Fast hands at the net are mostly good positioning in disguise

Doubles volleyers who look preternaturally quick are usually standing where the ball was always going to be.

The reflex volley is the most admired and least understood shot in doubles. Somebody at the net picks off a ball travelling at eighty miles an hour from four metres away and the commentary reaches for words like reactions and instinct. What actually happened is that the player moved to the right place a beat and a half earlier, and then made a very short, very simple block.

Human reaction time to a visual signal sits somewhere around two hundred milliseconds before you have even begun to move a limb. A hard ball crossing four metres gives you barely more than that. There is no version of this where genuine reaction is doing the work. The volley must be pre loaded, which means the player committed to a zone before the striker made contact.

Committing to a zone is a bet, and the good volleyers are betting on things anybody can learn. Where is my partner's serve going, because that dictates the return angle available. Is the returner taking the ball early or backing off. Is their racquet face closed, which almost always means down the line, or open and late, which means the ball is going crosscourt and high. None of that requires reflexes. It requires watching the opponent instead of the ball, which is a habit that takes about a year to build and which most club players never attempt.

I would go further and say the split step is overrated as taught. It is drilled as a rhythmic hop timed to the opponent's contact, which is fine, but the timing instruction misses the real function. The split is a way of arriving at a moment of neutral balance so that the first step can go either direction. If you are already leaning correctly, based on a read, you do not need neutral. You need to be moving. The very best net players sometimes barely split at all when they are certain, and that certainty is worth more than symmetry.

The technical part is almost trivial by comparison. Short backswing, firm wrist, let the incoming pace do the work, aim at feet rather than gaps. That takes a fortnight to teach.

The reading takes years, gets no highlight reel, and is the entire skill. Nobody applauds the step.