There is a shot in tennis that is so soft it almost seems like the players are afraid to hurt the ball.

Sabine Lisicki hits a deft drop shot during BNP Paribas Open 2015

It is the drop shot. After reading Jeff Sackmann’s great article, The questionable wisdom of the drop shot, I thought this shot required further investigation. Veteran coach Bob Brett once said:

“Live by the drop shot and die by the drop shot.”

Are players killing themselves by using the drop shot or should they implement it more often? Does the drop shot win or lose you points? It is also interesting to consider the following questions: Do players prefer to hit a forehand or a backhand drop shot? And does it actually matter if you hit your drop shot with your backhand or forehand? Finally, does the drop shot serve its purpose of finishing the point?

Before I can answer any of these questions, I first compiled data. Now seeing that most data-based tennis research involves men, I thought it would be nice to look at it from the WTA perspective. With the help of Jeff Sackmann’s great shot-by-shot match charting project, I was able to collect data from 42 clay WTA matches.

I specifically choose clay matches for a few reasons. On clay, players tend to stand farther behind the baseline and for this reason, it is more difficult for players to reach the drop shot in time to return it. Also, players go into the clay court tournaments with a mindset of using the drop shot as a tactic. Thus, there are more matches where players want to use the drop shot. This analysis could be extended to grass court, in which the drop shot is also very effective but let’s begin with an overall picture of the data.

How effective were these drop shots?

How effective was the drop shot?

As the chart illustrates, 61 (16.9%) of the 361 drop shots were missed by the dropper. 119 (33.0%) were straight winners, 36 (10.0%) induced forced errors, which means the opponent touched the ball but missed the shot under pressure. Finally, 40.2% of the time the opponent got the ball back in play. When this happens, the dropper wins the point only 53 (36.6%) times. OUCH, that must hurt!

But don’t write the drop off just yet. Overall, the numbers are pretty good. The players that hit the drop shot win the point 208/361 (57.6%) of the time. And if you look only at drop shots that landed in (300), the percentage rises to 69.3%.

So based on these figures there are two conclusions I can draw:

If the opponent gets the drop shot back in play, the odds are in their favor. Overall, 58% of drop shots are winning shots.

Okay, now that we have examined the big picture, let’s dive into the details.

Forehand [FH] or Backhand [BH] Drop Shots?

The first noticeable difference is the WTA players typically prefer to hit their drop shot with the backhand. In fact 60.7% of all drop shots were backhand drops. Well, why is that? It could be that because most players hit their slice with the backhand side, they prefer to go with a backhand drop shot as a complement to the slice. The similarity in movement and preparation for the drop shot and the slice provides more last-second options and help disguise the drop shot.

Despite the players’ preference for the BH-drop, the overall win percentage for the FH/BH drop shot is comparable: it is 58.5% and 57.1%, respectively. This suggests there is no advantage gained by going for a BH-drop rather than a FH-drop.

Let’s compare the two shots further. The forehand drop is hit over the net 83.8% of the time compared to 82.6% for the backhand. Then again, the forehand drop shot is a straight winner 37.3% of the time compared to 30.1% of the time on the backhand.