Photo by Steve Powell/ALLSPORT Getty
What are the greatest shots in tennis history? We pick out the game’s most fearsome weapons stroke by stroke, concentrating on the Open Era (since 1968).

By Joel Drucker

Part II: The Return of Serve

Lest the server think holding the balls and stepping up to serve is the best way to take control of a point, imagine serving to Monica Seles. Tempting as it is to call her double-handed return risky, ramming hard, deep, forceful returns was second nature to her.  Rarely content to merely get the ball in play, Seles instead treated a great many serves as short balls.  After all, the serve was bouncing short of the service line, so why not pounce on it?  That mindset makes Seles owner of one of the game's finest returns of serve.     

But even in relative terms, there have been far more big servers in the men’s game.  So how to evaluate the best returners?  Andre Agassi could punish a weak second serve off both sides like no other man.  In today’s game, Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer are excellent at spitting rough deliveries back.  But then again, these two know they are rarely playing the kind of volleyers who can take advantage of floating returns.

And so the award for best return goes to Jimmy Connors.  He had built his game around the counterattack, on flinging back the aggression of netrushers – and doing so on fast surfaces.  Connors not only denied tons of aces, he shot the ball back like a laser often for a winner and just about always down low in ways that would make life quite tough for the netrushers of his day.  If not as punishing in commencing a baseline rally as Agassi, Connors’ spitback rate was significantly higher.  What also made Connors’ return intimidating was the threat of forward movement.  An incoming netrusher would know that once Connors got the return down, he was likely charging forward, possibly to take the first volley out of the air or step in and drill a passing shot.  The doubt planted by Connors’ insistent opportunism only made it that much more dreadful to serve to him.

Joel Drucker is a contributing editor at TENNIS magazine. The author is grateful for the assistance of many experts and former pros, including Brent Abel, John Barrett, Steve Flink, Mary Carillo, Trey Waltke, Chris Lewis, John Newcombe, Owen Davidson, Fred Stolle and Brian Gottfried. >> Return to The Greatest Shots