The weakest link in my game - that is killing me!!

Well, though I knew it all along - the time has come for me to finally admit it!! The weakest link in my game - one that results in my giving my opponents 4-5 easy points along with control of some important rallies is really not letting me make any progress inspite of this practise of movement around the court and other drills!! It is not the backhand corner, the volley or the drop - (though I must admit that these aspects also need a lot of work)!! The weakest aspect of my game is RETURN OF SERVICE from the backhand court!!

In know in theory that the return of the serve from the backhand court has to be deep - either down the line of cross-court depending upon the type of service received. But in practice, during the actual games, it seems to be easier said than done!! My attempts at hitting down the line on lob serves often result in weak shots that are either too low on the front wall or if they are high enough, then they hit the front wall and then the side wall on the front and the ball moves towards the centre of the court for the opponent to make a mess of my attempts. My attempts at returning the low serves on the backhand that hit the side wall and are ankle high before they drop on the court lead to equally disasterous returns!! In a game, I end up handing out at least 2-3 points on erroneous service returns only and another 2-3 points on weak service returns. I have to figure out a way to work on this!!

Some of the things that I am thinking of to handle this is to hold the racket higher - near the top of the handle so that I have more control on the shots. The problem is that if the serves are too deep or too low - I do not get enough swing on the racket and the resultant return is a weak high return - that either moves towards the centre or makes me a sitting duck. Also, I am not sure if I am taking the serves well on the volley - so the cross court returns that are supposed to land deep in the forehand corner, hit the opponents forehand side wall and makes for easy killing. The funny thing is that I am so concious of this weakness, that whenever I get a serve on the backhand that I can return easily - I get so excited that I try and slam a down-the-line backhand retrun into the tin!! The opponents look at me amazed - they are like "How did you *#$% that up? You could have hit it anywhere in the court and you hit it in the tin?!!!"

Hope to do better on this front soon - with a lot of practise - like everything else!!