Questions come up at times about body position when passing or receiving serve. This is particularly the case where the feet are concerned. Some coaches ask the question whether a passer should be square to where the ball is coming from. Or should they be square to their passing target? Another question is whether a player should have their feet even or slightly staggered with one in front of the other. If the latter, which foot forward?
I think the response to the first question you will almost uniformly hear from experienced coaches is that they want players square to the ball, not to target. This lets them move in all directions in reaction to the flight of the ball.
In terms of foot positioning, many favor a slight stagger. The argument is this is a better reaction position than parallel feet. As to which foot to put forward, I personally leave it to the player’s comfort.
The one thing I would note, however, is that none of the body and foot position stuff matters at all if the player’s platform is wrong. No matter what, the player has to orient their platform properly toward target before ball contact. The ball goes where the platform is facing. All of this is very important.
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