Tennis - How To Deal With Low Balls?

How To Deal With Low Balls In Tennis

Dealing with low balls in tennis can be a real nightmare if you don’t know what to focus on. Often we may face a player who hits very flat or slice shots, that skid through on faster surfaces such as grass or carpet. This type of ball can really throw off your timing and make you hit many unforced errors because of the awkwardness.

However, there are solutions to dealing with low balls in tennis!

How To Deal With Low Balls In Tennis:

Step One - knowing where to hit

The first step is knowing where to aim these low balls in tennis. In general, the highest percentage shot you can go for is crosscourt. The net is the lowest in the middle, we have more space to aim into when we hit crosscourt and if we mistime the contact slightly, hitting the shot a little late, the ball will still go in the court.

If you try to go aggressive on low balls, the chance of making a mistake is very high.

Step Two - knowing the type of shot to hit

The next step is the type of shot you hit. Slice vs flat vs topspin. If you try to hit your shot flat on low balls, you’ll have to take a lot of pace off the shot and simply guide it in. If you go for power, most likely you’ll miss it by hitting flat. The better options are to either drive it with heavy topspin, focusing on brushing upwards as you make contact, or to slice it. Hitting it with topspin will give you the chance to be aggressive. Hitting a slice will keep the ball low on the other side of the court and make it difficult for them to hit. Turn a difficult ball for you into a difficult ball for your opponent.

Step Three - the execution

The execution. When trying to hit aggressive topspin, focus on getting the racket head under the contact point, and brush upwards on the back of the ball. Use the legs to get low and stay low until you make contact. Using ground force will help you drive up at the point of contact. There is no point in having a huge swing when trying to deal with a low ball. Hitting it diagonally will help drive it across the court. Not straight ahead of the ball. For the slice shot, open the strings up towards the sky and use a more linear swing path on the low balls. medium to medium or low to medium swing.

To practise not raising too much from the low lunge position when dealing with low balls, practise going from right lunge position to left lunge positon after making contact. This will help make sure that you are not raising your body prematurely before making contact and making a mistake. Same applies for backhand as well.