Cross-Court Shot

A Cross-Court Shot is a shot that ends up near the back corner in the exact opposite side of the court you hit it from (as pictured).  It is struck toward the front of your stance, so that your racquet is angled in a way that would propel the ball across the court (see Forehand Mechanics).  There are a number of reasons that you would hit a cross-court shot, but the main one is because it moves your opponent out of center court.  As you can see in the diagram, if my opponent were in center court when I hit the cross-court, they wouldn't be for long.  They would have to travel to the deep back corner and retrieve the pass.

There are 3 ways to hit this shot:  Pass, Pass-Kill, or Kill.  If you're not yet familiar with those terms, check out the section that describes each shot type.

Important:

The Cross-Court Shot can be the perfect shot to hit if your opponent is in center court, or shaded too close to the side of the court that you are on.  However, if your opponent is shaded toward the opposite side of the court, you'd be hitting your cross-court directly to them, and we don't want that. In that situation, you might want to check out the Down The Line Shot.

Here's a video example of the cross-court shot from the backhand side: