How to Work the Turf
by: Dave Winship @ On The Line

What do you have to do to be successful on grass? Three of the four majors were played on grass until the early 1970's. There's now only one survivor - Wimbledon. But it's the biggest prize in tennis and if players want to win it, they have to work with the turf, because it's staying!

Playing on grass demands that you come up with effective solutions to the following challenges:

1. the ball bounces relatively low and often skids
2. the court is often slippery
3. you often get bad bounces.

These factors make it desirable that you finish the points quickly and allow the ball to bounce as little as possible on your side of the net, i.e. by moving in and volleying. The serve and the return are much more important than on other surfaces, so be sure to practise these thoroughly prior to competing in a grass-court tournament. The slipperiness demands that you use a lot of tiny, low steps as you move around the court. Use a slightly deeper knee bend than normal to keep your centre of gravity low.

If you're used to generating topspin with a closed-face grip and you're understandably reluctant to modify this for grass, that's fine. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't make sense to completely change your normal game. If you're comfortable with more open-face grips (e.g. continental), that'll certainly come in very handy, but the best policy is not to reinvent your game, but to adapt it.

Serve-volley and chip-charge tactics usually pay dividends. In tennis, you should always take advantage of what the surface will do for you. On grass, this means exploiting the tendency for the ball to keep low - by using slice. This will produce an even lower bounce for your opponent to contend with. If you've got a good slice serve and a good slice backhand in your repertoire, now's the time to dust them off and tune them up. Make the ball surf the turf!

Finally, if you're going to play a lot on grass, you should seriously consider investing in a pair of specialised tennis shoes (the ones with tiny pimples underneath).

Regards.

Dave Winship