Chip and charge died for no good reason

Second-serve returners have all the leverage and use almost none of it, because coming forward stopped being fashionable.

Here's a situation that occurs a dozen times a set and gets played the same way almost every time. Opponent misses a first serve. He rolls in a second, kicked to the backhand, sixty per cent pace, no real depth. The returner is standing well behind the baseline. He takes a full swing, hits a decent ball, and a neutral rally begins.

A neutral rally. Off a second serve. From a position of total advantage.

Chip and charge was standard equipment once. Block the return low at the server's feet and follow it in, and now he's playing a half-volley pass while you're at the net having only had to cover the width of the court once. The whole exchange takes three shots, it puts the returner in charge of a point he had no business controlling, and even when it doesn't win outright it plants a thought that changes the next four second serves.

It died for three reasons and only one of them was good. Racket technology made passing shots better and topspin dip nastier, which is real. Courts slowed, which made the approach shot slower on arrival and gave the passer more time. And coaching fashion decided that anyone coming forward without a compelling reason was being reckless. That third one is just a fashion and it has hardened into a rule.

The trajectory is what makes it work, which is why the slice is central rather than incidental. A chip return that lands short of the service line and stays below net height forces the server to hit up. He has to generate lift and pace from a low ball while moving forward under pressure, and the pass he produces goes to your volleying strength rather than past it. A floating slice return at chest height does the exact opposite and gets you passed. Same shot name, opposite outcome, which is why half the people who try this once conclude it doesn't work.

There's a scoreboard argument too. You do not need to win most of these points. Win a third of them and you've stolen a break somewhere, and more importantly you've made the server's second-serve decision harder for the rest of the match. He starts going for more on the first serve, misses more first serves, and the whole thing compounds.

Nobody's asking anyone to serve-volley for two hours. Just come in five times a set on second serves and see what happens. My guess is that the reason players don't isn't that it fails. It's that failing at the net looks worse than losing from the back.