Five Ways to play Smart and Efficient Tennis
Let’s face it — Tennis is a complicated sport. So many angles, positions, height, width et al. to cover for that sometimes it makes sense to just play the game with instinct and see how it goes…
Playing with instincts is a great thing if you are able to keep your mind in a state of Flow (P.S: To know more about the concept of “Flow” if you haven’t already, highly recommend reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book on it). But most of us normal bodies really can’t keep ourselves in a state of flow but still want to win.
Here are some thoughts on how with some patience and strategy, we can have a higher chance of winning points and thus winning games/matches:
1) Hitting cross court — During baseline rallies, try to hit a higher percentage of shots cross court rather than down the line. This is because of two reasons:
The height of the net at the center is 3ft while the height at the ends can be as high as 3.5ft. That 0.5ft can make the difference in you hitting at the net vs. a regular return (especially if you hit flat returns)
The second reason is that diagonals are always longer than a straight line in the court. So a baseline shot with the same power and spin, will land shorter in the court if hit cross court rather than down the line by about 4 feet (that difference is huge and could make or break games!).
The above also holds true when lobbing the ball — By lobbing cross court, you have the opportunity to not only go deeper with reasonable room for error but also with the additional distance, it gives you more time to position yourself better to take on the return.
2) Serving and hitting to the backhand — If you see the pros, they don’t really have an outright weakness. The pros are so well-trained on all aspects of the game that they can hit from pretty much anywhere on the court. But still, a high percentage of their rallies tend to be backhand to backhand (p.s.: if you see Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray go at each other, you will know what I am talking about).
This is because a player’s forehand is much more of a natural motion while the backhand for some of us, is an acquired skill. During critical moments in a match, the natural motion usually stays up because, well it’s natural to us.
On the other hand, an acquired skill can break down if put under some pressure because it’s not natural to us.
3) Never Hit a Drop Shot on a break point — This is a big no-no and something not even the pros do much on the circuit.
A drop shot is an interesting shot and something I am not entirely convinced about. Firstly, I consider drop shots momentum changers because they can easily change the momentum or rhythm of a point and sometimes even games and matches. But the problem is, it can change the momentum on either side.
Besides, a drop shot is a “low percentage” shot — unless you hit the perfect drop, opponents can usually get to it and can turn the play into their advantage. Instead of playing a shot that can put you in a position of strength, you are letting the opponent make that decision which can spell trouble.
The other issue with a drop shot is that there is not really a good place on court to position yourself once you hit a drop shot. Do you hit a drop shot and stick to the baseline OR do you get to the net anticipating another drop?
All that thinking on a break point? Avoid.
4) Understand the concept of “Set up” points — This is a leaf out of Brad Gilbert’s book “Winning Ugly” — a recommended read for any tennis player.
Most of us think that the critical points during a match are usually 0–40, 15–40, 30–40, 40–30, 40–15, 40–0 — these are definitely important but these are break points or game points. When you are playing one of these points, you are deciding the fate of a match or game. So definitely important.
But we can prepare ourselves a bit better if we are focused on what Brad Gilbert calls “Set up” points. Set up points are those points that set you up for a game or break point. What he calls for is extra focus or prep on those points. They can make the difference between you having to face a break point or a game point. So, stay focused on those points and play “safe” tennis.
The set up points are: 0–30, 15–30, 30–30, Deuce, 30–15, 30–0.
5) Give your shots some room for error
If you watch the pros play during “crunch” situations (like the 5th set of a grand slam match), they tend to hit either a feet or two within the baseline or sides or actually hit down the middle. This is an intuitive and smart way to reduce errors — instead to trying to go for winners (which are difficult to come by when you are in a crunch situation), they try to bait the opponent into making mistake.
This is not a bad tactic and something we should practice and bring in to the game — just focus on hitting the shots a feet or two within the lines and keep going until the opponent makes a mistake. Remember, patience is key in such situations.
This is useful all the time but also highly applicable during two scenarios — first few games of a set and during the deciding games of a set or match.
Hope this article is helpful and something you can apply during your next tennis match!
