8 thoughts on “The amazing shot”

  4. Dabul could have returned it easily if he could have convinced himself he needed to.

    I think it is a difficult shot to attempt, getting the body and momentum working at the correct angles. He has to plant his feet wide fairly accurately from a run before controlling the shot.

    1. It’s not that difficult to put the ball back in play using the between the legs shot. When I was playing a lot of tennis, we all used to fool around with it in practice — Yannick Noah was probably the best-known pro who did it “a lot” (as in a couple of times a year) back then. Personally I found it a lot easier (and safer!) to just run to the right of the ball and hit backwards sort of off the left hip rather than through the legs, but it’s not quite as impressive.

      It’s just not a situation that comes up a lot in matches, especially at the pro level where the lob is less common. And to hit it for a winner is reasonably difficult.

      1. “And to hit it for a winner is reasonably difficult.”

        Right. Because hitting it for a winner is a matter of blind luck. If the other guy has followed his lob in, in most cases he’ll be able to volley the rising ball away no problem.

  5. The between-the-legs retrieval of a lob is always a desperation play, a shot attempted when a player’s catching up to the lob on either side so to drive it back with a groundstroke, or to lob it back, is not going to happen. That’s why it’s rare.

    But its rarity doesn’t mean that just about all tour-level tennis pros can’t make the shot. They can. Any avid fan of the game has probably seen a number talented tennis players make that shot. I have. In this instance, what’s satisfying and glorious is that Roger (by luck alone, of course) hits a winner into the corner. He wasn’t aiming there, you can be sure of that. All he was trying to do was keep the ball in play. Nine out of ten times, when a pro makes this desperation shot, the other guy puts the ball away on the next one.

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