2.—One can also return diagonally across the court to the far corner. This stroke should be played very hard, for if made slowly there is a chance for an easy return. Moreover, if time is given him, the server may come forward and meet the ball in the middle of the court and kill it by a sharp volley. For this reason it is better not to play this stroke if the server is coming up, but to play either Nos. 1 or 3.
3.—There is another stroke, and the most difficult of all. It is to play the ball slowly across the court to the farther side-line. The ball should strike the ground as near to the net as possible, so that a player who is coming forward cannot reach it before it has bounded and passed on across the side-line. If made correctly, there is no answer to the stroke, except a half-volley. It is an essential part of the stroke that it should be played very slowly, or else the ball must go out of court.
4.—Sometimes, but very seldom, one has to lob the first stroke; for instance, when the first service has been very severe, and the server has followed it up close, one may be unable to make a good stroke to one side of the court, and, if so, it is best to lob.
Again, the server will at times follow up his second service, and, if he gets very close, the safest stroke will be a lob over his head into the back of the court.
CHAPTER V.
THE STROKE.
By stroke, I mean the motion with which a ball is returned off the ground. Of course, all balls cannot be played in the same way; that must depend on how they come, and on the hardness of the ground. As a rule, however, a player can choose in which of two ways he will play the ball. He can take the ball at the top of its bound, in which case the head of the racket is held a little higher than the hand, and the racket itself is nearly horizontal. The stroke is made with the forearm and wrist, and the arm is straightened as the ball is struck.
The other method is to let the ball fall till within a foot or so of the ground, and then, so to speak, to lift it over the net. The racket is held upright, with the head a little back and the hand forward. The ball is taken beside, and a little in front of, the right foot, and a short step forward is made with the left. In striking, the racket is raised, not from the shoulder, but from the elbow, and the wrist is bent backward. The direction of the ball is given by turning the wrist at the moment of striking, and for this reason it is very difficult for one’s opponent to foresee where the ball will be put. I should explain that the stroke is not meant to be a “slam,” but a quiet, regular stroke, whose strength lies less in its speed than in its accuracy, and in the difficulty of foreseeing its direction.
Of the two strokes I much prefer the second one. It gives one’s opponent more time to place himself, but, on the other hand, one gains both in accuracy and severity of stroke, and can also change the direction of the ball at the last moment.