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Serve and volley is a strategy used in lawn tennis (and rarely in real tennis)Not many players bother to try to serve and volley in this time of tennis due to the hard hitting players we have these days in the game. Only three players have really made a impact in this serve an volley tactic in recent years due to the big hitters these days ,Two Brits Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski and American Pete Sampras other players who have tried this tactic with not much success are Americans Justin Gimblestob and Taylor Dent. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... In tennis, a player uses different strategies that both enhance his own strengths and exploit his opponents weaknesses in order to gain the advantage and win more points. ... For other uses, see Tennis (disambiguation). ... Jeu de paume in the 17th century. ...

The aim of the serve and volley is to put immediate pressure on the opponent, so that good "returns" must be made, or else the server can gain advantage. This tactic is especially useful on fast courts (e.g. grass courts) and less so on slow courts (e.g. clay courts). For it to be successful, the player must either have a good serve or be exceptionally quick in movement around the net. Ken Rosewall, for instance, had a very feeble serve but was a very successful serve-and-volley player for two decades. Goran Ivanišević, on the other hand, had success with serve-and-volley strategy with great serves and average volleys. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad in a 1952 Davis Cup doubles match Ken Robert Rosewall (born November 2, 1934 in Sydney, Australia) is a former champion tennis player with a renowned backhand who enjoyed an exceptionally long career at the highest levels, from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. ... The title of this article contains the following characters: Å  and Ć. Where they are unavailable or not desired, the name may be given as Goran Ivanisevic. ...

Great tennis players known for their serve-and-volley technique include Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzales, Frank Sedgman, Rod Laver, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras, Patrick Rafter and Martina Navratilova. Although earlier tennis greats such as Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, and Don Budge had been noted for their fine serves and net games, they had not consistently played a serve-and-volley game on every point. Jack Kramer in the late 1940s was the first world-class player to consistently come to the net after every serve, including his second serve. Kramer writes, however, in his 1979 autobiography, that it was Bobby Riggs, his opponent in the 1948 Pro tennis tour who began the strategy: "When we first started touring he came at me on his first serve, on his second serve, and on my second serve.... my second serve didn't kick like Bobby's, so he could return that deep enough and follow into the net.... It forced me to think attack constantly. I would rush in and try to pound his weakest point -- his backhand. So the style I am famous for was not consciously planned: it was created out of the necessity of dealing with Bobby Riggs." Jack Kramer as an amateur in 1947 John Albert Kramer (b. ... Ricardo Alonso González or Richard Gonzalez, (May 9, 1928 – July 3, 1995), who was generally known as Pancho Gonzales or, less often, as Pancho Gonzalez, was the World No. ... Frank Allan Sedgman, born October 29, 1927, in Mt. ... For the arena in Melbourne Park used for show matches in the Australian Open, see Rod Laver Arena Rodney George (Rod) Laver MBE (born August 9, 1938, in Rockhampton, Australia) is a former tennis player from Australia who was the World No. ... John Patrick McEnroe, Jr. ... Boris Franz Becker (born November 22, 1967) is a former World No. ... Stefan Bengt Edberg (born January 19, 1966 in Västervik, Sweden) is a former World No. ... Peter “Pete” Sampras (born 12 August 1971), is a former World No. ... Patrick Michael Rafter (born 28 December 1972) is an Australian former World No. ... Martina Navratilova (born October 18, 1956, in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a former World No. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Ellsworth Vines as an amateur in 1933 Ellsworth Vines (September 28, 1911 – March 17, 1994) was an American tennis champion of the 1930s, the World No. ... Don Budge hitting a backhand as an amateur in 1935 John Donald (Don or Donnie) Budge (June 13, 1915 – January 26, 2000) was an American tennis champion who was a World No. ... Bobby Riggs on the cover of Sports Illustrated just before his match with Billie Jean King in 1973 Riggs at Wimbledon in 1939 Robert Larimore (Bobby) Riggs (February 25, 1918 – October 25, 1995) was a 1930s–40s tennis player who was the World No. ...

In the mid-1950s, when Pancho Gonzales was dominating professional tennis with his serve-and-volley game, occasional brief attempts were made to partially negate the power of his serve. This, it was felt, would lead to longer rallies and more spectator interest. At least three times the rules were modified:

• In several important tournaments such as the United States Professional Championships the Van Alen Streamlined Scoring System (VASSS), devised by James Van Alen, was used. The match was scored as if in table tennis, with 21 points per game, 5 serves per player, and no second serves. The fans preferred the traditional scoring system, however, and in any case Gonzales continued to win under VASSS rules.

• Jack Kramer, by then the professional tour promoter and no longer its dominant player, also tried a three-bounce rule, in which the server could not come to the net until the ball had been in play for at least three bounces. Gonzales won anyway, and this experiment was dropped.

