The reflex volley is not actually a reflex

Nobody reacts to a ball struck from four metres away, which means the good net player decided where to be before the ball was hit.

Fourteen hundredths of a second. That is roughly how long a ball takes to travel from a doubles opponent's racket to a player standing close at the net, and human visual reaction time alone eats most of it before a muscle contracts.

So the shot cannot be a reaction. What actually happens is prediction. The net player has been reading the passing shooter's stance, the racket face at preparation, the contact height and, above all, where the ball he is receiving forces him to hit. A ball at the shoulder cannot be driven down the line with any margin. A ball at the ankles is going crosscourt or over the top and not much else. The good volleyer has narrowed three options to one before contact and has already begun to move, which is why the highlight looks like a miracle and the player looks unhurried.

The consequence for coaching is that hitting volleys quickly at somebody's midriff from six feet away trains almost nothing that appears in a match. It builds hand speed and confidence, which are worth having, and it entirely omits the perceptual work that produces the shot. Better to feed from the position the opponent will actually be in, with a genuine choice of directions, even at half the tempo.

The same logic explains why the volley has receded in singles and survives in doubles. In singles the passing shot is struck from the baseline with a lot of court to aim into and enough travel time for the ball to dip, so the net player's prediction advantage is small and the risk of approaching is large. In doubles the geometry is compressed, the server volleys off a serve that already constrained the return, and prediction becomes decisive. The skill did not die. Its habitat shrank.

Which is why I am unconvinced by the periodic laments about the lost art of net play in singles. It was not lost through neglect or through soft coaching. Slower courts, heavier topspin and strings that let a defender pass from an impossible position made the approach a losing bet, and players correctly stopped taking it.

Change the equipment or the surfaces and it comes back within two seasons.

Nobody chose to stop volleying. The maths simply stopped paying.