The tennis lob is a great shot and can help you do a lot of things to help increase your chances of gaining the victory:

This shot can…

1. Pin your opponent back by the baseline – crippling his ability to attack you.

2. Run your opponent off the net and force him/her into a more inferior position, while (…at the same time) causing him/her to expel more energy – compromising their ability execute on future shots.  And hey, if you don’t have the gas in the tank, you’re going to lose the match. It doesn’t matter how good your strokes are.

3. Buy you more time. When you feel like your opponent has you on the ropes,  the tennis lob will give you the precious seconds you need to get you back in the point and in good position for the next shot.

All this sounds tremendous, right? Absolutely. But,  the problem is you as a player can’t enjoy any of these benefits if you fail to do one very important thing – get your shot DEEP!

Yeah, you won’t see any success if your tennis lobs don’t land deep enough in the court.  In fact, you’ll actually get destroyed. Why? Because your lob shots won’t be putting your opponent on the defense.

It won’t force him into an awkward position.  It won’t cause him to sprint back to the baseline. Oh, and if you’re behind in the point, you can forget about getting back in it. You’ll be more cooked than the frank (hot dog) you forgot to take off the grill on 4th of July weekend.

Instead, you’ll be giving your opponent the type of shot he can really feast on, sink his teeth into, and rip to shreds! Yea, your opponent will be able to save his energy AND he’ll be in a great offensive position to pound it right back to (…or at) you.

Because with the ball landing just a few feet in front of him – he won’t have to do too much to shove it back down your throat.  All it’ll take is a couple moderate steps, and he’ll quickly be able to get to it  and really apply some bone-crushing pace behind it – which is likely to win them the point.

Now, if you’ve experienced something like this before… If you’ve witnessed your tennis lob get hammered back at you over and over again… Don’t worry, 10s of thousands are in the same boat you are. The great thing is that there is an easy way to fix it.

One of the main causes for your lack of depth and impact resides in your incorrect use of physics. Yea,  you thought you were done with that stuff after 11th grade? Haha, think again. You see, that’s why your high school teacher was  trying to get you to pay attention in class.

It was for your TENNIS CAREER .

Your Tennis Lob: Geometrically Speaking

You see, what ends up happening a lot of the time is that we hit our tennis lob straight up in the air instead of up and out (…towards other side of the court). When this happens,  the apex (…or peak) of the ball’s arc is directly above the net.

You want to avoid that as much as you can. Why? Because the rule is this. The closer the ball’s high point is to the net, the shorter in the court your lobs will fall.

And in contrast, the deeper the ball reaches it’s peak, the further back your tennis lob is going to land.   And the more impacting it will be on your opponent. (see diagram to the left).

So yea, when the high-point is right above the net, that’s when you’ll see your balls land very short – somewhere in the service box – or slightly behind the service line… if you’re LUCKY!

And get this this. Luck doesn’t matter much anyway. Why? Because you’ll still get creamed! So, what you want to do is aim to get the ball to peak further on your opponent’s side – instead of right above the white tape.

Somewhere around or a .5 to 1  foot within the service line would be ideal.  Now that said, if your ball ends up peaking a little further than that, don’t worry.  You can aim as far as right above the service line, and you’ll still be cool and won’t run into many problems.

Your tennis lob will still land comfortably within bounds – around 1.5 to 2 feet from the baseline, and your opponent will definitely feel its effects.

Now you might say, “Hey, why can’t I just try to get my ball to peak even FURTHER and try to get my ball even CLOSER to the baseline (..like within .5 to 1ft) or even smack dab on top of it baseline. I mean, the deeper the better, right?”

Excellent observation! But it’s definitely the WRONG strategy to use here! Why? Because you don’t want to hit it out and give your opponent a free point. That’s why!

Now, to tell you the truth, deeper IS better in most cases, yes. But in this specific situation, the closer to the lines you aim your lob, the more probability you have for your shot landing out.

You see, with the pros on tour, they can afford to go for a little bit more and still get away with it. Why? Because that’s their job. They eat, sleep, and breathe tennis 24hrs/day.

Those are the ones who can, at times, pull out some hidden tricks to get those extra couple inches (…without hearing the word ‘OUT’), and really put the clamps on their opponent.

But if you consider yourself an average level club player, and you try going for that baseline, your success rate isn’t exactly going to be eye candy, I can tell you that. Why?

Because the truth is, the player who doesn’t have the million dollar endorsements or play 7 hours a day,  usually isn’t able to pull off the almost PERFECT stroke that’s needed when going for that kind of depth.

Oh yea, I’m talking about speed, pace, height, AND angles.  All of those things have to be 100% “spot on” for them not to make an error. And Lord knows, perfection is NEVER consistent .

And you want something that’s going to create favorable results for consistently, not once in a while.  So hey… If you go for much more than the service line (…windy or not), your ball, more times than not, will go “TOO DEEP” and sail out on you.

So, do what we talked about, and aim no further than that. That’s all you need to make a great play and make your opponent feel it.  You don’t have to be a sharp-shooter.  Ok, do that, and I guarantee you that you’ll see a lot more of your lobs landing much deeper in the court. And you’ll see a tremendous difference in your shot’s impact.

You’ll be able to take advantage of the 3 awesome benefits mentioned above.  You’ll be able to force him off the net, pin him back by the baseline, as well as get yourself out of a tough point when the time comes (…and it WILL come).

Let me know what you thought of this tennis tip, and if it helps you out there on the court in any way.

And for more great tennis lob tips and tennis strategies, hurry over to this page.

Have a great week AND an even better game!

Brian Hall, Head Coach
TennisMindCamp

Tagged as: tennis, tennis lob, tennis tip