 Welcome to One Minute Tennis Lessons with The Tennis Mentor. I'm going to show you three reasons why hitting cross court is usually the best option. When hitting cross court from corner to corner, you have a longer distance than you would if you were hitting straight down the line. In singles, you have 4.5 feet longer distance than you would if you were hitting down the line. And when playing doubles and the tram lines are involved you have an even bigger distance. Reason number two is when hitting cross court you're hitting over the lowest part of the net. If you were to go down the line instead, you're going over a much higher part of the net, again giving you less room for error. The final reason why going cross court is usually the best option is you don't have to move as far after you've hit the shot. If you're going cross court into this corner, then you can recover slightly off centre on your half of the court. When aiming down the line, you need to recover to the opposite half of your side of the court. Going down the line can be a lot riskier, so do it at the right time when you've got a shorter ball or a slower ball or when your opponent's out of court.