The Receiving Loop

In the 2011 Miami Final, Rafael Nadal hit a winner past Novak Djokovic that looked rather strange on TV (the point). The ball landed quite close to him, at least, close in the scope of professional tennis. It appeared to be the kind of shot that Novak had successfully retrieved countless times throughout his career, but in this instance, he didn’t move. The ball flew right past him, and he didn’t take a single step.

So what happened?

In a word: attention. Novak was distracted by the fact that he thought that Rafa’s previous shot was out. That was all it took for the best retriever in the world to let a relatively innocuous shot blow completely past him for a clean winner.

Attention and Intention

While some players are naturally great retrievers, for most, it just doesn’t come naturally. They’re vaguely aware that they’re supposed to watch the ball and move their feet, but that’s about it. The receiving loop transforms this vague understanding into a specific, repeatable, intentional process, which will drastically improve your receiving.

Here’s the loop:

1. Look
2. Split
3. Explode
4. Hit
5. Move

After this, the loop repeats. Look, Split, Explode, Hit, Move, and then we’re back to Look. Let’s go through each step in detail.

1. Look

Imagine it’s championship point in a tournament you really care about. Your opponent has an easy forehand, and you have to defend. You’re going to be hyper focused on your opponent, eyes primed for any sign or signal of where the ball is going to go, so that you can somehow return it and stay in the point. That level of attention, that level of visual focus on what your opponent is doing, is what you need to produce when receiving every ball, not just balls on important points.

The first step of receiving is to look, watch, and pay attention. Watch your opponent, and watch your opponent’s contact, specifically. This requires intentional, deliberate attention; it’s more than just vaguely looking across the net. You need to be watching your opponent with enough deliberate attention that you can predict the exact moment they’ll strike the ball, and one primary reason for that is to properly time step 2.

2. Split

As your opponent is hitting, split-step. Your goal is to land right as you learn where the ball is going, and then explode towards where you want to be. The split-step’s timing is determined by the visual information you’re getting from Look. You’re following your opponent’s hitting rhythm, predicting their contact point, and splitting based on that.

We want to be on balance when we split step, able to easily explode in any direction as we land. Try to get stopped before you split. If you’re still moving from your last recovery, at least stutter step and slow down a little, because the more momentum you have when you split, the more awkward it will be to move in certain directions.

(The split-step can be skipped in very defensive situations. Instead of split-stepping, just guess where your opponent is going to hit, and move there early.)

3. Explode

If you’ve timed your split-step properly, you’re now landing and you know exactly where you need to go. Explode there. Hit the ground and fly off of it. You can practice this movement pattern in isolation. Land and explode right, land and explode left, land and explode forward, and land and explode back. You should be able to land and explode along any diagonal, or land and just adjust in place. All of these movement patterns are necessary for elite receiving footwork.

You should be able to land and explode along any diagonal, or land and just adjust in place.

Your focus during Explode is pressing off the ground as hard as you can, in order to generate as much force as you can, in as small an amount of time as you can, to propel your body towards where you need to be.

A great litmus test for how good a player is at steps 1-3 is how well they receive drop shots. If they’re missing Look, they probably won’t even move for the ball. If they’re missing Split, they won’t get off their spot quickly enough, even when they notice what’s happening, and if they’re missing Explode, they’ll move for the ball, but won’t close enough distance quickly enough to play an effective shot once they get there.

4. Hit

Hold your gaze still and hit the ball. During this step, your focus should be entirely on making clean contact with the strings. You might me moving during this step, you might be stationary. No matter what, there should be no thinking about your movement or receiving pattern while hitting. Your mind should either be completely clear, almost as if you’re meditating, or, alternatively, singularly focused on trying to strike the ball in a certain way. No thinking about the match, the score, or how you’re going to move after you hit.

Good receiving is about seamlessly context switching. Your focus switches from anticipating the ball, to striking it, and then back to anticipation again, in a matter of moments, and if any of those context switches are incomplete – if you’re still distracted by your movement while hitting, for example – you’re probably going to miss.

5. Move

There exists no relaxation or low intensity period after hitting a shot in tennis. After you hit, you want to focus on your recovery with just as much intensity as you were focused on your movement to the ball. Recovery isn’t passive, it’s active. Explode back to the place on the court that you want to defend from.

Sometimes, you’ll want to defend from a spot close to where you hit, and other times, you won’t. Wherever you end your shot, the next step of receiving is to Move, even if it’s only a few steps to where you want to be. When you hit a cross-court shot, for example, you’ll usually want to prepare for the next ball in roughly the same place you hit. When that’s the case, recovery is relatively trivial, and it won’t require explosive movement.

In other cases, though, like when Lorenzo Musetti plays the drops shot pictured in the image below, you’ll want to defend from a far different place than the one from which you finished your shot.

The Move step is easy to lose. When you’re grinding cross-court forehands, for example, recovery doesn’t require all that much movement. A common issue I see is that students get into a rhythm or groove with that pattern, a pattern in which recovery is very minimal, and in doing so end up losing the habit of aggressively, intentionally recovering, which is required by many situations in tennis. The solution to this is to build a habit of intentional recovery in all situations, even simple ones. Even if you’re only a few steps away from your desired position, take those steps on purpose – an intentional movement towards the spot you’ve decided to defend from.

1. Look

That’s it; now we’re back to Look. The Hit step requires looking away from your opponent, and sometimes the subsequent Move step does as well. Once those steps are complete, we need to visually refocus on our opponent’s side of the court. For example, when playing a wide, defensive backhand slice, you’ll often need to turn your back to your opponent. In instances like that, it’s paramount to get your head back around as quickly as you can and begin to pick up your opponent’s hitting rhythm.

The Eyes Drive Receiving

The first step of the receiving loop is Look, but that’s far from the only contribution of the eyes during the receiving process. The entire loop is driven by what the player is seeing. The Split is timed based on your visual observation of when exactly your opponent is going to hit the ball. During the Explode step, the player is exploding to a spot that those early observations have given them, and tracking the ball while they do. Somewhere between the Explode and Hit steps, the bounce should be clearly observed, and then the gaze should be held completely still until the Hit step is entirely complete.

Ideally, after hitting, the eyes are locked on the opponent again, during the following Move step, but even if they aren’t – if the retrieving player puts their head down to sprint, or turns their back to recover, for example – it’s critical that they re-lock onto their opponent’s hitting rhythm as early as possible, so they can time their next Split and receive the next ball.

Playing tennis should be engaging.

Playing tennis should be engaging. Receiving a tennis ball is a fundamentally visual and attentive process. You should be dialed in and focused for the duration of the point. Your mind might process 20 different non-verbal thoughts, based on what you’re seeing and feeling, as the point is playing out, each of which helps you execute slightly better. (The non-verbal nature is key here. Verbal thoughts are too slow and distracting.) If receiving feels like that, you’re doing it right.

The “Hit” Drill

If attentive, intentional receiving seems like a novel concept to you, try this: next time you play, say “hit” at the moment your opponent’s strings strike the ball, and I mean the exact moment. This will force you into the level of attention necessary for elite receiving in tennis. Make that level of attention a habit, and your game will tremendously improve.