The Return Is the Second-Most-Important Shot in Tennis

Talk about serves, and tennis coaches will go on for an hour. Speed, spin, placement, mechanics, video analysis, dedicated practice sessions. Talk about returns, and most clubs spend twenty minutes per month on the topic. Maybe.

The asymmetry doesn’t match the math. Returns happen exactly as often as serves — every single point starts with one. At the elite level, return-points-won is a stronger predictor of match results than serve-points-won, because the return distribution is wider: great returners are much rarer than great servers. And yet the return remains the most under-coached shot in amateur tennis.

This article is the case for taking the return seriously. Not as a defensive accommodation, but as the second-most-important shot in the game.

The Statistics

Look at ATP Tour data over any recent five-year window. The top servers in the world hold serve about 87–92% of the time. The top returners break serve about 30–35% of the time. Those numbers may sound disparate, but they aren’t — they describe the same skill from opposite sides. To break, the returner must win a sequence of points against a high-quality first or second serve.

Pull on the thread further and the asymmetry deepens. On the men’s tour:

• First-serve-return-points-won: tour median ~30%, elite returners 33–36%.
• Second-serve-return-points-won: tour median ~52%, elite returners 56–60%.
• Break points converted: tour median ~38%, elite returners 42–46%.

A 3–4 percentage point edge on second-serve returns, sustained across hundreds of points, separates a tour player from a top-ten player. It is one of the largest skill-gap signals in the sport.

Compare to the serve side. The gap between an average tour server (60–62% first serves in) and an elite server (65–68%) is large but doesn’t expand much beyond it. Serve has a hard ceiling — there is only so much speed you can produce. Return has a more elastic ceiling because the variables (read, position, depth, court placement, second-ball intent) compound.

The point: return is where the spread is. It is where good players become great, and where amateur players have the most ground to make up.

Why Returns Get Under-Coached

Three reasons, in roughly descending order of importance.

Reason 1: The serve looks like the agent. It’s the shot that initiates the point, the only fully closed-skill shot in tennis, and the most visually impressive. Coaches and players gravitate to it because it feels like the lever. The return is reactive — by definition it doesn’t initiate — and the coaching attention drifts elsewhere.

Reason 2: Returns are hard to feed. You can stand at the baseline and have a coach toss you forehands all day. You cannot easily replicate a 180 km/h flat serve to the deuce corner or a kick serve that jumps to your backhand shoulder. Practice equipment for returns (ball machines, sparring partners, video) is more expensive and less accessible than a basket of balls and a tossing arm.

Reason 3: The return progression is unclear. Coaches have established progressions for forehand, backhand, serve, and volley — clear builds from grip to swing to footwork to ball. The return doesn’t have an equivalent canonical progression. Most coaches teach “split-step, short backswing, hit through” and leave the player to figure out the rest. The result is that even moderately serious tennis programs spend much less structured time on returns than on the strokes that allow the player to start the point on their own terms.

What a Good Return Actually Looks Like

A high-quality return at any level has four parts.

Part 1: Reading. The returner is watching the server’s pre-serve cues — toss location, contact point, shoulder angle, body lean. These cues telegraph the serve type and direction with reasonable accuracy: research has shown elite returners can predict serve direction above chance from pre-contact cues alone (Loffing et al., 2016). The reading happens before the ball is hit.

Part 2: Positioning. The returner sets a position based on the read. Against a flat first serve from a tall server, they stand deep — sometimes well behind the baseline — to gain reaction time. Against a kick second serve, they move forward, sometimes inside the baseline, to take the ball before it climbs to shoulder height. The default position is wrong for half the serves; intelligent positioning is half the return.

Part 3: Split-step on contact. Just as the server’s racquet meets the ball, the returner is airborne. They land just as contact is made, with both feet pre-loaded and ready to push off in either direction. The split is not optional — it is the difference between meeting the ball in front and meeting it late.

Part 4: Compact swing. The actual stroke on a return is much shorter than a baseline forehand or backhand. The ball is already moving fast; you don’t need a long backswing to generate pace. You need to meet it cleanly, with the body weight moving forward through contact. Most amateur return errors come from over-swinging — trying to attack a 180 km/h serve with a full ground-stroke swing path.

