TENNIS: DEPTH

Last time I told you about the 6 game situations. Let me mention them 1 more time to you.

1. Serving

2. Returning serve

3. Playing a baseline rally

4. Approaching the net + net play

5. Hitting passing shots and lobs

6. Lob recovery

If you're a beginner practice consistency in all the situations, as I mentioned before.

The next step would be to go for PLACEMENT on your serve, passing shots, volleys and smashes; and to go for DEPTH in the baseline rally and on your returns and lobs. While recovering lobs go for HEIGHT & DEPTH first, before you try any 'trick shots'.

Look at the Masters Final between Agassi and Federer. Both players hit very hard AND succeeded in hitting the ball pretty deep at the same time. Federer, of course was more successful doing this. Even his 'clean winners' were pretty close to the baseline. With his good hands he even succeeded in playing deep shots on Aggasi's deep shots standing close to the baseline. Like Agassi said afterwards: Federer has incredibly good 'hands'.

Being able to combine consistency, depth, placement and pace like Federer is unusual to say the least and a beautiful thing to behold.

The most important thing is that it will take away the sharp angles from our opponent. Let me explain that in further detail. When you're playing a volley two feet from the net, it's quite easy to get the ball to arrive on the court next to you on its second bounce. Try doing that standing 5 feet behind the baseline! (Especially when you're standing in the middle.)

No really, try that!

Getting to know the angles on court should be one of your priorities in developing your game.

Another advantage of hitting the ball deep into the opponent's court is that it will buy you time, especially if the opponent will move backwards to get a comfortable contact point. This in turn will mostly occur when you hit the ball a bit higher. Guess what? Using a little extra height will get the ball deep!

The last thing I want to tell you about hitting the ball deep is that it will cause your opponent to hit a not-so-deep shot; and that of course will get you in a position to take charge and attack. There are some more interesting things I could tell you about the use of depth, but I'll save that for next time!