The Lost Art of the Neutral Ball

Coach Dan McCain

We can all appreciate the concept of playing smart tennis. For some of us, that means tactics, for others strategy, and for others still, it means staying emotionally under control — and even giving yourself a positive attitude of encouragement while you are playing a match. No matter what level you play at — whether you are a 3.0 adult playing in USTA leagues, or an aspiring professional looking to take your game to the next level — learning how to play smarter tennis will assist your progress exponentially.

The central aspect of playing smart tennis is shot selection, and this article will discuss the most basic level of smart tennis by defining the elements of shot selection. Because there are only three types of shots in the game of tennis — offensive, defensive, and the lost art of the neutral ball — recognizing situations and mastering shot selection can be very easy for anyone and it can make a big difference in your game. As we will see, all of these shots are important, but the neutral shot is the central focus of a smart player.

Offense

This one should be easy for us all to identify with. What do you do on offense? Hit bigger. Simple, right? With racquet and string technology granting players enhanced ability to hit shots with greater pace than ever before, and a large part of younger generations falling in love with highlight reels and flashy shot-making, hitting big from the baseline is very popular.

But when is a player really on offense? When you get a short ball. This is the only time a smart player wants to pick up the pace and go for a bigger shot. And if you disagree with this idea - perhaps you should chart one of your own matches and look at your unforced error ratio.

Defense

When is a player on defense? When you are out of position, off the court, ten feet behind the baseline, standing outside the doubles alley when you strike a ball, or when you are on the run.

I hear people say all the time (people who don’t know how to defend), “Oh, that was great hustle - great defense,” after watching someone get jolted side to side during a point exchange, as they retrieve a number of shots. But defense doesn’t mean running, or retrieving, or diving for balls, or hustling down a million shots in a point. Defense is a situation that calls for a specific type of shot.

So what makes a good defensive shot? Any shot that is hit with a slow enough amount of pace and with enough depth to allow you time to recover back to the middle of the court and therefore neutralize the rally. Sounds a lot like a slow heavy slice or a topspin lob, right? Well, that’s because when it comes to defense, those are usually your only two options because if you don’t slow the pace down, you will be running yourself side to side during the point when all that hustle could have been avoided. Hitting too hard hurts you in this situation, and is simply incorrect.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule. There are occasions when you are pulled wide off the court where the only option will be to go for a low percentage winner, like when your opponent is at net, or when you are so far off the court there is no chance for you to recover back to the middle of the court. But the rule is there for a reason, and it will usually help you.

The Lost Art of the Neutral Ball

During a point, if you are not on the run, and you don’t have a short ball to attack, then what position are you in? Neutral! This is the time to set up the point. These are the shots where you want to create an opportunity to attack. In other words, force your opponent to give you a short ball. We all want to be on offense all the time. We want to be in control of the point and the neutral shot is where it all happens.

I ask my new students the same question all the time, “What’s the goal of a baseline rally?” They usually say, “to win the point,” or “to hit a better shot than my opponent,” or “to make my opponent miss.” These are all nice ideas but they don’t ever yield any real, consistent results. The goal of a baseline rally is to create a short ball. Using the neutral ball to do that is your best bet.

So what is the best neutral shot? We can’t be hitting 90% pace (100% being as hard as you can hit) and think we’re going to be consistent, and we can’t be hitting half pace and think we’re going to create a short ball. So if we hit three quarters pace on all of our neutral situations, or 75% speed, and we aim four or five feet over the net, then we will not only be consistent, but we can also be aggressive. This pace allows for controlled aggression.

Now imagine hitting your perfect neutral ball, with three quarters pace. Doing just this is a major step toward controlled aggression, but it’s only the first step toward mastering the neutral ball. Each shot must have a specific purpose within the context of the point, and without a purpose, your controlled aggression will do nothing more than keep the rally going. If you really want to create a short ball to attack then you will want to do one of two things with your neutral ball: push your opponent back behind the baseline as far as you can, or force your opponent wide with an off the court or an angled shot. If a player pushes his opponent back or forces his opponent out wide on every neutral opportunity, his opponent most likely hit a lot of short balls and spend great deal of time running back and forth.

Let’s imagine you and I are playing a point, and we have an incredibly long exchange from the baseline where we each hit a dozen balls. How many of those will you be on the run for? One or two? How many short balls will you get? One or two? So the vast majority of point play lies in this neutral situation. And if you can master the art of the neutral ball, then you are one giant step closer to reaching your potential.

Making the Right Decision

Of course, when you are playing a point, there will be shades of gray to the three types of shots in tennis. If you get a ball that is a little shorter, then you should attack a little more. If you are slightly out position and slightly on the run, then you should hit a shot with slightly less pace and slightly more net clearance to give yourself slightly more time to recover to middle of the court.

Knowing your own three quarter pace neutral shot makes it easier to take the right amount of speed off your shots in defensive situations. It also makes it easier to know how much harder you can hit on short balls. With the neutral ball mastered, an inherent scale of proportion will develop in your game - the easier the shot, the more you can go for and the tougher the shot, the less you go for.

Many baseline drills can become more effective practice when neutral shots are emphasized. Hitting cross courts, doing the Figure-8 drill (you hit cross court and your partner on the other side of the net hits down the line), and even when your coach feeds you side to sides, these are basic examples of where you can learn to master the neutral shot.

I also like to have my students play entire baseline games where the goal is to be as aggressive as possible with one rule: they are not allowed to go for a winner unless they are at net or have a very easy approach shot. Because these drills and point situations usually are rooted in establishing consistency, the proper neutral ball will enable you to advance your level of play within the context of the exercises and ultimately as you play matches.

Mastering the neutral ball gives a player a starting point to playing smart tennis, and makes establishing your ideas of how you want to play and what you want to go for in points much more natural. I wish you luck in your quest to being a smarter player, and with these concepts applied, you will be much closer to becoming the best player you can be.