If you are a tennis player, there is a good chance you heard repeatedly when you first started playing that you must avoid “no man’s land” like the plague. No man’s land is what most of us tennis pros refer to as the area of the court between the service line and the base line. There is a good reason we refer to this space as no man’s land; if you are waiting in this area of the court for the ball to be struck, then you will often be too far away to play a good volley and too far in to play a good groundstroke. When you first start playing and at the beginner level, you must spend as little time waiting in this area as possible. However, as you progress to higher levels of tennis, you will find that there are some instances where it is a good idea to wait for the ball to be hit in no man’s land. I will present two cases where waiting in a neutral zone is advantageous.
Anticipating a Weak Shot
This example mainly applies to singles but could also be utilized occasionally in doubles. For this example, though, let’s imagine a singles match. Suppose you just hit a good groundstroke from somewhere behind the baseline and now your opponent is scrambling to regain it. You’re likely too far away from the net to make it inside the service line when they hit the ball, so you know charging the net isn’t an option. You also know they will be forced to hit a slow ball back to you and will not have the balance to hit a strong drive back. In this scenario, I see many singles players that will stay on or even behind the baseline. Usually, a slow ball from their opponent lands short and works as an unintentional drop shot. This player was just on offense a second ago, and now they are scrambling up to this brief, low ball. Even worse, their opponent didn’t have to do anything exceptional to flip the script so quickly! This ball would have been so much easier to get to and put away if they could’ve just waited in the forbidden no man’s land! In this situation, you should move up to no man’s land and wait for the ball to be hit – there’s no risk in doing so. Why is there no risk in staying in no man’s land? When you’re in no man’s land, your opponent might hit a fast, deep shot that lands at your feet before you can react. But remember that in this scenario your opponent is scrambling to the corner, and you know they won’t be hitting a fast shot! Even if they manage to land a lob on the baseline, you will have plenty of time to back up and play it as a groundstroke or maybe even move forward and play it as a volley out of the air! So this is a scenario where waiting in no man’s land is a good idea because there’s no risk (unless they somehow come up with a hard deep line drive while on the dead run – they will miss this shot more than they will make it) and a high reward (you are now able to make it up to the soft slow balls in time to attack and close out the point).
Your Partner Just Hit a Lob
In this scenario, you play the net in doubles, and your partner hits a lob. You aren’t going to immediately know if the other team will be playing an overhead – but you know that you don’t want to be anywhere near the net if they are! You should back up as far as you can into no man’s land until you know what’s coming. If they are hitting an overhead make sure that you split step right before they hit (if you are still backing up as they are hitting you will not be able to react quickly and should that ball be hit at you, it is going to be much harder to move out of the way of or get a racquet on it)! If the lob does end up landing, then you will have plenty of time now to move back in and re-establish your position at the net. This example is also why it’s always a good idea to let your partner know that you just hit a lob (I would usually say “watch” or “lob” to my partner right as the ball was leaving my racquet if I was hitting a lob so that they immediately knew to start making their way back just in case)!
By: Austin Barr, Head Tennis Pro
