This shot requires more perfect timing, eyesight, and racquet work than any other, since its margin of safety is smallest and its manifold chances of mishaps numberless.
It is a pick-up. The ball meets the ground and racquet face at nearly the same moment, the ball bouncing off the ground, on the strings. This shot is a stiff-wrist, short swing, like a volley with no follow through. The racquet face travels along the ground with a slight tilt over the ball and towards the net, thus holding the ball low; the shot, like all others in tennis, should travel across the racquet face, along the short strings. The racquet face should always be slightly outside the ball.
The half volley is essentially a defensive stroke, since it should only be made as a last resort, when caught out of position by your opponent's shot. It is a desperate attempt to extricate yourself from a dangerous position without retreating. NEVER DELIBERATELY HALF VOLLEY.
Notwithstanding these truths, there are certain players who have turned the half volley into a point winner. The greatest half volleyer of the past decade—in fact, one of the greatest tennis geniuses of the world—George Caridia, used the stroke successfully as a point winner. R. N. Williams, the leading exponent of the stroke in the present day, achieves remarkable results with it. Major A. R. F. Kingscote wins many a point, seemingly lost, by his phenomenal half-volley returns, particularly from the baseline. These men turn a defence into an attack, and it pays.
So much for the actual strokes of the game. It is in the other departments such as generalship and psychology that matches are won. Just a few suggestions as to stroke technique, and I will close this section.
Always play your shot with a fixed, definite idea of what you are doing and where it is going. Never hit haphazard.
Play all shots across the short strings of the racquet, with the racquet head and handle on the same hitting plane for ground strokes and the head above the handle for volleys. The racquet head should be advanced slightly beyond the wrist for ground strokes.
COURT POSITION
A tennis court is 39 feet long from baseline to net. Most players think all of that territory is a correct place to stand. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are only two places in a tennis court that a tennis player should be to await the ball.
1. About 3 feet behind the baseline near the middle of the court, or