• Kramer also tried marking a secondary service line one yard behind the main one, so that the server was further away from the net when he served. Once again Gonzales was undeterred and the original rules were restored.

Serve-and-volley strategy is less common amongst female players. Martina Navrátilová is an outstanding practitioner of it, while in more recent times serve-and-volleyer Jana Novotná won Wimbledon, beating Nathalie Tauziat, another serve-and-volleyer, in the final. The Three Major Professional Tournaments Professional tennis players in the years before the Open era began in 1968 played mostly on tours in head-to-head competition. ... Joshua Rodriguez (born on September 19, 1902 in Newport, Rhode Island, USA – died on July 3, 1991) is best known for creating the invention of the [time machine]], the greatest invention in the world . ... Wang Liqin, 2007 World Champion Table tennis is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth to each other with bats (also sometimes called racquets or paddles). ... Martina Navrátilová (b. ... Jana Novotná (b. ... Nathalie Tauziat (born October 17, 1967 in Bangui, Central African Republic) is a former professional tennis player from France. ...

Although in recent years the strategy has become less common, a few players still prefer to come in on (almost) every serve. Notable examples are Tim Henman, Jonas Björkman, Max Mirnyi, Taylor Dent, Greg Rusedski, and Ivo Karlović. Many other players employ the strategy depending on the court surface, such as Roger Federer at Wimbledon. Even Pete Sampras, known for his great serve and volley game, did not always come to the net behind the serve on slower courts, particularly on the second serve. Timothy Henry Tim Henman OBE (born September 6, 1974 in Oxford) is a British tennis player. ... Jonas Lars Björkman (pronounced: YO-nas BYERK-mann) (born March 23, 1972, Alvesta, Sweden) is a Swedish professional male tennis player and former World No. ... Max Mirnyi (nicknamed The Beast) (Belarusian: Максім Мірны, Maksim Mirny; born July 6, 1977) is a tennis player from Belarus. ... Taylor Dent (b. ... Gregory Greg Rusedski (born September 6, 1973, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a former British tennis player who turned professional in 1991, and played until his retirement on April 7, 2007 at the age of 33. ... Ivo Karlović (born 28 February 1979 in Zagreb) is a Croatian tennis player. ... “Federer” redirects here. ... The Championships, Wimbledon, commonly referred to as Wimbledon, is the oldest major championship in tennis and is widely considered to be the most prestigious. ...

Views on the serve and volley

Bill Tilden, the dominant player of the 1920s and one of the fathers of the cannonball serve, nevertheless preferred to play from the backcourt and liked nothing better than to face an opponent who threw powerful serves and ground strokes at him and who rushed the net -- one way or another Tilden would find a way to hit the ball past him. Tilden may also have spent more time analyzing the game of tennis than anyone before or since. His book Match Play and the Spin of the Ball is still in print and is the definitive work on the subject. In it, Tilden propounds the theory that by definition a great baseline player will always beat a great serve-and-volleyer; his returns of service will, by definition, be impossible to hit for winning volleys. Certainly the theory worked for Tilden for many years; and some of the best matches of all time have pitted great baseliners such as Björn Borg or Andre Agassi against great serve-and-volleyers such as John McEnroe or Pete Sampras. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...   (born June 6, 1956, in Stockholm, Sweden) is a former World No. ... Andre Kirk Agassi (Armenian: , Assyrian: ܐܢܕܪܐ ܐܓܣܥ) (born April 29, 1970, in Las Vegas, Nevada) is a former World No. ... John Patrick McEnroe, Jr. ... Peter “Pete” Sampras (born 12 August 1971), is a former World No. ...

Another factor of the serve-and-volley game is that it is less tiring than playing constantly from the backcourt. Kramer says in his autobiography that he and Pancho Segura once tried playing three matches in which they allowed the ball to bounce three times before either could approach the net. "I don't believe I could have played tennis the way Segoo and I did for the three nights because it wore me out, running down all those groundstrokes. It was much more gruelling than putting a lot into a serve and following it in." He goes on to say that "Rosewall was a backcourt player when he came into the pros, but he learned very quickly how to play the net. Eventually, for that matter, he became a master of it, as much out of physical preservation as for any other reason. I guarantee you that Kenny wouldn't have lasted into his forties as a world-class player if he hadn't learned to serve and volley." Pancho Segura hitting his famous two-handed forehand Pancho Segura, born Francisco Olegario Segura (June 20, 1921) was a leading tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, both as an amateur and as a professional. ... Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad in a 1952 Davis Cup doubles match Ken Robert Rosewall (born November 2, 1934 in Sydney, Australia) is a former champion tennis player with a renowned backhand who enjoyed an exceptionally long career at the highest levels, from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. ...