Serve and volley: Not standard fare but a tactical ploy

On the fifth point of this year’s Centre Court curtain-raiser, Novak Djokovic served down the T and took off towards the net. He met Pedro Cachin’s return on the full right on the service line and a couple of crisp volleys later, won the point.

PREMIUM

This, from the reigning French Open champion, who went from a brutal go-past-me-if-you-can baseline beast to a silky-smooth net-flirting artist.

And why wouldn’t he? At Wimbledon, traditions are still sacrosanct. Not just in the sense of glossy whites and red strawberries, but also in the sight of the serve and volley.

The two-shot combination, synonymous with grass-court tennis a few decades ago and perhaps with tennis simply going back further, has been largely left devoid of use in the three Grand Slams on hard and clay courts in the modern baseline-heavy game. Its occurrence in the season’s lone major on grass too may have increasingly been on the wane, yet it has surfaced frequently enough in this edition for the tennis traditionalists to savour. 

Djokovic brought out the serve and volley again in his second round, this time with set points to take and with the help of the net chord pushing the ball over. The man across the net, Australian Jordan Thompson, did it at every possible opportunity, even while facing (and losing) match point. He came to the net 73 times, often after the first strike, and gave the four-time defending champion some moments of frustration and a close fight in a straight-sets defeat.

The serve and volleyers — those few and far between amid the flurry of baseliners at the All England Club — have had to live and die with the high risk-high reward play. In the ninth game of the second set after he’d broken Daniil Medvedev, Britain’s Arthur Fery resorted to the serve and volley thrice. He lost every point — the first with Medvedev returning the ball to his ankle, the second with a netted volley, the third with Medvedev hitting a forehand passing winner — to be broken back.

Not the quintessential serve and volley player (there aren’t many around these days, anyway), Fery rushed to the net 73 times, perhaps to try and take time away from the world No. 3 Russian. Medvedev knew that.

“I felt it straight from the start. I think he had some good points, but that’s not really his game. So it then comes to the point where, should he have done something different or not?” Medvedev said of Fery’s serve and volley tactic. “That was his game plan… I don’t think it was a bad game plan. But when you lose, you kind of doubt yourself.”   

Which is what the serve and volley has been more associated with of late: a tactical ploy than standard play. Gone are the days of Rod Laver, John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras — all multiple-time Wimbledon champions of the last half century with varied net-rushing skills who feasted on a staple serve and volley diet. 

Apart from Roger Federer’s feel for it in the modern game, the deft play has lost its touch this century. According to the New York Times quoting data from strategist Craig O’Shannessy, the 2018 Wimbledon had 1,980 serve and volley points, about 7,000 fewer than in the 2002 edition. 

It was around then that Wimbledon changed its grass seed mix to 100% perennial ryegrass which, as has been the general consensus, made the grass slower and more consistent in bounce than ever before. That, along with the evolution of racquets, strings and balls, shrunk the use and utility of the serve and volley even at the Big W.

That’s not to say it isn’t the most effective play on grass still. Serving for the first set at 40-30, Dominic Thiem dished out a serve and volley attempt that pressed Stefanos Tsitsipas to hit his backhand long. Pery held to love in the third game of his match repeating the play thrice, with Medvedev overcooking each of his returns.

Neither has it completely gone out of fashion at the oldest Slam. If you’ve seen Thiem, the Austrian ever so comfortable from the back, serve and rush ahead, it is at this Wimbledon. If you’ve seen Italian Jannik Sinner mix things up and execute a serve and volley off his ankle against Juan Manuel Cerundolo, it is at this Wimbledon. If you’ve seen Cachin rising high and almost slam-dunking the Djokovic return, it is at this Wimbledon.

Tennis’ serve and volley romantics will take it, no matter in the way and volume they come. Much like a good ol’ leave in the Bazball days of Test cricket.