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1. Hit aggressive with lots of power and aim for the lines from further back in the court
2. Hit on the rise and take time away from the opponent. When you use option one you will make more unforced errors as the risks are higher so the tactic is going to work but not consistently well. On the flip side when you hit the ball on the rise which means you hit the ball while it’s rising up after the bounce before it starts dropping, you don’t need to hit the ball so hard and close to the lines as you will take time away from the opponent by reducing the time between shots that they have to recover into a good court position.
Here are the three main advantages of hitting your tennis forehand and tennis backhand on the rise:
1. You will maintain a good court position closer to the baseline which will help you reduce the amount of court you have to cover. If you play from ten feet behind the baseline you will have to cover much more ground that if you are playing two feet behind the baseline. Maintaining an aggressive court position will also open up the angles we can use on the opponents side of the court. The closer we are to the net, the more acute angles we can use, the further back we stand the harder it becomes to hit angles.
2. When we allow the ball to reach the peak and then start dropping, the height at which we make contact with the ball will tend to be below the net level, this will force us to hit with more topspin and a higher net clearance to avoind hitting the ball into the net. This makes our ball slow down and less aggressive. When we hit the ball on the rise, especially if we hit the ball close to or at the peak, we can flatten out the shots and be more aggressive.
3. We’re taking time away from the opponent which will force them to hit more unforced errors and be out of position more often. If we play from ten feet behind the baseline we give our opponents all the time they need to recover into a good court position before we make contact. By taking the ball early we reduce the time our opponent has to recover greatly and this will open up space that we can exploit.