We witnessed the death of the ever famous style or tennis technique or tactic called serve and volley,but is the volley now becoming extinct to?
More and more tennis is being resided to baseline duels with opponents so weary to come to the net off short balls. The very best in both men and women however seem daring enough to come in and volley.But that is just a few players.And even the new generation of the very best lack volley technique.Maria Sharapova is prime suspect in this case and then we have baseline hammerer Davydenko.

Why is is that professionals lack proper volleying skills?Is volleying being exclusively resdided to the doubles event?Technology surely provides easier methods to volley.Bigger racquet heads with light titanium frames that provide both power and finesse.What is the reason for the demise of the volley?

Please note guys Im not talking about Serve And Volley just the volley and volleying skills or in this case the lack of volley skills!

It’s a tough one, but surely it’s got something to do with the change in racquet technology-it helps the volleyer a bit yeah,
but helps the baseliner a lot.
The volleyer and the serve volleyer face the same problem, the S&V player having to deal with fast returns too.
Why bother to go to the net when you don’t have to-Fed won his first Wimbledon by S&, his percentage of net play has gone down and down over the years.
But this might not explain why to many young players the volley is such an alien concept, Sharapova barely knows what to do at the net, it looks like a lack of tutoring or something.

The only way to the top become natural at volleying is to practice.
I like the way that revolutionary tennis explains the volley.It's the least technically demanding part of the game,but demands the most feel.

It requires a natural talent,observing Mcenroe confirms this.Top players today too much swing at the volley.It requires as much practice as a groundstroke.

Had an intersting meeting the other day with a high performance academy, working out training schedules for elite players (top ten in the world juniors etc, but mainly focusing on bringing through the next generation from 11 yrs onwards). The coaches were trying to put together a training framework to produce world class players and the main argument was over how much transitional play and volleying should be focused on. The discussion resulted in looking at the current world top 50 and assessing the games that got the players there. There are only a handful of true all-courters and even fewer players that are really comfortable at the net (or that want to get into the net, I should say), so logic & statistics dictate that coaching should be focused primarily on having a baseline game that doesn't break down. Trouble is, the really exceptional players all hit great transitional balls and are comfortable enough at the net to get forward. This creates the issue of whether you are trying to produce a player who is most likely to have a career in tennis, or whether you are trying to produce a world no.1 (the odds of which are :blink: ).
I think the truth is that a player can crack the top 100 in the world without a decent volley, but can get nowhere near without good groundies, serve and return. The focus has to be on the fundamentals, but if you have really talented people like Federer to work with, a good transition and volley can make the difference between solid professional and a great player. How many times do we see Federer bring in opponents with a short slice and get them out of their comfort zone? If the same happens to Federer (and even Nadal is getting pretty handy at the net), he is comfortable enough to move forward and trust his volley.
As Brakkus said, the feel is something that can't be taught, so most top coaches seem happy for their charges to have a decent volley at best, as long as the rest of their game stands up.
It's a dying art because it isn't needed as much. Now if top singles players were forced to play doubles as well......
There's my thoughts, anyway. :shrug:

Very very interesting post there and so informative. I suppose having a decent volley these days is acceptable given the fact that the courts are slower and the balls are coming back faster. But its such a shame to have top players who are merely clones of each other,this is the womens game.Most are all ball bashing clones lead by Maria.Thats not talent really. I may not like Justine but the completeness of her game mirrors that of Federer and for that I truly respect her game and the beauty of it. I just feel that volleying is such huge dimension in any tennis players arsenal.As you said if the guys are trained to have a brilliant baseline game surely the coaches should use that as a tool to drive their charges to get to the net and also practice their volleys to take them from decent to great.How much better would many players be if they had great volleys to back up their great baseline game. People questioned how the hell Bjorkman got to the Wimbledon Semis last year but they fail to realise that that man was number 4 in the world in singles and is one of the doubles legends now.So his great volleys with his great understanding of the singles dimensions got him that semi.You dont really need touch to have a firm volley.Thats all they should work on,good solid volleys rather than touch. Lets face it,if you dont have touch you cant practice it!Either you have it or you dont!

TennisMenace :bow: Great post..thanks to share with us...

Two simple remarks:

1) I am with Brakkus: "The only way to the top become natural at volleying is to practice", this is true at our level , the non professional one, but remains true also at the top one (i.e. IMO, Federer was -might be- better on this side of his game in 2001 and this simply because he was playing plenty of volleys at that time. Still, nowadays, it is quite impressive to see him playing very difficult volleys-please hhave a look to the end of the third set at the Wimbledon final- knowing that he is not "training" this aspect very often...)

2) For me it is quite clear that the training of this aspect can be done by playing doubles..I like your idea that "top singles players were forced to play doubles as well...... "

But even without obliged the players to do that a lot of them should inspire themselves from Rafa's recent example (Rafa is definitely a very smart and very determined player):

The guy has improved a lot his game at the net during the last two seasons and this also because he played several double events...

:rolleyes:

I will have to agree with this but I also seem to think that he is very smart at choosing when to come to the net.He almost always puts away easy volleys. His forehand volley is really bad. Watch that same Wimbledon final and you will see that he lacks technique and kinda fluffs the volley.However practice will make perfect and Nadal is really a hard worker at most.

Darky I agree with you..He is still improving..But the fact he is doing all this work well this is the real nice point..Look at the poor AROD in comparison: He is trying to do the same but he simply does not have enough talent so all his work is still not paying of..and I doubt it will in the future either...this guy will always be "too short" (bad approchs not enough volley skills) at the net IMO..

