Cross-Court Topspin Tennis Serve Returns

Video Transcript

"Okay, on this one I'm going to give Ken a serve and he's going to hit it a cross court service return and instead of going back to the middle like a lot of coaches always advocate, I want him to stand on the forehand side and I'm just going to feed him another ball and then he can hit it anywhere he wants. So, the idea here is to hit a nice forcing cross court to the server and then open up the court for the next shot because a lot of coaches will have you move back to the middle, but that may not be the appropriate place to stand. So, you always want to follow wherever you hit the ball. So, if he would have returned this down the line. I want him to stand kind of where he's hitting it from. So, let's hopefully demonstrate this well here. So, cross court and then hit this one down the line. Come on, move. That's it. So, you see by hitting the cross court, it forces a weak return. Now, if he would have moved all the way back to the middle, he would not have been in position to hit that next ball. Okay. So, let's try that again; cross court and then down the line. Good job, Ken. So, that's the idea; is by hitting the cross court it's the safest shot because it's the longest. It forces a short ball return which then you can put away for a winner. That's the idea of this drill and if you work on this a lot, the game will get a lot easier."