, decide and play the ball. Very challenging. And so you might miss those volleys many times before you become comfortable at the net.
You can't learn volley from the book or just from drilling. Technique yes but not situational play which includes decision! That's the hard part of the volley and you need to experience these situations many times before your decisions become quick and automatic.
Go to the net often, experience situations there and know that you can't make a fool of yourself. It is very demanding to do all that and you have to do it in 1 second.
The next reason closely related to the upper one is that when you play from the baseline, you won’t get punished even if you don't really decide on some shots or hit a shot in any specific direction. Sometimes you can play long shots and wait for the short ball and it works even though your baseline shots didn’t have any special intention except length.
That is not the case with the volley. If you have no special intention when you play the volley, your shot will sit up in the middle of the court and you will be easily passed.
Tennis volley tip 3
Always have an intention when coming to the net. And it would be very good if you had one for every shot. More on this topic in the bonus report which you get for subscribing to the newsletter.
Your main intention should be – to the open space – and just a solid volley. Nothing special, no ego show off, no humiliation of the opponent, just a good solid volley to the open space.
As soon as you look for great volley you'll overhit and your percentage will drop rapidly. Remember – you can rarely finish the point with the first volley. It's actually an approach shot which puts your opponent under a lot of pressure. It may force an error or you might get an easy put away volley.
Another main difference is that you can be quite safe and secure from the baseline since you a re familiar with most situations. But when you come to the net you are in a completely new territory. You already feel uncomfortable even before you play your first volley. It of course negatively affects your volley when you play it.
There are so many different situations at the net that you can't possibly practice all of them. Unless you maybe forget your groundstrokes and camp at the net on every opportunity. ;)
Tennis volley tip 4
There is no other way than feeling the fear and doing the thing anyway. You can't get so good at practice that you will be able to come to the net without any fear or discomfort at first. Be realistic – you'll feel discomfort and make mistakes.
But sometimes you’ll get lucky. And then you will start getting lucky so many times that it won't be luck anymore. You'll have a pretty good idea of many situations at the net.
This part was mentioned in tip #3, but it deserves a special attention. It's very difficult for a typical player to finish the point with an outright winner from the baseline. The percentage is too low if one tries to force it.
So when a player comes to the net for a volley, he finally has a chance to hit a winner. This makes him overexcited and he consequently overhits – resulting in another error. And even when players realize that, emotions frequently take over and the player tries again for a super winner in the corner.
Another emotional reason is humiliation of your opponent. Your volley can represent your thinking about him – you want to "stomp" him into the ground. Not good – an emotional volley has less chance of hitting the court than you winning a lottery. ;)
You can also be afraid to hit another volley which may come back or be just afraid of the ball. In either case you're under emotions again and it's very unlikely that you are successful.
Tennis volley tip 5
You need to decide whether you want to win points and matches or express your feelings. If you decide for feelings that's ok, but be aware that you've put winning in the second place.
Become aware of your emotional states and get out of them. Focus on what you want, take your time to calm down, focus on your strings, take a few deep breaths and centre yourself. You'll be able to decide much more maturely and intelligently in this state.
When dealing with fear there is no theory that will work. You need to experience the exact opposite of what you're afraid of and then your mind will stop sending those uncomfortable feelings. You need to convince your mind that the fear is not really true. If you haven’t' heard of this acronym, here it is: FEAR – false evidence appearing real.
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