Rafa, at the contrary, has the talent and he is really an hard worker:

On that side the man deserves a lot of respect and once again he should be look as an example for others.. :)

PS: Djoko is another player who is working in this domain IMO ;)

Roddick and volleying is another kettle of Fish altogether.He really looks overexerted and unnatural whilst volleying and its actually painful on the eye,but I give him credit because he at least is making the attempt to get to the net however unnatural it may be.He isnt afraid of being passed and the weight of the ball coming back at him and he almost always gets a 1st volley back after the approach.He may not improve other parts of his dismal game but he can improve his volleys.

I disagree with this. Rafa is a modern Agassi.And in terms of volleys they are identical at the most.Whilst I do believe his talent lies purely in his baseline game and running abilities I will say he doesnt have natural enough volley talent.However,practice can make a decent vollet into a good solid volley.And based on the fact that he is a hard worker I have no doubt he will gain the competence in this regard but it doesnt mean its his talent!He is just a great understander of the game and its dimensions!

Bringing up Rafa and Agassi is a good point. In a way your volley is only as good as your approach. However, by that I mean both the approach-shot and how well you literally approach the net.

What Rafa does well is close in on the net, just like Agassi did before him. He follows his own groundstroke well. Djokovic, I feel, still has too much of a static finish to his groundstrokes: his body doesn't move forward enough after he has hit the ball.

These days, the volleyer is always going to get passed if the approach isn't good enough.

I think Rafa is a great example of how the transitional ball has become more important than the volley itself. Any short balls are hit so ferociously and so deep that he rarely hits a tough volley. His grip also means that he has the habit of over-using the drop volley, so he is predictable. And still he wins a high percentage of points when he gets to the net.
An average volley is fine if a player can approach with the right shot and execute the transitional ball. With racquet technology etc, the opposite isn't really true (although until recently, exceptional athletes like Pat Rafter could get away with it) and netrushing is like a kamikaze mission :hide: ..... ask Andy Roddick.

All in the approach. I would just love to see Rafa hit some difficult volleys more consistantly byt I guess due to his shrewdness he will almost always approach the net after a great forearm leaving him with a sitter volley.

Agreed! Its as I said before with RAFA,its all in the approach just like it was with Agassi.When Andre was hitting off the ground confidently and fluently when he was on top off the game he would run opponents off the court leaving him with a relatively simple volley.Rafa however due to thepower and spin leaves opponents way behind the baseline also leaving him with a relatively simple volley.Djoko I havent seen volleying that much so I cant make an assesment but I do believe his power sets him up for rather simple volleys thats unless he is playing Federer.

Fully agree and this is why i believe, at the end, i.e. when Rafa will reach his peak in terms of his attitude at the net (volley + approach shots) he will ends up to be better than Agassi at least on that side..

It is just my opinion, but I really believe he can reach the next level on this domain and definitely become a more complete player with a clear "at the net" personality.

My forecast on that side s quite simple: Rafa will be more and more concern to win at least one time Wimbledon (in particular if he will not reach this objective in 2008) and he will spend more and more time train his volley and "at the net" skills. All this will imply a great vulnerability on clay..He will py the price in some sense...

Ok it is a pure speculation..But this is my opinion for the next three-four seasons concerning Rafa... :unsure:

I cant see him actually being better than Agassi in terms of careers or at least in the volley department.Nadal had better put that training to good use and start pushing for other Grand Slams to be considered a better Agassi of this generation!

Darky..I am not saying that Rafa will end up with a great career than the Great Agassi

I am just saying that my feeling is that he can be better than Andre at the net..Nothing more nothing less..I really believe he will (but I agree to desagree with you on this one ;) )..The man, in my view, is less capable than Andre in term of return skills but he is definitely has even more speed and court coverage than Agassi and this should lead him to a better approach when he decides to move to the net and then volley..

But, once again, pure speculation and hypothesises, as such I can be totally wrong.. :) :)

:ok:

I actually think the volley is becoming like the dropper,something that is a suprise tactic and when overused it becomes a liability.
The reason for all his really I believe is down to the capability of the power when both feet are inside the baseline.Most top players now can rip the ball for a winner from there.Look at the contrast between Rog&Rafa from this situation.Roger has made that type of situation an art form.Rafa bludgeons the ball with so much heaviness that there is no way it's coming back.
The volley is not neede because there's no need to hit the conservative flat approach.

I watched the Masters tennis at Belfast at the start of the year.We flew over for the weekend.It really was a blast from the past.
Of the players there that used volleys regularly were Leconte,Jarryd,and Cash.3 totally different techniques.Jarryd I would say was the more classic textbook approach,Cash was more physical,at times bending his back way down,and Leconte was more flamboyant almost letting the ball go by him at times,before hooking it back into court.

The thing is these lot looked comfortable going there,mainly because they played a different game when they were kids.This is all to do with wooden racquets.I played with them when I was a nipper,and you had no choice but to hit them.Forehand slice approach up the line,who hits those now?Maybe Santoro.Mcenroe was a master at this,and suprisingly given the era he played in,I remember Sampras owned that shot too,and he probably played with wooden racquets at sometime given his age.

Of those players playing today,those who I think could be great volleyers,are Baghdatis,Safin,Murray,and obviously Federer.The thing is they are all so great at suddenly injecting pace in the forecourt area,they don't need to hit great volleys.Seriously think,how many times have you seen your favourite player whack a forehand from an advanced position then follow in behind it,never to recieve a volley to hit?In the old days you would be picking up volleys from all different heights and spins.

The speed has killed the volley,and really it has become a sideshow shot,something to suprise the crowd a bit,maybe not as sparingly used as the drop-shot,but it's not a main tactic anymore.