How do you stop wide, soft serves?

by **brazegoesmoo** » Sun, 01 May 2011 06:31

I'm being killed by people who do that on every service point. I've tried power, control.. nothing works for me. Could it be my build?

by **jayl0ve** » Sun, 01 May 2011 06:43

Honestly I am probably not the person to be answering this since I've only been playing for like 2 days, but I find that power flat shots down the line work pretty well against this. Especially if, like you said, you know it's coming every time, and have time to aim really deep down the line

by **Coolhand Texas** » Sun, 01 May 2011 06:46

Jon, do you not have the problem of when you are aiming down the line that your shots end up more in the middle of the court than down the line? This happens to me a lot and its very frustrating in my opinion.

by **jayl0ve** » Sun, 01 May 2011 06:50

Yeah I have noticed this, it's pretty hard to get it close to the line, you have to aim for quite a long time...except on serves it seems like. Maybe it's because I've been primarily playing with Agassi and he has 'shot counter' and some return-based skill (I think??). I've been hitting some really good down the line flat power shots as an answer to out-wide serves...even hitting a few return winners :shock:

But yeah to answer your question, I have noticed that. It just depends on your FH/BH rating...with Agassi I can hit the lines pretty frequently on down the line power shots with his FH.

by **brazegoesmoo** » Sun, 01 May 2011 06:53

what's frustrating for me is that I think I'm playing alright, but I"m just losing to gimmicks. And when I get KO'd early, I have no chance to learn the proper ways of countering them.

by **brazegoesmoo** » Sun, 01 May 2011 06:59

on a side note, was this banned in TS3?

by **jayl0ve** » Sun, 01 May 2011 07:02

brazegoesmoo wrote:what's frustrating for me is that I think I'm playing alright, but I"m just losing to gimmicks. And when I get KO'd early, I have no chance to learn the proper ways of countering them.

Well first of all you gotta not get emotional when somebody is doing this all the time. Just relax and know that since it's probably going out wide, you can cheat a little to one side and get a better look at the return. If they're doing it all the time and you're still not able to answer it, you're doing something wrong...start guessing more, scoot way over to one side, even if you don't win the point they will get the message that you're onto their pattern, at that point you just gotta find a way to stop it...these serves are definitely more effective (in video game tennis at least) than body serves or up the T serves, but they shouldn't be effective at all if somebody is not mixing it up with other serves.

by **brazegoesmoo** » Sun, 01 May 2011 07:03

So here's what happens when I go out wide. I return the ball full power, control, long short, whatever. He charges up and shoots to the open court. I stutter in place and cry to myself.

by **tigerofintegrity** » Sun, 01 May 2011 07:05

If you're against someone you know is definitely going to serve that particular serve all the time, step into the court a bit and further to the right. Then you just gotta make sure you perfect time the return or at least with a good. The best thing to do is usually to mix up your control shots, sometimes top spin, sometimes slice, sometimes deep up the line or down the middle, sometimes acute cross court. Deep down the middle is often good as it cuts out angles and gives you time to get back into the court. Power shots are too risky because they give you no time to recover if they reach the return and anything short of a perfect on power returns offers up an easy put away.

by **jayl0ve** » Sun, 01 May 2011 07:07

There's no specific answer for stuff like this. You just have to learn the skill of adapting to different situations. Find out what you think this particular player has problems with or doesn't like to see, and exploit it. This could be anything...maybe he doesn't move/anticipate to his BH side so well, maybe he stands really far behind the baseline, I dunno... I dunno what else to say.

by **brazegoesmoo** » Sun, 01 May 2011 07:08

I ended up using deep control slice shots. Still lost my tourney match. Dude got 7 love games, all on serve lol.

Ah well, next time, gadget. I'll focus on not using power shots to try to hit it deep.

by **Gahan1990** » Sun, 01 May 2011 11:03

I'd say short cross control top spins as I think they are the ones with a good control and you can hit them at the line when you are lucky

When you are wide outside, don't aim for the same side as they made it bad and when you are hitting the ball, it gets right in the middle infront of the other player who should wait there and then he gets a winner

by **RainingAmoeba79** » Wed, 25 May 2011 00:11

Deeeep Cross Court Control shot i find works well

by **jayl0ve** » Wed, 25 May 2011 00:23

Super short cross court slice forehands (I know it's lame but oh well) work really well for me against these kinds of serves, just have to time it good or perfect. Mix it up with other returns of course, because if it doesn't surprise them it can be an easy put away, but this one will catch a ton of guys off guard and completely wrong-foot them.

by **RainingAmoeba79** » Wed, 25 May 2011 00:34

Or the cross court drop shot. Did this to 1 of the cheesers last night on his first serve all the way wide, and he forfeited :lol:

How do you stop wide, soft serves?

How do you stop wide, soft serves?

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