High Five

The March/April 2013 edition of Tennis magazine's How-To article describes a shot called High Five.

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It is described as 'the perfect response to a well-executed lob'. Considering this magazine's readers likely are adult players, I found this description a little overblown. I would re-word it as 'another option for returning a well-executed lob'. Hasn't sold me yet on the 'perfect response' part.

However.

I could be persuaded that this shot is a 'perfect response' if you are a younger player having difficulty with timing and running down a good lob in such a way to hit a quality ground return! I tried it out on a couple of classes recently with very good results. In many ways it is much less complicated than teaching young players how to hit an overhead response on a lob, so I suggest you use it as a progression to the overhead.

Feed a high, deep ball to a player who is starting at the T. They should adjust their court position so that the ball is above and out in front of them, similar to where they would be if hitting an overhead. But instead of using a serving motion to send the ball back over they net, they should flatten the racquet (into the 'tray table' position) and punch it straight up into the bottom of the ball. This should send the ball in a lob-like path safely back over the net, allowing the player one more chance to stay in the rally.