Have you ever been frustrated by an opponent who masterfully pulled one drop shot after another when you least expected them?

And even if you reached the ball you still lost the point most of the times?

There’s a way to counter these drop shot masters and you have to approach it from two ways.

Don’t Allow Them To Play A Drop Shot

If it was just that simple. Of course, you cannot play every ball in such a way that your opponent can’t play a drop shot (without risking too much of course), but you can keep in mind the general strategy of play that makes is much more difficult to play a drop shot.

1. Play deep shots with lots of top-spin. It’s relatively easy to execute a drop shot (which is basically a slice except with more backspin and less forward speed) if the ball is low or at your ideal contact point around the hips.

But if the ball shoots up and you have to play it around your shoulders, then hitting a good drop shot is very difficult.

2. Play with less pace. Again, it’s relatively easy to hit a drop shot from a medium paced ball, but it’s very difficult to judge the force of hitting the ball when it’s coming slowly. It just doesn’t have enough energy for your opponent to simply cut under it so he’ll have to push it more.

And when he does that, he’ll most likely play the ball too high and too deep and you’ll be able to attack it.

3. Play to their “weaker” side. Many players like to play a drop shot on their backhand side because they play the slice anyway most of the time and they have good feel for the drop shot. But they rarely play a drop shot on their forehand side.

Don’t be afraid to rally some shots to their forehand side and then attack their backhand side. When your opponent is in defense he most likely won’t play a drop shot.

Anticipating Drop Shots

If your opponent still manages to play a few drop shots, you need to know how to counter them.

The key is to first see the drop shot coming. You need to recognize ideal situations for drop shots – but from your opponent’s point of view.

If you’re 2 meters behind the baseline and you played a shorter ball to your opponent’s backhand and he now plays the ball inside the court, that’s an ideal situation to play a short ball.

If you recognize that, you now need to watch your opponent very carefully and expect a drop shot. If you are in a state of expectation, you’ll react on the first sign of it.

Most of the times when a drop shot from your opponent is a winner, it’s because you didn’t expect it and you reacted late.

Start expecting drop shots from ideal situations (from your opponent’s point of view) and you’ll see how your reaction time improves.

How To Counter Drop Shots

The next step is to KNOW how ans where you’ll play the ball if you reach it. There are two typical situations when you’re about to play the ball: your opponent stayed back or he moved closer to the net.

If your opponent stayed back:

a) And you can hit the ball well (above the net or slightly below): then hit a cross court winner with top spin. The ball will go far away from your opponent if you hit a good angle. You can also hit down the line and cover the net (expecting a lob)

b) And you cannot hit the ball well (fast) since it’s too low: push the ball deep down the line and cover the net. Expect both passing shots and lobs.

You can also counter drop shot but it really depends on how balanced your are when you’re about to hit the ball. If you’re still moving rapidly, then don’t attempt a counter drop shot. Only if you reach the ball comfortably but it’s below the net, attempt a counter drop shot.

c) And his drop shot landed very close to the sidelines and very short behind the net: push the ball diagonally for short cross court winner.

Here’s a compilation of drop shots played by Roger Federer and you can observe how Del Potro sometimes uses the right tactic – but still loses the point – and how he sometimes plays totally wrong tactics and he is very easily outplayed.

Of course, knowing the right tactic is only half of the solution. The other half is to execute the shot well…

If your opponent moved to the net:

a) And you can hit the ball well: hit a fast ball down the line or right at your opponent. The worst option is to go cross court because even a simple reaction volley of your opponent will probably land the ball in your court.

b) And you cannot hit the ball well:  play the ball down the line but hit it very gently so that your opponent will have to volley it below the net. If you lift the ball high your opponent will volley it down and you have almost no chance.

But if you force him to volley up and you quickly cover the net, you have very good chance of getting to the ball.

Note that the best solution for your opponent in this situation is to lob you with a volley (since he needs to play up and you’re already covering the net well) – so expect that and be ready to rapidly move into the overhead position.

Always try to hit the smash instead of turning around and running back. Once you run back you have maybe 5% chance of winning the point.

As you can see there are lots of “ifs” when getting to the drop shot and you have to practice these situations until they become your automatic responses.

None of these tactics will work 100% but if you execute the shots well you have more than 50% chances of winning the point.

So when you practice and play these shots in tennis matches, don’t judge the success of a certain tactic based on one or two attempts. Play these patterns of play many times over and you’ll soon see that you are successful in the long term.