Tennis Strategy - Serve-and-volleyer

Serve-and-volleyer

A serve and volleyer has a great net game, is quick around the net, and has fine touch for volleys. Serve and volleyers come up to the net at every opportunity when serving. They are almost always attackers and can hit many winners with varieties of volleys and drop volleys. When not serving, they often employ the "chip-and-charge", chipping back the serve without attempting to hit a winner and rushing the net. The serve-and-volleyers' strategy is to put pressure on the opponent to try to hit difficult passing shots. This strategy is extremely effective against pushers.

Serve-and-volleyers benefit from playing on fast courts, such as grass or fast concrete. The quick bounce and faster pace of play give them an advantage because opponents have less time to set up for a passing shot. However, the number of serve-and-volley players is decreasing in today's professional tennis, because this strategy requires more experience to master and defeat other playing styles (as well as changes in racquet technology that have improved players' passing shots). In addition to this, there has been a trend toward the slowing down of tennis surfaces over the past few years. The serve-and-volley technique works better on faster surfaces because the volleyer is able to put more balls away without the baseliner being able to chase them down. Although serve and volleyers may be a dying breed, there are still some great players who employ this tactic. The Frenchman Michael Llodra has been considered by many to be the best pure serve and volleyer of today's game.

Bill Tilden, the dominant player of the 1920s, preferred to play from the back of the court, and liked nothing better than to face an opponent who rushed the net — one way or another Tilden would find a way to hit the ball past him. In his book Match Play and the Spin of the Ball, Tilden propounds the theory that by definition a great baseline player will always beat a great serve-and-volleyer. Some of the best matches of all time have pitted great baseliners such as Björn Borg, Mats Wilander or Andre Agassi against great serve-and-volleyers such as John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg or Pete Sampras.

Some players, such as Tommy Haas, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick will only employ this strategy on grass courts or as a surprise tactic on any surface. Roger Federer uses this commonly against Rafael Nadal, to break up long rallies and physically taxing games.