Elite players are often at their most comfortable when speaking about the fine technical details of their game, but last month at the French Open, a straightforward question about the overhead smash initially drew little more than a regretful shake of the head from Novak Djokovic: “You’re talking to the wrong person,” he said, laughing.
One of the important pillars of Djokovic’s legendary career is his complete game. In a sport where most players have a weak point, the 24-time grand slam champion has mastered nearly every stroke.
The smash is the only shot Djokovic has never figured out. Yet it is also the shot that so many consider the most straightforward of them all.
The 39-year-old Serb’s difficulties with his smash have cost him some enormous matches in his career and despite mastery of every other category, he has one of the worst smashes on the tour.
It was understandable, then, that Djokovic responded to the suggestion that his overhead had improved over the years with further laughter. He is well aware of the phrase muttered every time he misses a smash: “Thank you, but I don’t know if my coaches would agree with you, or myself,” he said.
“I had a ‘Djokosmash’ name for it right now by my fans, which is not that great. It hasn’t been really the shot that I was so confident in the last 10, 15 years of my career. Maybe early on, yes, but I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of the smash.”
Even in this baseline-dominant modern era, the smash remains a fundamental shot. It is even more pronounced on the slick grass courts of Wimbledon, which still rewards those who are willing to approach the net. From the perspective of audiences around the world, there is no easier shot in the book. The reality is more complex.
“It’s actually a strange shot, because sometimes you feel it very comfortably, you see the ball perfectly. And sometimes you struggle,” says Jannik Sinner, the men’s world No 1, who had his own problems with the shot in his formative years.
The shot divides opinion among players like no other. Some expect to put away every single smash while others described it as the toughest in the game. Daniil Medvedev is curious about how much of a role natural talent plays in the stroke: “I always wondered if it’s something how you were taught, when you were young, to do it or if it’s like a talent where you’re born with it because I do struggle sometimes with overheads,” he says.
“There are a couple of guys on tour, on the practice court you give them some lobs and it doesn’t matter which position they’re in, they do it 10 out of 10 and I’m like: ‘How?’ With me, it goes up, down, right, left. I don’t understand where it’s going down so I do struggle sometimes.”
On Monday, Jack Draper’s opening service game at Eastbourne in his first match after another long injury layoff saw one of the worst misses of the year as he sprayed a smash from right on top of the net. Draper is usually supremely confident of playing the shot, but that miss underlined the importance of remaining focused.
There are many reasons why the overhead can be so challenging. Players have to battle the elements while often tracking high, slow balls, so the glare of the sun or gusty wind can be disruptive. The height and depth of the opponent’s lob also adds to the difficulty of the smash.
Draper views Rafael Nadal as the most obvious reference for handling those variables. “I think he has one of the best smashes ever that I’ve seen,” Draper says. “And it’s because he gets so fast behind the ball to then goes forward. That’s what Trots [his previous coach James Trotman] always taught me as well, that I have to get behind the ball to then push forward because there was a stage when I was younger where I’d just wait for it to get on top of me.”
Players hit the ball so hard in the modern game, so dispatching a slow ball out of the sky often looks like a welcome reprieve from the stands.
However, as the Canadian top 30 player Leylah Fernandez explains, the added time to set up can lead players to overthink: “Every shot is hard. And a smash is probably one of the hardest ones because there’s also that two seconds where you’re thinking about it a lot, where the ball is high. ‘OK, I’m in control. Let me hit the crap out of the ball.’ But you’ve got to time it right and have the full belief that you’re gonna get it, right?”
Others have barely hit a smash in decades because they prefer taking high balls out of the air with drive volleys, a far more modern shot.
Diana Shnaider, the French Open semi-finalist, spent her formative years avoiding smashes at all costs: “I didn’t hit any overheads until I was 14. And then I had a coach, I was hitting so many overheads with him, like almost 50 every practice. And then I started hitting my first overheads in the matches. I was so proud of myself,” she says.
For all the angst, some players remain adamant that the point should be over every time they line up for a smash. Karolina Pliskova, the former world No 1, says: “I should make nine out of 10. I think there is a possibility, that there are some harder or easier smashes, but the ones which are closer to the net, I think you should always make it. But if it’s a little bit deeper, there can be sun or wind, it can be tricky.”
Flavio Cobolli, the French Open finalist, agrees: “Ten out of 10, maybe it’s not easy,” he says. Then he smiles. “But nine out of 10, I can do it. Yeah.”
Leave a Reply