When lobs are hit to inexperienced players, most of them face the ball straight on and instinctively reach up toward it with the racquet (right). If the lobs are over their heads, they backpedal facing the net and jump facing forward to reach it, hitting it like a basketball dunk shot. Moving that way, however, prevents them from reaching and successfully smashing most high, deep lobs. To successfully put away lobs with your overhead, you have to learn to move backwards fast. And the only way to do that is to immediately turn sideways to the net when you see the lob coming. Then you can sidestep or take crossover steps to get to the ball, if you don’t turn sideways first, you can’t recover fast enough to cover deep lobs. Turning sideways also lets you rotate your hips and shoulder into your overhead for more power. But its primary purpose is to enable you to run back quickly.
