I was working with a student who had been avoiding volleys for most of her tennis career. But here’s what impressed me: even though she hadn’t volleyed much, she’d watched the instructional videos, learned the technique, and practiced enough that her form was actually solid. She was totally in the ballpark with her mechanics.
Yet something felt off to her. Her volleys weren’t landing where she wanted them to, and she couldn’t quite figure out why.
What I discovered next is something that’s probably sabotaging YOUR volleys too, and you might not even realize it.
We started filming her volleys, and I noticed something subtle happening. At the very beginning of the session, her hand was positioned at the bottom of the handle. After hitting a few forehand volleys that didn’t feel right, kind of shanking them a bit, her hand started creeping up the handle. Then after a backhand volley she didn’t like, it slid up even more.
By the end of her warm-up volleys, there were a couple inches of space between her hand and the bottom of the racket.
Every time she hit a volley that felt uncomfortable, she instinctively choked up a little higher on the handle.
Here’s why that seemingly innocent adjustment is actually killing your volleys.
First, every time you change where your hand sits on the handle, you’re changing the distance from your body to the sweet spot. An inch or two might not sound like much, but it IS a significant difference in spatial alignment. Your brain basically has to recalculate the positioning for every different grip location to find clean contact. You’re forcing yourself to have multiple spatial judgments instead of one consistent reference point.
Second, the more you choke up, the less leverage you have with the racket. That’s just basic physics. Sure, you gain a little maneuverability, but if you’re already using your body well and moving to the ball properly, you don’t need that trade-off. What you’re losing is leverage, and that longer lever when your hand is at the bottom of the handle gives you a much more solid, stable shot.
Third, you’re losing range and reach. At the net, where reaction time is everything and balls come at you fast, you want every inch of reach possible. Choking up is literally shortening your effective wingspan.
But here’s the real problem that was plaguing my student, and it’s probably happening to you too.
When you hit a volley that doesn’t feel good, you instinctively choke up thinking it’ll give you more control. But what you’re actually doing is masking the real issue. You’re using grip adjustment as a security blanket instead of identifying and fixing what actually went wrong.
So what IS going wrong with most people’s volleys?
We set up a camera directly behind her racket and started recording. Out of the first seven or eight volleys, only one or two hit the middle of the strings. Five or six were hitting high on the racket face, and one was low.
Here’s what you need to understand: when the ball hits off center on your racket, even slightly, it dramatically changes the result. On volleys especially, where your hand should be passive and relaxed unless you’re close to the net punching a high ball, any contact that’s off center kills the rebound that should happen naturally from the strings.
If the ball hits above the sweet spot, the racket twists open. If it hits below, it twists closed. Either way, you’re losing massive distance and control. I’m guessing for every inch the ball is off center on the racket face, you’re losing eight to ten feet on where the ball lands on the other side.
And here’s the kicker: that off-center contact also sends shock and vibration into your hand and arm. The combination of a weak shot plus that uncomfortable feeling in your hand is what creates that sense of “I have no confidence in this stroke.”
So you choke up seeking more control, but you’re not actually addressing the root cause.
What you need to do instead is get obsessive about finding the sweet spot.
I had my student hit another ten volleys with one goal: triple the number that hit the middle of the strings. To do that, she had to consciously raise her hand and racket position an inch or two higher than what felt natural relative to the ball.
The difference was immediate and obvious.
When she made clean contact in the middle of the strings, the racket stayed stable and passive. There was a nice, neutral rebound with minimal twist. When the ball hit off center, the racket violently twisted and turned, killing the shot.
Here’s what I want you to do the next time you practice volleys.
Start becoming hyper-aware of how the ball feels when it hits your racket. Not just whether it went in or out, but the actual sensation in your hand. When you hit a volley that feels unstable or creates that uncomfortable wobble, that’s your signal that you missed the sweet spot.
Don’t reach for your security blanket by choking up on the handle. Instead, make a micro-adjustment with your hand position so the strings are actually behind the ball on the next rep.
The key is massive repetition combined with tiny adjustments after every miss hit. You want to build the awareness so you can feel exactly where the ball contacted the racket, whether it was high, low, or off to the side, and then make the correction on the very next volley.
When the ball hits dead center in line with your grip, there’s no instability whatsoever. The shot feels clean, confident, and goes exactly where you’re aiming. That’s what you’re hunting for on every single volley.
Stop hiding behind grip adjustments and start training yourself to find the sweet spot consistently.
Your volleys will transform practically overnight.
Your Coach,
-Ian
