Stop-volley has totally vanished
Stop-volley. That is a term special to tennis. The present generation of followers of the game may not be familiar with it. It is a shot that has been virtually tossed high into the gallery.
For its sheer subtlety and the suddenness of the ending of a sequence of exchanges in the singles game, the stop-volley is supremely spectacular. It takes your breath away for the moment, even like the unexpected break in the tabla solo interlude by Zakir Hussain during a vocal concert.
Uncanny anticipation and suitable positioning close to the net to deal with the mostly angled return of the ball from the opposing player are the basic needs. The palm of the free hand gets behind the guts of the racket to make the impact of the ball less severe. And the ball drops dead. At no other time is the ball rendered so motionless on the court. Hard, grass or synthetic, the surface makes no difference.
If memory serves me right, I had seen Ramanathan Krishnan play that shot in a Western India Championship match on the Bombay Gymkhana court. For all his equipment of strokes — his backhand drive down the line which spelt an ace most times — he came off second best in the Davis Cup matches against Tony Trabert and Dennis Ralston on the Cricket Club of India courts. It was said at the time that he had advised the organisers to render the surface a little sandy to counter the challenge the Americans posed.
The progressive emphasis on pace and power in tennis could be a reason for the disappearance of the stop-volley. There are not many net-rushers now. ‘Pistol’ Pete (Sampras) was, perhaps, the last who moved up following his service. And Pete’s service was loaded with power and intelligently varied.
Free court or net side domination demands sharp reflexes. Compared to the rapier-thrust-like drives and sledgehammer-like overhead smashes, volleys may be deemed as a non-violent action, the main objective being to direct the ball beyond the reach of the rival player. Stop-volley thus is the quintessence of non-violence!
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