Together: read, position, split, compact swing. That sequence, repeated reliably, is what a return is.

The Two Return Mindsets

There are essentially two strategic mindsets for returning, and high-level players use both depending on serve quality and match situation.

The neutralizing return. Aim deep into the middle of the court. Slow it down. Take the server’s initiative away and reset the rally. Used against big first serves where attacking is unrealistic, and against serves that come in fast but with limited placement. The neutralizing return wins points slowly, by attrition, not by aggression.

The attacking return. Step inside the baseline, take the ball on the rise, aim for the server’s weaker corner with depth and pace. Used against second serves that don’t have enough kick or placement to keep the returner pinned. The attacking return shifts the point’s initiative immediately and makes the server feel late.

The mistake amateurs make is choosing the wrong mindset for the situation. They try to neutralize easy second serves (giving the server back the initiative) and try to attack big first serves (resulting in errors or weak floaters). The choice is based on the read — and the read happens in the half-second before contact, not after.

Building a Return: A Practical Progression

In coaching practice, this is the progression I use to build a return from a player who doesn’t have one.

Stage 1: Reading drill, off the court. Player watches video of professional serves at half speed, called out before contact — “wide deuce,” “body kick,” “T flat.” The goal is to recognize cues, not to hit anything. Two to three sessions, ten minutes each, in the first two weeks.

Stage 2: Split-step and split-position on a partner’s serve. No swing yet — the player just splits and sets a defensive return position. Goal is to lock the split-on-contact timing without the cognitive load of also having to hit the ball. Done for one to two weeks at the start of every practice.

Stage 3: Compact return against medium-pace serves. Coach or partner serves at 70–80% pace, varying placement. The player executes a compact swing, no attack, just clean contact and depth. Built up over three to four weeks.

Stage 4: Variable serve pace and reading drill. Coach mixes flat, slice, and kick serves with varying placement. The player must read first, choose mindset (attack or neutralize), and execute. This is where return skill consolidates. The honest answer is that this stage takes years to mature — but the gains compound visibly within months.

Stage 5 and beyond: live match play with feedback. The return is not a finished product. It is a never-finished skill, refined match by match.

The Returner’s Mental Game

The serve is a controlled environment — the server decides everything. The return is the opposite: the player has no control over what’s coming. This perceptual asymmetry has psychological consequences.

Strong returners are calm under serve. They expect to read late, miss reads, and lose points on big serves. They don’t take it personally. They focus on the next point, knowing that aggregate return performance is what matters, not any single return.

Weak returners get frustrated. They feel ambushed by big serves. They overreact — start guessing, lunging, swinging huge. The errors pile up and the server starts feeling more confident, which makes their serve better, which makes the returner more frustrated. The cycle compounds.

The coaching cue I use most: “You will lose return points. That’s the math. Stay even, read well, win the ones you can win, and trust the long game.”

One Thing to Do on Court Tomorrow

For ten minutes of your next session, return only — no other shots. Have a partner serve at moderate pace, varying placement. Your job: split-step on contact, read the ball type, choose attack or neutralize, execute a compact return. Don’t hit anything else for those ten minutes. No ground strokes, no points, no rallies after the return. Just the first ball back.

Most players, doing this for the first time, will be surprised at how much focused attention the return requires. That focused attention is what’s missing from “I’ll work on returns when I get to them.” Returns deserve dedicated minutes, not residual minutes.

The math says so. The data says so. The match scoreboard, point by point, says so.

About the author: Emre Köse is a tennis coach at Beykoz Tenis Kulübü in Istanbul, with 12+ years on court. He holds a BSc in Coaching Education from Marmara University, Faculty of Sport Sciences.

Related in this series: Return positioning · Reading the server · The second serve: the most important shot in tennis

Selected reading:

• Loffing, F., Hagemann, N., Schorer, J., & Baker, J. (2016). Spatial movement variability and predictive ability of elite tennis players’ serves. Sports Biomechanics.
• Brody, H., Cross, R., & Lindsey, C. (2002). The Physics and Technology of Tennis. Racquet Tech Publishing.
• O’Donoghue, P. (2009). Interacting performances theory. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport.