Defining Your Own Game Style

In today’s game, to define your own game style is to place yourself within a category of one or more of the established, traditionally identified types of play. I say one or more, because, while I personally had a preference to play as an aggressive baseliner, I was more than willing to become a counter-puncher, a serve-and-volleyer, or an all court player if necessary in order to exploit certain weaknesses in my opponent. But typically you, as a player, as does everyone, should want to fall into at least one of the categories just mentioned. While I was willing to hop into different game styles depending on who I was playing, I was only able to do this by realizing the extent of how to play each game style with relative effectiveness. There are plenty of good players who morph into different styles from time to time as a strategic ploy, and knowing what each game style is, how it is best executed, and what the pros and cons are of each game style can help you develop your own identity.

The better you define yourself as a player and the more specifically you define your own personal game style, the more quickly you can grow as a player and develop the way you use shot selection to play your points in matches.

What makes a player is his/her ability to understand who they are on the court, to establish a real identity, and to have a “Plan A” when stepping out onto the court. While most smart players will want to impose certain shots they have the most confidence in onto their opponents, they will generally understand that they can hit their best shots to their opponent’s weakest shots. Certainly using a bit of strategy can make a huge difference during your matches, but knowing what you do best as a player and constantly looking to use your best shots are two different things, and can sometimes be tricky for players with emerging abilities.

As mentioned above, you want to identify yourself as an all court player, a serve-volley player, an aggressive baseliner, or a counter-puncher. Falling within one of these categories helps players develop an identity while on court that influences their shot selection, how they go about setting up their points, and what types of exchanges they want to get into with their opponents. But before we feel comfortable with falling into one of these categories, let’s make sure we know what they are first. Below are some explanations of each of the aforementioned game styles.

The best example of this is Pete Sampras. Sampras spent just as much time at net as he did on the baseline. Sampras would follow his serve into the net, and would also stay back on the baseline after his serve. Pistol Pete, like all good all-court players, would look to use his ground strokes to get to the net. He was a threat both from the back court as well as with his volleys, and while this style may not be suitable for everyone, it certainly provides more problems for opponents than any of the other styles, since all court players possess a wider range of options (at least as far as court positioning) with which to hurt their opponents.

Click photo: Sampras serves and looks to finish the point at the net.

Click photo: Sampras follows his return into net, putting pressure his opponent.

Because this style demands players to develop every aspect of the game – to be able to be proficient baseliners, proficient volleyers, and proficient in their transition games, players who possess the all court style often have success on all four surfaces. While Sampras never won the French Open, he had some great runs to the Semi-Finals and Quarter-Finals, as well as some big time victories on the dirt in Davis Cup. Sampras changed the sport by making it more popular for fans and aspiring junior players to want to excel from both the baseline and the net.

Typically though, clay does prove to be the biggest challenge for all court players. Depending on what player or coach you ask, you may get different reasons why this may be, and certainly it does vary on a case by case basis. However, generally speaking, because the style calls for players that use it to be good at everything, they often don’t become great at anything. While Sampras was definitely great at everything, he was an exceptional athlete that many consider the greatest of all time. Most players don’t have his competitive spirit or his athleticism, and with the all court style requiring a high demand for proficiency in all areas of the game, it is common to see players with this style become well rounded players without any area of their games that are developed exceptionally. Because of this, when all court players are matched up against players that are exceptional from the baseline at the French Open or any other clay court events for that matter, the slow-bouncing clay court surface gives the advantage to the exceptional baseliner. The longer points (caused by the slow surface which makes it tougher to hit through the court, thus allowing fewer chances to come forward and fewer net opportunities) often makes clay court matches about baseline efficiency. And on clay, the player who is better from the baseline usually wins.

On the other side of the coin, all court players excel more naturally on faster surfaces because of their comfort level in coming forward, taking the ball early, hitting through the court, and making their way to the net. On grass, the player who is most comfortable at net usually wins (though that is slowly changing, as we’ve seen at Wimbledon over the past decade do mostly to the firmer surface used), and on hard courts, the player most comfortable with taking the ball early, hitting through the court, and finishing points inside the court (and often at net) usually have the advantage.

Sampras’ comfort zone, coming forward, taking the ball early, and positioning himself at net won him seven Wimbledons and five US Opens, and a couple more grand slam titles down under. The faster surfaces favor all court players because baseliners have less time to get to the ball and therefore a tougher time covering the court.

The aggressive baseliner is a player that possesses powerful ground-strokes. This player likes to take the ball early and hit with power, spin, and angles to control the point. He or she prefers to be in control of the point, prefers to be on top of the baseline while striking their shots, pushing their opponents back behind the baseline or wide into the alleys. The main objective of the aggressive baseliner is to use their ground-strokes to create short balls that they can attack and finish the point with.

Andre Agassi was the quintessential aggressive baseliner. Agassi took the ball early off of both the forehand and the backhand side, hitting both flat and with heavy topspin at different times. Agassi was always looking to control the point and run his opponent from side to side. While Agassi made appearances at the net from time to time, he liked to use his powerful ground-strokes to both set up and finish the point.

Because Agassi spent the majority of his time on the baseline, he did have critics of his net game. While he did have relatively good volleys throughout his career, his net game never developed into a weapon that he was willing to use a great deal. What Agassi developed was a net game that was sufficient for his needs, and this is what up and coming aggressive baseliners should want to aspire to have – a net game that is reliable when it’s needed.

When Agassi was unable to finish a point with his aggressive attacking ground-strokes, he was able most of the time to volley well enough to finish points at the net. His use of the swinging topspin volley throughout his career has been copied by nearly every good player and now is an integral part of the game. Agassi’s ability to stand on top of the baseline and be aggressive with both forehand and backhand changed the game for the better, and aided in our sport’s evolution (just as Sampras’ all court style did).

The same could be said for Agassi’s ability to play defense, his transition game, and his slice backhand. These areas of his game were not developed like other players, but they were not central to his identity on court. What Agassi was able to do was develop these areas enough for him to be able to execute them with proficiency, but only in order to support his desire to use his aggressive baseline shots. In other words, he could hit these shots, but it wasn’t who he was – it wasn’t his game style – to use these shots to win matches.

Some say this style is a dying breed. The tennis world has not seen a great serve-volley player winning grand slams in over a decade. With racquet and string technology granting players better opportunities to create power and spin, players are more capable of winning points from the baseline. Because of this, fewer kids are taught this style, and fewer men and women consequently develop this style as they mature.

However, many of the greatest of all time were serve and volley players, so despite the recent drop in popularity of this style, it should be understood and considered. Martina Navratilova and Stefan Edberg are recent serve-volley players that won grand slams in their careers, and it would be naïve to think that their game styles would not translate into today’s game.

Click photos: Martina establishes an aggressive court positioning right away by coming to net behind her serve and return. These skills made her the best doubles player of all time.

Edberg and Martina made it a habit to follow both first and second serves into the net, and they frequently looked to follow their return of serves into the net as well when they had the opportunity. Both players, like most serve and volleyers, possess a great slice backhand that was used both from the baseline but also as an approach shot to make their opponents bend down low to the ground to hit their passing shots. And not only do these players look to come to the net behind their serves and returns, they also, when stuck behind the baseline, commonly look for their first opportunity to come to the net behind any ground stroke that lands short in the court.

Because of the net-rushing style, fast courts are friendly to serve-volley players, while slow courts can make trouble for them. Historically, most Wimbledon titles have to gone to players possessing this style. Faster hard courts have been more friendly to this style of play as well over the years, while the slower clay gives the serve-volleyer even more problems than the aforementioned all court player. That’s not to say using that this style makes winning impossible on clay – John McEnroe, Boris Becker, and Edberg all had great runs at the French Open during their careers, though they never won the event.

There are two different counter-punchers. Both are defensive players in nature, and both types feed off of the errors that their opponents make. Most of the time, counter-punchers keep the ball in play from the baseline long enough to draw an error from their opponent, exhibiting a passive shot selection in which they do not demand to be in control of the rallies, and often rely on consistency and speed to win.

The first type of counter-puncher is the most common. This player, as mentioned above, plays from behind the baseline, and typically plays with the purpose of drawing errors from an opponent by simply keeping more balls in play.

More often than not, this player hits with less pace than his opponent, will often decline opportunities to attack, decline chances to come to net unless forced to, will play with as few errors as possible while also hitting very few winners throughout the course of a match.

The best counter-punchers of this breed hit with a great deal of net clearance (and without a great deal of power) on most of their baseline shots and consequently hit with excellent depth. These players also have excellent accuracy on their passing shots, since their opponents are often the ones attacking and coming to the net. Their consistency and accuracy over time frustrates their opponents into going for too much, trying to hit ill-advised winners, and breaking down mentally. The Frenchman Gail Monfils is the best example of this type of counter-puncher on the pro tour today. Because of this game-style, it is no surprise that he excels on the slow red clay and struggles on the faster-bouncing grass courts. His success on hard courts has been erratic relative to other pros at his level, and this of course is due to his brilliance behind the baseline and apprehension of coming forward to play offensive tennis when given the chance.

The second type of counter-puncher is similar to the first with one major difference. This type of counter-puncher possesses all the same traits as the aforementioned type, except this player feeds off the pace their opponents give them. In other words, the harder their opponents hit their shots, the better this type of counter-puncher plays. To them, more pace equals more comfort when it comes to hitting their shots from the baseline. Generally speaking, these players have relatively compact strokes, excel when the ball is hit big to their strike zone (waist level), and play their best tennis on faster courts.

Lleyton Hewitt and David Nalbandian are great examples of this type of counter-puncher. Hewitt won Wimbledon, and Nalbandian has won the year end World Championships (held on fast indoor courts) more than once. These two players do not have loops on their backhands (common for this type of counter-puncher), they have great footwork, and prefer to use the pace of their opponent’s shots to counter with their own shots. This style can be very dangerous to players who do not recognize it, since they often will try to simply hit better and better shots, with more and more pace, over the course a match, and this of course, feeds into the comfort zone of this type of counter-puncher.

Each player struggles, as do most of these types of counter-punchers, to generate their own pace when their opponents give them little to work with. In other words, the way to beat this type of counter-puncher is to hit balls outside of their strike zone (low by their ankles, high above their shoulders), to be patient and make sure to be aggressive only at the right times (like when they are way off the court or when they hit very short), and to vary the speed and spins of your shots to throw off their rhythm. Federer used this strategy successfully against Hewitt in the finals of the US Open a few years back, hitting high and heavy topspins over Hewitt’s head and low, slow slices to throw off his rhythm.

As we can see, knowing the different game styles can both help you define your own identity on court, and it can also help you pick apart your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.