What is the Best Shot in Tennis

Tennis. It’s the most popular individual sport, and the fourth most popular sport in the world. Thousands of fans gather around the Wimbledon stadium to watch great players, the likes of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and upcoming players like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. The fast-paced sport contains a multitude of different shots. There’s the shot that starts the point: The serve, with many players hitting serves over 140mph. Then when the point starts the two most common shots are the groundstroke shots, the forehand and the backhand. Finally, to finish the point, players often come to the net, where volleys are the main shot used to finish points. With so many shots, it can be people to decide which one is the best shot for professional tennis players, as there are many factors to consider, such as percentage, power, and frequency. Percentage means the likelihood of getting a shot in. So a 140 mph serve might be powerful, but it wouldn't have a high percentage. Frequency means the amount of a certain shot you would get in a single point. Overhead smashes and volleys are powerful and have a high percentage, but rarely do tennis players get the opportunity to smash a ball or even volley a ball often during the point. The most common shots in tennis are the forehands and backhands, and so professional tennis players need to ensure both those shots are consistent and powerful enough to play at the professional level. Right now, the common perception is that the crosscourt forehand is the best shot in tennis, due to the high percentage, frequency, variation, and power.

The Crosscourt Forehand

Forehands or backhands can be either down the line or crosscourt. A crosscourt shot means the player hits the ball across the net diagonally to the opposite side, so a player receiving the ball on the right will hit it to their left side of the opposite court. A down the line shot is just what it sounds like; a player will hit a shot in a straight line to the same side of the court. According to tennis court dimensions, the center of the net (at a height of 36 inches) is six inches lower than the posts (42 inches), meaning there’s a six inch dip in the net at the middle. That means that when a player hits a crosscourt shot, the ball goes over a lower part of the net, meaning there’s a higher chance of the ball going over that part of the net than a down the line shot, where the net is higher than the middle. Additionally, a crosscourt shot allows more space for the ball to land in than a down the line shot. Simple geometry tells us that a diagonal on a rectangle is longer than the straight side, and so when hitting the ball crosscourt, there’s simply more space for the ball to land in than when hitting a down the line shot

A Higher Percentage

Forehands simply have a higher percentage than all other shots in tennis. According to the Turkish Journal for Sport and Exercise, out of 1939 total tennis shots analyzed, 597 of them were forehands. That means out of all the possible shots tennis player could hit (backhands, serves, slices, volleys, overheads, drop shots), around a third of them were just forehands. By contrast, the backhand accounted for 574 shots, serve for 528 shots, and the volley/overhead for 48 shots. While it may seem like the forehand and backhand have a similar percentage, the backhand is a lower percentage shot for most players. In the study, backhands accounted for 48% of missed shots, almost half, despite making up less than a third of the total. Additionally, the percentage of backhand winners over total backhands was 25.6%, less than the 31.2% rate of the forehand. All this suggests that backhands simply don’t match up to their forehand counterparts in terms of power and percentage. 

All The Pluses

The forehand simply has the best of all worlds. It’s the most frequent shot encountered in tennis, as after the service rallies mainly consists of groundstrokes. It’s the most powerful groundstroke, with great professional players like Juan Martin del Potro hitting forehands, according to Victoria University, at an average forehand speed of 131 Kph. Finally, the forehand can be a very high percentage shot, as varying the spin and power allows players to accurately place the ball where they want it to be on the court.

References:

Cam, İbrahim, et al. “The Analysis of the Last Shots of the Top-Level Tennis Players in Open Tennis Tournaments.” Turkish Journal of Sport and Exercise, vol. 15, no. 1, 4 Nov. 2014, pp. 54–57, dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/tsed/issue/21504/230664, https://doi.org/10.15314/tjse.82239. Accessed 1 May 2024.

Kovalchik, Stephanie. Men’s Best Shots Poll.

‌Iván Prieto-Lage, et al. “Match Analysis and Probability of Winning a Point in Elite Men’s Singles Tennis.” PLOS ONE, vol. 18, no. 9, 28 Sept. 2023, pp. e0286076–e0286076, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10538650/, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286076.

Lizzie Flint, “Smart Tennis: Why You Should Hit a Lot More Balls Cross Court.” Talking Tennis, talkingtennis.net/blog-posts/smart-tennis-why-you-should-hit-a-lot-more-balls-cross-court.