Two Foundations of All Tennis Strategies And Tactics
When you're preparing your game plan for the upcoming match or perhaps just trying to improve your tactical game, you need to start your tactical planning using two fundamental tennis strategies of the game.
By the way, these two strategies are not used only in tennis, but in most sports.
The first strategy concerns how to win more points and the second one, often overlooked, is how to lose less points.
Andy Murray uses a backhand slice to neutralize the attacks of his opponents. Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images
Your goals in the match are of course to increase more points by winning them, and to decrease the number of points that you lose. Once you know what the main strategy is, you can look for more specific tactics on how to achieve it...
1. How To Win More Points
If you do some research on tennis tactics, you will undoubtedly come across tactics that will show you how to win more points by outplaying your opponent. Some of the most important tactics for winning more points include:
Attacking the weaker side of your opponent with serves, returns and groundstrokes
Moving your opponent around
Playing faster shots or standing inside the court to give the opponent less time to react, move and play the shots
Using your strength to attack your opponent's weaknesses - for example running around backhand and attacking with your big forehand
Using variations of spin, speed or height to disrupt your opponent's timing
Serve and volleying on first serves
All these tactics can applied to most game situations (baseline, net, serving, returning, approach and passing shot) and you'll have a full array of tactics and playing patterns with which you can try to win more points and outplay your opponent.
2. How to Lose Less Points
If you have been planning how to outplay your opponent, he/she has been probably doing the same!
So you also need to plan how to neutralize his/her attacking game. That's how you'll lose less points and at the same time win more points since tennis scoring always gives someone a point.
That's not the case in some other sports: in basketball or soccer for example your opponent doesn't get a point (basket, goal, etc.) if you miss your attempt.
But in tennis, table tennis, volleyball and other similar sports, the point is always won by someone and that's why there's much more pressure involved in these sports. They require good mental toughness to perform well...
As an example of how to play your neutralizing tactics, we'll use the attacking tactics from above and find tactics to neutralize them.
If your opponent is:
Attacking the weaker side
How to make the best of your weaker shot was already covered in one of the previous articles, so just follow the link!
Moving you opponent around
Your opponent can move you around if he/she has enough time, they stand close to the baseline and have a good angle to do so. Your goal would then be to keep the ball deep with good topspin which will push your opponent even farther behind the baseline.
You can also aim straight down the middle to take the angles away from her. Some players, on the other hand, may like the shot right the middle and that's when you need to play to their weaker side for example, where they are not that skilled and accurate to move you around.
Playing faster shots or standing inside the court
Your opponent can play fast only if they can set up well for the shot and have enough time to make a big swing. They can play inside the court if you play short. Therefore, you need to add some pace to your shots and move them around.
While this can also be an offensive tactic, it can be used with the intention of neutralizing the opponent's attacks.
Some players like the pace though so you can also try giving them no pace with higher loopy shots and wait for their errors or expoit their short balls because they won't adapt well to different timing of the shots.
To push your opponent behind the baseline, the ball not only needs to be deep but also penetrating. A good way to achieve that is to play the ball that is still RISING when it crosses your opponent's baseline after is has bounced.
If the ball is still rising on the baseline, it's very hard to attack and you'll either get many points from unforced errors or your opponent will move back and won't be able to attack you anymore.
Using their strength to attack your weakness
Again, refer to the article about making the best of your weaknesses to find smart tactics to counter your opponent.
Using variations of spin, speed or height to disrupt your timing
You'll lose your timing if you don't READ the ball well. Observe the shots carefully, read the spin, height and the whole trajectory and play the shots calmly.
Know what to play on various shots: if you receive a high ball, return a high ball, if you receive a low slice, respond with a slice, if you are attacked with a fast ball, use its pace to control your normal shot speed.
Serve and volleying on first serves
If your opponent serves and volleys on many serves, you need to find a way to at least force a difficult volley for her. You can:
- Step back, get enough time for a good swing and return a fast ball
- Step inside the court, block the ball and aim low to the feet of the opponent
- Shorten your backswing, hold your position and return cross court. You'll most likely get another passing shot off the weak volley.
- Determine the weaker volley of your opponent and aim your returns to that side
All these and similar tactics are not really offensive tactics. Your main intention is not really to win a point, but to neutralize your opponent, preventing him/her from winning a direct point and then either get into a neutral rally situation or actually win a point.
Federer and Santoro both use a wide varitey of offensive and neutralizing tactics
You're not in control of the outcome so you don't know what will actually happen, but you are in control of your intentions so you use neutralizing tactics to prevent and stop offensive tactics from your opponent.
You also need to keep in mind these two strategies (how to win more and how to lose less points) when you analyze your matches.
Don't just look for better ways to outplay your opponent next time, but also look for ways to neutralize their successful tactics.
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