How to Play Tennis Video TIP:  Forehand Return of Serve

Sample: Robby Ginepri / ATP Professional

Here is a short video of Robby Ginepri returning serve against hard serving Australian Wayne Arthurs.

The tip here is very subtle so use your pause button or the slide bar to see the technique at the beginning third of the video.

Notice how Ginepri readies himself with a semi-western grip for return. Focus in on his grip as he reads the ball toss from Arthurs then changes to a continental grip for a block forehand return.

He uses the semi-western as his base grip then adapts to hard shots using continetal grip to block the ball back and keep it in play.

He uses virtually no swing and returns the ball using the power of his oppenents return.

The key to this is understanding tendencies in your opponent and making intelligents reads and adjusting to the appropiate grip. I would keep it simple and have no more than two return grips. One if you really want to simplify things. Hard serves are easier to return with a continental grip since the face is square to the ball at contact and easy to manuever into position in a short amount of time.

For optimum instruction utilize the Tennis TIP media player slide bar and Pause/ Play Button for interactive slow motion analysis.

Footage and Tennis TIP by Brian Lutz
July 26, 2005
LA / Mercedes Benz Cup

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