Teaching the Serve and Volley

If you were to watch any national junior tournament in the U.S., you would see only a few boys serve and volley at the 18’s level, almost none at the 16’s, and virtually none at the 14’s. The numbers are even more severe among the girls.

Many coaches and players believe that playing serve and volley tennis takes extreme levels of talent, and never seriously consider adding this style of play to their tactical arsenal. At younger ages, serving and volleying is probably not a serious option because youngsters don’t have an offensive serve or the ability to get in close enough to successfully volley the return.

As they get older, players may try to serve and volley a few points, get blasted, and use this as confirmation that they can’t do it. Additionally, players with tremendous speed and coordination who have proven that they can develop excellent strokes and shots from the baseline shy away from playing the net because they “can’t” volley.

Learning to serve and volley is not as difficult as many players and coaches believe as long as the skill is developed incrementally, using the progression method of learning, rather than the whole method.

While some physical education experts might argue that learning to serve and volley by doing so is an appropriate method for developing this skill, coaches must remember that a player’s fear of trying this new style of play may require a balancing act to allow that player a high level of success early on in order to get them motivated to add this tactic to their game.

The progression method of learning, including the graduate length method of learning, allows your players to experience immediate success, and increases their desire to continue practicing a new skill.

Following are a number of ways to make learning the serve and volley much easier and much more exciting for your players.

Start with the Volley

Because they believe the volley is such a key shot, many baseliners do not come to the net.

Begin your work with your players at the net, so they have much greater success as you begin their serve and volley development.

Ideally, a serve and volleyer will end the point with the second volley.

Your players will basically need two volleys: the deep volley to the baseline; and the short, angled putaway.

The deep volley will be used as the first volley, usually made from around the service line, while the short, angled volley will be the second volley, which ends the point.

The Volley
Step #1 Begin by working on your players’ putaway shot. Have them start one to two to four steps behind the net, depending on their height and speed. Feed balls directly to them, while they experiment with angles. They should not be working on powering the balls at this point. Just have them play with racquet face angles and contact points.

The volley does not require much of an arm swing, and this is where most mistakes come from. The first movement for a volley should be a forward movement, with the player lining up the racquet directly in front of the incoming ball. At this point, if the player froze and did not move the racquet, the ball would hit their racquet and go over the net (often resulting in a drop volley). Have your players practice doing this to understand how little movement they will need to create a successful volley.

Actually, once a player lines up his racquet with the ball, he should only move his shoulder to generate the power for the volley. Force = Mass X Acceleration. Where is there more mass, in the arm or the torso?

Step #2 To prevent players from taking their racquet back as their initial move (the most common mistake in the volley), have them place their racquet on the ground, and catch several balls you toss them with their racquet hand. They will see that their hand moves straight forward to make the catch.

Next, have them pick up their racquet and try to catch balls you toss, around the grip. They won’t be able to do it, but their racquet will automatically move forward. Finally, have them volley trying to retain this feeling of moving forward instead of taking the racquet back.

Step #3 As they begin to develop confidence with their ability to angle the ball away, begin to move them a few steps to each side to let them work on making short, angled volleys while moving laterally.

Step #4 As they master the ability to control their volleys, have them begin to move forward as they volley. This is the key mistake made by most net players, in doubles or singles. Too many players wait for the ball to come to them while they volley. This lets the ball drop, decreasing a player’s ability to hit down. It also decreases the angles they have for putaways, because staying back means they are farther from the net.

Make sure your players step into every volley, or take even more steps, if possible. Remember, since they know it is a volley, they can close without fear of being lobbed. If they close right on top of the net, their ability to hit down, the increased pace they will generate with their weight moving forward and the severe angles they command will almost ensure a putaway, and therefore, players need to commit and give up the lob.

If they are moving laterally to cover a wide ball, however, they may not be able to close and will have to cover the lob.

Once your players are confident with their volleys close to the net, they must begin to develop their mid-court volley.

Because they will almost certainly be on or behind the service line, players are not able to make a short, angled putaway. Similar to hitting a deep groundstroke approach shot on a short ball, hitting an approach volley requires the ability to hit the ball deep.

Your players should understand that the point of the first, or approach volley, is to pin their opponent back to keep them from stepping in and hitting an aggressive passing shot.

