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Katrina likes playing the net, but what are her technical positions really like?
The volleys are the most compact stroke motions in tennis, but they are also, in my view, the hardest to understand technically, and for many players, the hardest to master. When I visit tennis clubs I almost never see players with good technical volley patterns, even those who play doubles every day.
I think there are at least two reasons for this. First the motions happen so quickly, with the players about half as far apart compared to baseline exchanges. Second, the core elements are difficult to separate from the advanced elements.
Most players see that pro players hit radically downward to create underspin on both sides, and attempt to copy this aspect of the pro volley motions from the outset. Trying to do this, they tend to take the racket hand too far back, and then swing radically downward. The result is usually the loss of the hitting arm shape, poor contact position, and a tendency for the ball to float.
Advanced elements can make it difficult to see the fundamentals in pro volleys.
These more basic elements are the positioning and shape of the hitting…