Portal:Tennis/Selected article archive
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[edit] June 1 to June 20, 2006
Serve-and-volley is a strategy used in lawn tennis (and rarely in real tennis) in which a player serves and immediately moves forward in order to play the ensuing shot before the ball touches the court, as a volley (tennis).
In employing this strategy, the server seeks to put pressure on his opponent immediately; in the absence of a good return, the server can gain an advantage and often quickly record a winner. The tactic is especially successful, and most often used, on fast grass courts and rarely used on slower, clay courts. To succeed with the serve-and-volley strategy, a player must either have a powerful serve or be exceptionally quick in reaching the net (volleying is difficult in no man's land, the area between the baseline and the service line). Ken Rosewall, for instance, had a very feeble serve but was a very successful serve-and-volley player for two decades. Goran Ivanisevic, on the other hand, had success with serve-and-volley strategy with strong serves and average volleys.
Elite tennis players known for their serve-and-volley technique include Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzales, Frank Sedgman, Rod Laver, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras, and Patrick Rafter. Although earlier tennis greats such as Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, and Don Budge had been noted for their fine serves and net games, they had not consistently played a serve-and-volley style on every point. Kramer, in the late 1940s, was the first player consistently to come to the net after each serve, including after his second serve. In his 1979 autobiography, Kramer writes that he adopted the strategy from Bobby Riggs, whom Kramer had played in the final of the 1948 United States Pro Championship. Kramer wrote that he crafted the strategy in view of Riggs' frequent charging of the net while returning serves and Riggs' backhand weakness.
