By first stroke is meant the return of the service. I may safely say that more depends on this stroke than on any other. If the first stroke is good, the striker-out should have a decided advantage; if bad, he is almost at the server’s mercy. What the first stroke should be depends on the service and on the skill of the opponent. Off a very fast service it is difficult to make a good first stroke, because the slightest mistake will be enough to send the ball into the net or out of court. If, however, the first stroke is made exactly right, it is more crushing in proportion to the speed of the service. The server has had to fix himself to give a very fast service, and no time is left him to recover for the return. The difficulty of a very severe return of a very fast service is so great that it must be looked on as fortunate, even among good players. It is always very hard to foresee in just what place the service will pitch, and, therefore, the striker-out cannot prepare himself for any particular stroke. He must be ready to return the ball; that is the first point. For the rest, he must return it as severely as he safely can, and into that part of the court where it will most readily go. By this I do not mean that the service should be returned purposely into the middle of the court, but every fast ball is more naturally returned in one direction than in another, and all I advise is that a very fast service should be returned into whatever part of the court it is easiest to put it. If the first service comes off and is very fast, it will almost always give the advantage, and the striker-out must be content to yield the position and to play for safety.
Very different is the case with the second service. The server is no longer trying for an advantage, and the striker-out can choose the way in which he will begin the attack. The server will now probably be far back in the court—about the middle of the base-line or a little behind it—and the chances are that he will succeed in returning the first stroke, no matter where it may be placed. It would, therefore, require an unusually severe stroke to finish the rest at once, and it is running too great a risk to attempt such a stroke. The ball should be played sharply down the side-line or across the court to the farther side-line, so as to put the server on the defensive at the start. Of this I shall speak more fully in treating of the “game”; at present I shall only try to explain what strokes there are to use.
