Watch the toss. The moment the ball leaves their hand, you start moving. A small creep forward, two or three little steps, nothing big.
Then you hop. It is a small hop, not a jump. You want to be landing just as their racquet hits the ball.
Toss, you go. Contact, you land.
Here is why it works. You cannot start moving from standing still. A player who is flat-footed at contact has to break their own stillness first.
That costs about half a step. Half a step is the difference between a stretched return and a balanced one, and it happens on every single point.
Land on the balls of both feet, a little wider than your shoulders, knees soft. Now whichever way the ball goes, you push off the opposite foot and you are already moving.
The mistake almost everybody makes is splitting too early. If you hop as they toss, you have landed and gone still before they hit it. All of the effort, none of the head start.
It is not just the serve
The same rule runs the whole point. You start moving when they start their swing. You land when they hit the ball.
On a serve that is the toss. In a rally it is their takeback — the moment their racquet goes back, you go.
At the net it matters most of all. A volleyer who is still walking forward when the ball is struck has given up the first step, and at the net the first step is most of the shot.
You will not always get it right. Nobody does. The point is that it is the same timing everywhere on the court, so every point you play is practice for it.
If you only fix one thing about your feet this season, fix this one. It is free, it works on every shot, and nobody has to teach you to hit anything new.
This is one page of the reference section.
The rest of Crosscourt IQ is 538 situations — a court diagram, the score, and one question: what would you do here, and why? Your player answers first, then the reasoning opens.
Ten cards are free, with the full answer key on every one.
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