The High Ball

Can the club player learn to deal with the high ball the way top players do?

If you took a poll of tennis players, particularly recreational players, and asked what shot gives them the most trouble, the high ball would rank near or at the top. By "high ball" I mean a ball you play above your normal comfort zone, anywhere from mid chest to shoulder level, or even higher. High balls include groundstrokes both in the backcourt or the frontcourt. They also include high volleys and returns on high kicking serves.

The reality is that playing all these balls doesn't have to be difficult. Let's see why, by looking at the problem from two perspectives. First let's look at strategies to avoid the high ball altogether. Second let's see what goes into establishing great contact on a ball that is above your normal strike zone.

To do all this, it's critical that you understand your capabilities and limitations based on your grips, stances, and positioning. The other factor is an awareness of what your opponent is doing. It's an important and complex topic.

In this first article we'll look at the options in the backcourt from the forehand side. In subsequent articles we'll move on to the backhand side, and then on to the forecourt on both wings. Finally, we'll address the return of serve. Every aspect of dealing with the high ball is critical if you want to develop a complete game.

Let's look at all the options, including crushing high balls yourself.

One way to deal with the problem of hitting high balls is to avoid hitting them, or at least some of them. There are times when this is the preferred and/or most effective strategy, depending on the difficulty of the balls involved, and also the strategic flow of a given match.

There are two options for avoiding high balls: (1) hitting the ball on the rise before it reaches an uncomfortable height, and (2) moving back and letting the ball descend to a more playable height.

Hitting the ball before it gets too high is something you see advanced players doroutinely, but it is much less common at lower levels. This is because it requires exceptional use of your eyes, good footwork and positioning, and especially, good timing of the swing.

Start at the service line and make contact at waist level.

Besides avoiding the higher contact point, there are other obvious benefits to hitting on the rise. You don't open up your court, and you take time away from your opponent. It may be that in some circumstances it's the only way to get ahead in the points against a given player.

Hitting on the rise, your swing can and generally should be more compact, because you can take more pace from the ball itself. Making compact swings is especially important when you're just learning to take the ball before the top of the bounce. But experienced, high level players will really powder these balls, often with a full swing. We don't need to look any further than Roger Federer to see this is true. You can build up to this yourself as you get comfortable with the timing.

Moving forward to hit the ball on the rise can be daunting if you've never tried it. The best way is to take it in stages. I suggest you start at the service line and have someone toss relatively high balls that you attempt to hit at approximately waist level. Resist the urge to back up! Players who consistently back up are often not even aware that they're doing it. Putting a row of cones behind you is a good preventative measure here.

Keep your backswing short and just try to bump the ball. As you become more adept you can add more length to the forward swing but continue to keep it short in the back.

Learn to play deep balls near the baseline when necessary.

As you progress have your partner toss so the ball bounces practically at your feet. Once you start to get more comfortable with the process you can gradually move back until you reach the baseline.

In match play there are plenty of high balls that will bounce very near the baseline in circumstances where you can't avoid hitting on the rise. This happens to the pros all the time when the opponent hits a hard, deep return off a big serve.

You want to play these balls the instant they bounce, like a short-hop half volley. The contact should be below waist level. Learn to track the ball from the moment it leaves the other side, to the bounce, to the moment you contact it.

Take care not to crowd the ball. This is very common among players who aren't used to going forward. You need to leave the same amount of room you would to hit a groundstroke. Remember, the idea is not an all out maniacal charge. You're still in the backcourt.

One high percentage solution: move back to create lower contact height.

More often than not you'll wind up in a neutral stance but a semi-open stance is fine as well. To help you fine tune your position to the ball be sure to use small adjustment steps right before you hit. Practice this in the tossing drill until there's nothing you can't comfortably hit on the rise.

Now you are ready to progress to a next level. Ball machine work here is an ideal next step. Or have a pro or partner feed balls from deeper positions with more pace.

A high ball can't cause you a problem if it's not high when you make contact. So the simplest solution--if not always the best tactically--is simply to move back and allow the ball to drop to your normal contact height. This is easier to accomplish at lower levels of play when the ball is hit with less pace and spin.

Obviously when the ball is slower you have more time to move back and set up. Once the ball drops far enough it becomes more like a normal groundstroke. If you have enough time, you can step in, hit with a neutral stance and use your normal followthrough.

A good answer to a high ball is often a high ball of your own.

But when you back up to avoid hitting the high ball there are a few things you need to remember. By going back you're giving up court so when you play your shot back you have to compensate for this by hitting somewhat higher over the net to maintain depth.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you absolutely have to do something with this ball. If your opponent stays back there's absolutely nothing wrong with responding to a high ball with a ball of your own. You can match the arc of his high looping shot. It's safe and it neturalizes what your opponent is trying to do.

Often responding to a high ball with a high ball will frustrate your opponent and cause him to try for too much himself. But remember to keep an eye on his actual response, as sometimes a savvy player will sneak in as you retreat, hoping to take advantage of all the court you've left open. When this happens your best bet is to lob.

Let's look at driving the ball with a higher contact point.

A complete player should have options--moving in and hitting on the rise, moving back and letting the ball drop. But most importantly, you need the confidence to deal effectively with balls effectively that are above his ideal strike zone. You don't want to fear the high ball, you want to welcome it with a confident attitude. The question is how?

First of all, track that ball like a hawk! Avoid an immediate, huge sideways turn that makes it difficult to look at the ball straight on. High bouncing balls can play tricks with the eyes in that they seem to allow that kind of a ball to get too far back for comfort. You don't want to compound that tendency by making it more difficult to see the ball better.

Once you see where the ball's going, move first and start to build the swing on the way as opposed to taking the racquet all the way back and then moving. As you move into position you should position to the ball with your outside foot. For a right hander this is your right foot. This is the foot you're going to load your weight on prior to swinging.

The set up is on the outside or right foot.

One the universal problems in club tennis is the tendency to time the movement to reach the ball with a step across with the left foot. The player ends up in an unbalanced neutral stance or a closed stance. This is the kiss of death because this step across will block your ability to swing when the contact height is raised.

The two most important factors in dealing with the high ball are stance, and the path of your forward swing at the ball. The set up has to be on the outside foot. I hear a number of coaches advocate putting this foot directly behind the incoming ball. That's can be a good image but if you follow it too literally you'll end up on top of the ball.

The reality is your left foot should position inside of where you'll actually hit the ball. The distance should be roughly the length of your non-dominant arm across the body. (Click Here to read my article on the role of the non-dominant arm).

The semi-open stance is ideal for making the hit. An extreme open stance is really applicable when you are forced by time.

In a semi open stance your left foot is usually at about a 45 degree angle to the net. This is essentially mid way between where it would be in a totally open stance and a neutral stance.

From a semi-open stance your weight will naturally transfer with the swing.

Going into the swing the weight is loaded on the left or outside foot. As you swing it transfers to the front foot. This is not something you have to think about, it's just a natural consequence of the swing. It's also important not to swing your back foot around as you hit the ball. This will over-rotate you and draw your energy away from the ball. If you take a recovery step to your right or forward with your right foot, this only occurs after you have fully extended your swing.

Now let's talk about the swing itself. Often I see is players change the shape of their normal swing patterns. They start the racquet hand too high having the feeling that the need to hit down on the ball. But since that won't work the next move is to try to quickly drop the racquet head straight down and then race it back up to contact. The result is that the player is basically overpowered by the ball.

The way you prepare your swing should remain the same regardless of whether the ball is high. This means you take the hitting hand back normally with your normal looping motion. The difference is that the racket only drops far enough in the loop to get slightly below the actual height of the oncoming ball.

The racket drops slightly below the level of contact before you hit up.

Now you are in position to hit up on the ball similar to any other topspin forehand. Something that is of paramount importance in achieving this is the relationship between the position of your hand and the racquet head.

Because the racket face naturally closes on the backswing, there is a danger that the racquet head will trail too far behind and below the hand as it approaches contact. If this happens, it usually results in late contact and the need to use the wrist.

To avoid this, I like to use the mental image of the racquet head being above your hand at contact. When students ask me if the racquet is literally higher than the hand at contact I tell them not to worry about it. This is often the case on super high balls, as the animations show. On others the racket may be level. Just use the image and see how they like the results. My friend and fellow writer for Tennisplayer.net Kerry Mitchell introduced me to this concept years ago, and I've been using it successfully ever since.

The image of the racket head above the hand creates awesome contact.

The power of the image is that it gets the hand and racket to the contact point at the right time. It creates the sensation as you swing forward and upward of a jet kicking in. Then watch your shot leap off the court on the other side. You'll love it.

There are two more very important things to note. These are your elbow position and your wrist position. The elbow should be ahead of your hitting side and bent at contact for leverage. Your wrist should be laid back against itself, because at this point it's leading the charge. Once the ball's gone it will flex forward naturally as a part of the finish.

In addition, at the moment of contact your non dominant arm and hand position should provide a breaking action to prevent excessive rotation of the dominant side. The opposite arm should be bent and the opposite hand should be high. Both should be in front of the body, not haphazardly rotated past the left side.

With all the elements in place, nail it!

Now that you have the elements to deal with the high ball, there is only one more thing to do. Nail it! If your opponent is at his baseline and you want to hit a deep higher kicking ball your swing will have lift and length to it with a higher finish. If you want to flatten it out your finish will be lower, probably with more of a wiper, or turning over of the hand and arm. If your opponent comes in you'll want to either dip the ball at his feet and your swing will be over very quickly with a fast wrap around the side of the body.

These basic principles are the same across the grips, but the range of balls you can deal will naturally vary with how you hold the racket. Basically the further underneath the handle you position your hand, the higher your natural contact point.

I personally use a moderate semi-western grip on my forehand, about a 3 1/2 / 3 1/2 according to the Tennisplayer scale (Click Here) or somewhere between Andre Agassi and David Nalbandian. With this grip a ball at mid-chest level is like hitting the jackpot.

There's plenty of time and space to accelerate the racquet and generate loads of topspin. You can take a vicious swing at the ball and all that spin brings it back down into the court. It's awesome for controlling and being aggressive with high balls. I like to go out and bang the ball with college players and ranked juniors, as well as tournament and league players some of whom are playing 5.0 or higher. That grip puts a high percentage of the balls I hit in my natural strike zone.

A grip further under the handle raises the natural contact height, but does it suit your level?

If you are playing at a lower level, or you really like to hit on the rise, you may be more comfortable with a slightly more conservative grip, even if it limits the range of high balls you can really crush. At the other end of the spectrum a more extreme semi-western grip or western grip moves your natural contact point even higher.

The ability to handle super high balls is what makes the extreme grips so popular with clay-courters and juniors who see loads of them. Some top players, like Rafael Nadal, obviously use this grip very effectively, but overall its drawbacks far outweigh any advantage for the club player.

First of all most balls you face will be below the natural contact point for an extreme grip. It takes tremendous racquet head speed to generate enough pace and spin to keep your shots from landing short where they are attackable. And the extreme grips make it much tougher to play low balls or to flatten out the ball. The grip change for the volleys is also a horrendous adjustment.

Use a volley oriented high slice to neutralize and buy time.

Which brings us to one more alternative that is great in club play. This is to shift to a continental grip and hit through the high ball with a little bit of underspin. This is a great alternative when the ball is at shoulder level but not especially heavy or fast. You can neturalize your opponent, float the ball back, buy time, and change the pace to through off his rhythm.

This is what I call a volley oriented stroke. Essentially it's like hitting a long half volley. Again the key to having leverage is to visualize the racquet head is higher than the hand. When you volley, of course, this is literally what takes place.

Prior to the forward swing you should set the racquet head a little above or equal to the height at which you'll strike the ball. Make sure to finish with the racquet head above your hand. If you get a really high ball hit it as though your hand and racquet were running straight along a table top. Because you're hitting what amounts to a high half volley from the back of the court you usually have more time Load on the back foot as always and then let the uncoiling from the legs direct your body's momentum upward into the ball.

So that gives you a pretty complete picture and a lot of options on the forehand side. In the next issue it's on to the backhand!

Have fun and good luck!

The High Ball

Scott Murphy