In a defensive situation, you have two goals: 1.Get your opponent's aggressive shot back in play.
Here are five proven defensive tactics that will neutralize your opponent's attacks:
•Hit deep and moderately crosscourt. Unless your opponent is at the net, hitting deep and moderately crosscourt minimizes the risk in your shot and also limits his offensive potential on his next shot. If you hit crosscourt, but within the middle 2/3 of the court, you're unlikely to miss wide, and your opponent is less likely to hit a sharply angled reply, but you still benefit from hitting over the lower part of the net and having a longer (diagonal) court to hit into. Generally, the more depth on your defensive shot, the better, but if you're an average player, you'll find that aiming 3-4 feet inside your opponent's baseline will be pretty safe from missing long while still deep enough to give you reasonable time to react to your opponent's shot and to limit his ability to hit a sharp angle or a winning drop shot.
•Leave plenty of margin over the net. Most players hit their average shot too low. Hitting through a very narrow window over the net is a chosen risk when you decide to hit hard and flat, but if you're going to try such risky shots, save them for offensive situations where you have time to set up properly. If your opponent attacks at the net, your defense will sometimes employ offense: you'll "thread the needle" with a brilliant passing shot now and then. These days, though, most players prefer to attack from the baseline, and in baseline rallies, it makes sense to send defensive shots at least four feet above the net. Making sure you get the ball back is job #1 in defense, and the net is your first obstacle. Job #2 is to keep your shots deep, and the higher you hit, the deeper your shots will typically land.
•Avoid hitting down the line. In baseline rallies, hitting down the line puts you farthest from where you need to be next: at the center of the angles your opponent can hit. Your opponent can only make you run wider than your own sideline by hitting crosscourt (including inside-out), so if he is going to have a chance to hit crosscourt, you want that crosscourt shot going toward the side you're already on. You accomplish that by hitting your own shot somewhat crosscourt.
Of course, if your opponent comes to net, feel free to hit down the line as a passing shot.
•Mix your spins. Defensive shots typically don't have much pace, and it's foolish to try to place them too close to any lines, so two of the major ways you can make your defensive shot harder for your opponent to hit are not available. We've already discussed hitting deep; now we'll add some unpredictable spins.
If your opponent can just tee off on one shot after another, you'll never get off defense, but if you give him a lot of different spins, you might disrupt his timing enough to draw errors, and once he starts missing, his confidence in dictating play will drop.
Generally, if you put more topspin on your shot than your opponent expects, it's likely to make him meet the ball late and either hit the net or, if he overtilts his racquet in trying to compensate for lateness, hit long. Backspin will tend to make the ball land deeper than he expects, which can also make him late, or, because the ball slows more on the bounce, early. When a hard hitters meets the ball too early, his racquet usually tilts enough to send the ball long. Exactly which timing error your opponent will make is unpredictable, but as long as your changing spins encourage him to make one, you should keep mixing it up. There's very little downside. Just remember that you'll need to hit flat on some shots where clean contact with spin would be difficult and that you should save for key points the spins that bother your opponent most.
•Run everything down. It may seem obvious that the more balls you run down the better, but you might be able to improve your ability to run balls down. Here are a few suggestions:
•Do a split-step each time your opponent starts to swing. Time your split-step so that you'll be on your way down just as you see the ball leaving your opponent's racquet. In mid-air, you'll start to lean in the correct direction, and when you land, you'll be on your way.
•Don't try to stop before hitting very short balls. The key to getting more short balls back is to keep running forward as you hit the shortest ones. Trying to stop will only keep you from getting to the ball in time or put you so off-balance you won't hit with any control.
•When you get a ball that's way off court, hit a high lob to buy time to recover your position for the next ball.
By Jeff Cooper, http://www.about.com/
I like to turn a defensive lob into an offense shot...what's your best defensive tactic when you play tennis?
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