Serve return. Racquet ready position
When returning serve lots of people will tell you to have your racquet out in front of you and up relatively high. I agree with this if you know the ball will be bouncing high like on a second serve or when you expect a topspin or Kick serve. An example of that ready position is just below.
Good ready position when you know the ball will be bouncing high
Let’s face it. None of us have lightning fast hand speed. What can you do to give yourself a little edge when you face big flat servers or servers who can hit low skidding slice serves.
Check out the ready position below:
Good ready position when you are expecting hard flat serves or low skidding slice serves.
This position takes very little racket movement for me to get below the ball to hit a topspin return or to block back really fast serves. Experiment with the different ready positions and I think you’ll see you have slightly more time to get your racquet in position. Also, you won’t lose too much if you get surprised with a high bouncing serve because it will be traveling slower which will give you more time to get the racquet up high from the ground level ready position.