CHAPTER I.
THE GAME.
Section I.
In the preceding pages I have tried to give some idea of the different strokes and of the manner in which they are made. My object now is to take the game as a whole, and to show in what cases the different strokes should be used.
Before this can be done, we must speak of the different styles of game that one meets. I do not refer to garden-party lawn-tennis, but to the styles of the best match-players only.
Seven or eight years ago no one thought of volleying a ball that could be easily played off the ground. The game consisted of carefully placed strokes of medium pace, and the result was long, tedious rests of twenty, forty, and even eighty returns. The first change in this game was caused by the present champion, Mr. W. Renshaw, who conceived the idea of going forward almost to the net and volleying everything that he could reach. This game, though brilliant, was not wholly successful. The volleyer came too close to the net and gave too easy a chance for the ball to go over his head, and probably, too, the volley was not then of sufficient strength. The net was at that time four feet high at the posts, and the angle at which a ball could be volleyed was more restricted than now.
A year later Mr. Renshaw had changed his game in an important point; he no longer came close up, but volleyed from the service-line, or a little in front of it. Complete success attended him, and his style of game soon came to be received as the right one, and to be generally played.
At that time the hitting from the back of the court was slow according to modern ideas, and it was possible to follow up and volley almost every ball without much danger of being passed. The introduction of volleying brought about a change in the back-play. There was clearly no use in careful placing if the volleyer was given time to get in front of the ball. It thus became necessary to hit hard from the back of the court as well as to place the return, and for the cases where this could not be done, lobbing was brought into fashion.
The improvement in the back-play in its turn affected the volleying game. With good placing and hard hitting it was no longer possible to volley as many balls as before, and, as a rule, the volleyer tried to make a severe stroke, which should put his opponent at a disadvantage before coming forward to volley.
It is in this state that we find the game now. It seems a waste of time to discuss the old question of “Volleying v. Back-play.” With the two games pure and simple, and with no mixture of the two, I feel sure that bad back-play will beat bad volleying, and that good volleying will win against good back-play.
One does not, however, see good players confine themselves wholly to either game. As I said just now, one cannot volley every ball, and one needs to be able to make a severe stroke off the ground to get into position to volley. This one can do only by skill in back-play. Every well-known player of the present day believes that both back-play and volleying are necessary for a successful game, and the question now is not which to use, but how to mix the two.