Players will want to hit their approach volley deep and down the middle, again to take away the down-the-line pass and severe, crosscourt angle. If your player can volley to deep and to the corners, putting that player on the defensive by keeping their weight back, your player will want to follow his volley in, bisecting the angle of possible returns.

Step #5 Have your player start at the service line and feed balls directly to them. As you did in Step #1, have your players experiment with racquet face angles, contact points and racquet head speeds to learn how to create depth. From this point on the court, players will need to begin opening their racquet faces to increase depth. Because the volley is a compact shot, which uses an opponent’s ball speed to generate pace, players do not have to swing much harder to get the ball deep. Opening the racquet face and making contact early will provide the depth they need.

Step #6 As you did with the closing volley, have your players learn to volley from the service line while moving laterally.

Step #7 Have your players learn to make the volley from the baseline, moving forward.

Step #8 Once the player is able to comfortable volley the ball deep to his opponent from the service line, begin having him practice shot combinations, making the first volley from the service line, continuing to close the net, then hitting a second, putaway volley.

Step #9 There will be times when your player will not be able to put the second volley away (usually due to a wide ball), and so your player will have to learn how to hit deep balls from the closing position. After you have worked the two-volley progression until your player is comfortable with the skill, begin feeding the second ball wide and making your player volley deep while they are close to the net.

They key skill to the serve and volley combination is not the volley, as many think, but the split-step, which allows a player to always volley from an offensive position.

The split-step is exactly what it sounds like. The player moves forward, and just as his opponent makes contact, he lands on both feet, bouncing off them in the direction his opponent’s next shot. This requires excellent timing and must be practiced.

The split-step is not quite a full stop, but a hesitation and bounce with the split made just as the opponent makes contact, and the bounce and change of direction coming just as the direction of the opponent’s return is evident.

If a player does not split-step and continues moving forward, he or she will then have to make two movement to make a volley or cover a lob: a stop and a lateral change of direction. A properly timed split-step allows players to keep their forward momentum and only alter direction 45 degrees, rather than 90 degrees.

Step #10 Have your players start from the baseline, moving forward after an imaginary serve. As they get close to the service line, bounce the ball and feed the ball directly to them, allowing them to time their split-step against your ball bounce. As they become more familiar with the split-step begin feeding balls farther to their left and right so they are able to make a more aggressive and well-timed movement toward wide balls.

Step # 11 Have your players serve half-speed serves and come in behind them, playing half-court (crosscourt) points. Return their serves directly to them to help them practice their split-step. If you do not have the ability to control the ball, have team members practice with each other. Players will not only be working on their split-step and this point, but will be continuing their work on hitting mid-court volleys deep.

Step #12 Have your players increase their serve speed to three-quarter speed which they follow in, again playing only crosscourt.

Step #13 Have your players serve half-speed serves and come in behind them, now playing full-court points. Return balls directly to them.

Step #14 Have your players increase their serve speed to three-quarter speed which they follow in, playing full court. Begin returning balls directly to them, then begin returning wider.

The Serve
Contrary to popular belief, a huge serve is not needed to successfully serve and volley. In fact, the faster you serve, the faster the ball comes back to you, pinning you deeper in the court. The top serve and volleyers actually take something off their serves to give them time to get closer in.

In order to take away the down-the-line return, which is the bane of serve and volleyers, as well as to take away short, crosscourt returns, your players should learn to serve down the middle, preferably with a slice serve which curves into their opponent’s body, handcuffing them and forcing them to hit inside out.

In order to get into the court, your players will need to learn how to toss the ball one to two feet into the court, so that they are actually falling forward as they serve. If you watch many of your players, their ball tosses would land on or behind the baseline if they let them bounce.

It’s important that your players develop the ability to serve down the middle, preferably with slice and with their bodies moving forward.

Remember, at the high school level, most opponents will be so shocked to see someone serving and volleying at them, they will psychology rattled. In addition, they’ll most likely have no practice time preparing against the serve and volley tactic, and will have to begin experimenting with returns, angles, depth and direction during the match.

If you develop serve and volley skills by using the graduate length and progression methods of learning, your players will require them to learn only one skill at a time while experiencing quick success during each phase.

Let your players know the key ingredients to serve and volley skills, dispel the common myths of the big serve and killer volley, and develop their skills in small phases, and more and more of your players will evolve into aggressive, all-court players.