TennisOne Lessons

Pulling the Trigger

David W. Smith, Senior Editor TennisOne

Watch any high level tennis match between two aggressive baseliners maneuvering for an advantage. It’s all about controlling the crosscourt exchanges. Yet often it’s the player who is willing to step in and crack the backhand down the line that comes out on top. While the inside-in, inside-out forehand game could be argued as being the stroke-strategy of the decade, the offensive shot that is defining a lot of professional rallies today is this down the line backhand. We call it “Pulling the Trigger,” because the shot takes nerve and can be a do-or-die situation.

However, all suicidal analogies aside, the shot is indeed being executed more and more often. Ironically, it is this heavy reliance on the run-around inside-out forehand, with players going for wider angles from from farther outside the sideline that opens more and more of the court, practically daring the opponent to “Pull the Trigger,” that makes the down the line backhand so effective for those who have the ability and the nerve to let it fly.

Obviously, there is a difference in levels of players, and as such, the ability to execute the down the line backhand successfully and with consistency will be based on many factors, the first of which is the ability to hit effective backhands. The key that players need to understand is that in addition to hitting a backhand on command (which I’ll talk about in a moment), there are times and situations that the down the line can be a higher percentage shot than other times. It is a little like the idea of a good Black Jack player at a gambling hall: A good player knows there are times in a game, based on the cards on the table, that certain risks (doubling down, doubling up, etc.) offer a greater chance of success. It doesn’t always result in winning a hand, but it increases the odds of a player walking away from a table with more money than he or she came with!

In this article I will discuss many of the situations the down the line shot can be hit more effectively as well as look at the technical components of the shot’s successful execution.

Changing the Ball’s Direction

Many have discussed the added difficulty when changing a ball’s direction. And while I agree that the dynamics of taking a crosscourt shot from an opponent and hitting it down the line has several elements that make the shot a marginally a lower percentage option, the ability to either win the point outright with the down the line or, at the very least, get an opponent out of position, makes the shot appealing to many players.

Changing direction increases the difficulty of a shot, however, for the average recreational, club, or even tournament player, changing direction and hitting the ball down the line with a backhand stroke is even more difficult. The reason for this is fairly obvious: Many players simply do not hit their backhands as well as their forehands. On top of this, many one-handed backhand players don’t set up for the shot correctly and one-handers don’t have the other hand to offer stability in the stroke. However, both one and two-handed players can hit the down the line backhand well, if they understand the elements that go into hitting this shot consistently and in the right situations.

Angle of Incidence, Angle of Reflection

When players attempt the down the line response off a crosscourt shot, they have to negotiate a common physics problem: Reflective Angles. A crosscourt ball will reflect off any racquet face at an angle that is determined by both the racquet’s face at contact as well as the angle of incidence of the approaching ball. This angle of incidence is very important as it changes the angle of reflection off any flat surface. Thus, as this ball is coming towards us, at contact, the ball will reflect at an angle away from the incoming angle of the ball’s approach. This explanation is why so many players miss the down the line shot wide. The desired line perceived by the player (in the direction of down the side line), will be altered by the angle of the incoming ball. This difference must be compensated for by the player. Unfortunately, within the split second of pulling the trigger, the player must already have the angle compensated for. This comes from practice.

Drilling the Down the Line

I recommend players work on changing the ball’s direction in a logical and progressive practice. Instead of just hitting these shots off a ball machine, I suggest a couple of simple drills first.

• Toss and Stroke: This drill uses a partner to toss a ball from an angle simulating the crosscourt return from an opponent with the player hitting backhands down the line from about five feet inside the singles sideline. However, the tossing player should only be standing about 15 feet away from the player and toss an easy bouncing ball for the player to hit down the line. This drill can be done with added speed and added distance from the tossing player to the hitting player as the hitting player becomes more comfortable and confident with the shot. Also, this drill should be started at the service line and gradually moved deeper until the player is hitting from well behind the baseline.

• Variable Direction Drill: This drill develops a feel for angles. Using the Toss and Stroke Drill as just described, place targets at the down the line corner, the crosscourt corner, and the sharper crosscourt angle where the service line and singles sideline meet on the other side of the net. The idea here is to gain the timing of these optimal angles and practice the directional control needed for each. This is an excellent drill for developing any shot (forehand or backhand groundstroke or volley), as it teaches the player how to gain maximum directional diversity into an opponent’s court. Remember, the backhand down the line is an aggressive shot designed gain control of the point, if not win the point out right, so the goal should be to not only gain control but to learn to confidently strike the ball with authority.

