This drill demonstrates a simple tactic used by many players on the pro circuit, including Paquito Navarro, to gain the advantage in the exchange from the very start of the point.
It consists of training the following strategy right from the serve: a serve on the T, followed by an aggressive volley into the space freed up by the receiver’s movement.
Description:
Two pairs position themselves in their usual roles.
The players play one or several tie-breaks while trying to apply the following strategy:
The server hits their first serve straight down the T, with depth.
They then move forward to the net, and the attackers play an aggressive volley into the space opened by the receiver’s movement toward the T. The first volley will therefore be played into the receiver’s glass corner.
The servers use this strategy only on the first serve, because it needs to be firm and aggressive for the tactic to work properly. The defender will then have very little time to recover their corner after the return.
Try to apply a good slice effect on the serve so the ball digs into the ground right after bouncing off the back glass. It will then be very difficult to return if the defender plays it after the glass rebound.
From time to time during the tie-break, the servers vary their serves, aiming at the side glass for example, to surprise the opponents and avoid being too predictable.
The receivers must try to counter this strategy however they can, with an immediate lob, a chiquita return, or a shot toward the opponents’ weak spot.
The points then continue as free play.
Technical–tactical advice:
It is essential that this first attacking volley bounces on the back glass (glass 3) and then on the side glass (glass 2), in that order and not the opposite, to send the ball away from the defender’s recovery path.
If you aim for the side glass first and it then rebounds onto the back glass, it will actually be counterproductive because the ball will come back toward the defender’s movement.
So attack directly toward glass 3, the back glass near the corner.