Photo Lesson: The Medium-Height Backhand Volley

Hitting volleys with backspin is considerably more complicated than hitting them flat, but when the ball isn't well above the top of the net, hitting with backspin is worth the difficulty of learning the right racquet-face angle to go with the downward angle of your swing. The two angles aren't necessarily the same. The racquet face here is open at roughly a 45-degree angle, while the slant of the swing is more like 35 degrees. If the swing had less of a downward slant with the same racquet-face angle, the volley would have sent the ball too high, and a more downward swing would have sent the ball into the net. Getting the right match of angles takes practice, but it pays off with a volley that has enough lift to clear the net by a foot or two and then skid fairly low on the bounce due to its backspin. The low skid makes it much harder for the opponent to line up on a passing shot and get underneath the ball enough to hit topspin, which would make the passing shot considerably tougher for the volleyer.