Step 1 Tennis Service Return Step Up and Spli
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Titulek 1 First step in the return of serve is to step into the court and hit your split step.
Behind me I'm in the ready position and I'm getting ready to return.
You always wanna start your return of serve in the ready position again, your feet are gonna be a little bit wider than shoulder width apart knees bent, racket out in front of you and this is just generally an athletic stance.
Now, from this position, I step into the court I only take one step and it doesn't really matter which foot I use to step in with.
You can use either one, not a big deal.
After I take that one step I hit my split step Now, because I'm stepping forward and then hitting my split my weight is gonna be moving into the court and that's what you want.
We'll explain why you want your weight moving forward a little bit later on Let's see what that motion looks like in action From the ready position, I step forward into the court I take that one step and then I hit my split step Now, this motion might look pretty simple because it is but what's critical is how you time this first step.
How you time the step forward and the split step.
So, we're gonna bring Andre behind me here he's got about 20, 25% of the screen because all we need to see is his contact point.
What I need to do is time: from the ready position, my step into the court and my split step so that I'm in the air when Andre makes contact with the tennis ball.
So let's watch and see how I time this as Andre winds up, I step forward and again, I come off the ground I'm in the process of hitting my split step as Andre makes contact.
Now, the reason I'm timing my step and split like this is because I wanna be coming down, hitting the ground and be at my most explosive when I realize where Andre is hitting his serve.
Now we've got a shot of Gael Monfils serving to Marat Safin.
We're gonna zoom in first on Monfils because Monfils is at contact now in his service motion He is hitting the ball and we're gonna now go over to Marat Safin and he's in the air, he's in the process of hitting his split step so he has timed the previous part of his motion so he can get to this point; he can be in the air and in the process of hitting his split when Monfils makes contact again, that's because he wants to be landing at the instant he realizes where the serve is going. It doesn't do you any good to land before you know where the ball is going.
So you need to be coming down at the instant you know where your opponent has hit the serve so you can get there as fast as possible.
THe one final point I wanna make is that how you time this first step depends a little bit on your opponent's service motion So what you'll have to do is some homework You need to figure out how long it takes your opponent to get through his wind up.
A player with a really fast service motion you basically wanna be steppin in right when he starts to wind up but if you have a player with a really long service motion you can wait a little bit longer. He can get further into his preparation before you step in because again, the goal is to be in the air at contact so you're coming down when you realize where the ball's going and when you gonna time the beginning of your movement is gonna depend on how long it takes your opponent to wind up when he's serving.