Technical Stroke Elements

All the basic technical elements of any stroke can be boiled down into a simple stroke concept: Repeatable, reliable swing pattern. This concept is especially important for changing a ball’s direction. The idea here is to develop a stroke, whether it be topspin, flat, or slice, or a forehand, backhand, volley or approach shot, with a swing path that can be repeated on command. The dynamics of any shot’s consistency, and thus aim and control, is directly related to this ability by the player.

The biggest problem players have in mastering tennis is this principle. Players tend to roll the racquet, flick the racquet, dish the racquet, slap at the ball, or simply hit the ball differently every time. This changing racquet face within every stroke—and more specifically, within the contact window of every stroke—is why so many players can’t improve beyond lower levels. It also explains why players resort to pushing or dinking the ball; they have little control of their swing so they need to diminish the speed of the ball so that the angle of their racquet is not accented more, as it would be with a harder swing.

This is why golfers who swing softer don’t miss a lot of fairways; they simply don’t hit hard enough for the ball to carry long enough to get into trouble; obviously, any off-line shot will be exponentially more inaccurate the further it is hit. Of course, the strategy in golf of hitting softer, like that in tennis, generally does not get a player to reach higher skilled levels. Players who can swing a more consistent stroke will be able to aim—and depend on that aim—with far greater confidence.

And confidence breeds controlled power!

Situations

Like any successful shot in tennis, the down the line requires several opportunistic situations that need to be met. In addition to the problems in stroke technique just mentioned, another reason many in the teaching profession might try to dissuade players from hitting the down the line shot is because the typical players does not execute the shot with all these situational elements being met. Let’s break down the shot in terms of percentages and key elements necessary to even consider going for the down the line backhand.

• Click photo: Djokovic is in a  true "do or die" position on this down the line as he is pulled so far off the court he will not be able to recover if his shot is returned by his opponent. Note how short his stroke is for control and how his swing path creates a steady racquet face throughout contact.

  The do-or-die: This is an extremely low percentage shot that is meant to be hit for an out right winner. Sometimes when we are pushed well outside the sideline in a crosscourt exchange it is the only choice because we have no way of getting back into position to hit the next ball.
  
  This down the line is hit over the highest part of the net, over a section of the opponent's court that is mostly out-of-bounds, has a very small landing area to be effective and finally, if your opponent reads the shot (and from this angle, you are hitting into him) and runs it down (if you made it in the first place), they have a huge open court area to hit their response into. So again, this shot, although very low percentage, is meant to be an out-right winner, because the player has very little chance of getting back in the point.

  On the other hand, even if missed, this desperation shot still serves a purpose, in that though the percentage is low, it does send a message. It forces your opponent to consider covering the shot more often than if you had never tried it. In this case, attempting the shot may not be to win that specific rally but rather to keep your opponent from camping out, or “fudging” further over for the crosscourt.

• The percentage shot: The best down the line attempt is hit from inside your sideline. This shot has several advantages over the one just described. When hitting closer to the middle of your court, the angle of the down the line is away from your opponent. You are also going over a slightly lower part of the net as well as having the entire side of your opponent’s court to land the shot in. That is, if you hit this down the line short, it will still land in the court. (Whereas hitting a down the line short from outside your singles sideline, the ball will almost always end up wide.)

On the pro level the down the line is often flattened out. Again, this is an aggressive shot designed to gain control of the point. A less aggressive, more loopy down the line topspin shot might be easily run down and likely to result in just the opposite of what was intended, that is a huge positional advantage for your opponent and a wide open court for him to hit into.

Conclusion

It is always fun to count how many crosscourt shots are hit in a professional match compared to down the lines. It is usually about 75 to 80 percent crosscourt. And, I believe, without coming out and saying this early on, these percentages can be attributed to the pros and cons of pulling the trigger on the down the line. For most players in general, it is not a high percentage shot. However, like the gambler analogy I used earlier, by hitting a good down the line shot in the right situation, a tennis player, like the gambler, may come away with a win.

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Dave Smith's article by emailing us here at TennisOne .

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Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about this article by emailing us here at TennisONE.

David W. Smith is the Director of Tennis for the St. George Tennis Academy in St. George Utah. He has been a featured writer in USPTA's magazine ADDvantage in addition to having over 50 published articles in various publications.

David has taught over 3000 players including many top national and world ranked players. He can be reached at acrpres1@email.msn.com.