This question came in: 

“For some reason, I’m struggling with the return of serve. I have a solid overall game and my return should be a piece of cake . . . but it isn’t!!! I mostly struggle against fast serves. I hit a whole lot of balls short. When I try to fix the shorties, I start hitting them out. I must be having some kind of disconnect between what I’m doing and what I think I’m doing. Argh!”

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I resonate with all “return of serve” questions, so thank you those who brought this up. And thanks to the 172 people who submitted a challenge you’re having in last week’s edition. If you haven’t and would like to, you can do that here.

First off, the return of serve is not a piece of cake, especially when you get up against better players who hit harder serves and have more threatening 3rd shot drives.

Which is important to note, because if you hit short returns against teams with good drives — you’ll be in a tough spot throughout that game.

So, here’s a few things that have helped me with my return. 

1. Stand farther back before the serve. 

I typically stand as far back as the court allows. I want to move forward on my return and make contact with the ball near its peak height. Hitting short returns “short hop” style happens occasionally (especially if you’re playing on a shorter court). But it requires more timing and touch, which is challenging.

2. Be down in a stance before the opponent serves so you’re ready. 

What’s that old line? Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. If you’re standing tall before the serve, and it comes at you deep, good luck getting into position while the ball is mid flight. Start low so you're prepared for any type of serve.

3. Accelerate your breath on contact. 

This is a tip Dayne Gingrich gave me that really helped. He shared how exhaling with your breath at contact will help you accelerate your swing. Many short returns come as a result of a tentative swing. Or in other words, you decelerate on impact rather than accelerate through contact.

One good way to practice this is to do serve & return drills with one other person. When you hit your return, exhale on contact and try to hit the ball to the back fence. This will help you know how much power it takes to hit it that far, so you can dial it back and aim for deep in the court. This is also a very freeing exercise to do.