If there is one common shot that isn’t worth while, it is one which has a high risk (of net or going out) and low probability of a win. A drop shot against Jack Draper or Carlos Alcaraz comes to mind…..they are just too fast and and too lethal in their reply to your rather pathetic high bouncing drop shot!
But what about a shot that no one should do because its risky and it is usually punished. Which one would it be? Any ideas?
Let me help, you are Federer and Djokovic hits the ball to you, in the left hand corner marked “A”. What next?
You have a lot of choices but basically it comes down to: forehand or, backhand; with either top-spin, flat, slice and either high (lob), soft (dropshot) or hard (return to baseline). Lets rule out the slice and the dropshot because data is sparse and these are more defensive shots.
Combining a flat and top-spin return, we now have forehand or backhand.
Yes, even on your backhand side usually you can come around it, and hit forehand.
But wait, you have three major directions open:
Forehand Cross-court
Forehand Middle
Forehand Down-the-line
Backhand Cross-court
Backhand Middle
Backhand Down-the-line
Are you ready to pick your best choice and your worst choice?
Let me help you again. I will map on the frequency…..that is where players most often choose to hit. Forehand down the middle is the least common, and the cross-court is the most common.
But which ones are most successful? Here are the stats on return from left hand corner success……
Down the middle looks least successful on BH and FH, down the line looks most successful. But there is more. We have not taken into account how difficult each shot is to make. Very roughly there is a 19/20 chance of a Pro player making their next shot. But because of the small unforced error rate EVEN if you allow for errors, backhand down the middle wins less than 50% of the time. It is usually a loosing shot.
Backhand down the middle wins only 45% from the moment a player hits the ball
Backhand down the middle wins only 49% even if the ball goes in!
This is a little complex but here are the full stats, but the brown bar, is the same data above (combined ATP WTP), the yellow bar is the chance of winning the point when the ball is hit (there is a chance of an unforced error); and the orange bar is the chance of winning, if the *returned* ball goes in.
For the record, FH down the line is the most successful, although it has a risk of 15% chance of not making it, but if you make it, 74% of the time it ends as a winner. The choice of shots in terms of risk and reward looks like this:
If you chose FH cross court that was also a good choice, relatively low risk and pretty good reward, FH or BH DTL were slightly high risk but good reward, but both middle return choices relatively low payoff.
Now you have all the data, which common shot would you advise Federer not to use? Backhand up the middle right? Sure, but then again I don’t think you or I should be advising Federer on his backhand!
