Building an Offensive yet Consistent Game

Dave Smith, Senior Editor

Let’s face it, even at the club level, most players believe they have a weapon. Yet, oddly enough many players often make more errors when they are hitting with their self-professed weapon than when hitting more neutral shots. So, when factoring in the ratio of winners to errors, sometimes what at first glance appears to be a weapon, may actually lead to a player’s downfall.

Anytime we are working toward being more aggressive on any particular shot or even a particular strategy, we must work within the parameters of how much we might be giving up to achieve that level of aggression. In other words, are we losing more points than winning when we go for various shots aggressively?

As with any shot hit with intention, we can often delude ourselves as to the overall effectiveness of the stroke. If we “go for it” and hit it for a winner, it's easy to persuade ourselves into thinking it is the shot to go with all the time. We might miss it three times before hitting a spectacular winner then say to ourselves—or even out loud—“See? I can hit that shot.” Yet, this supposition fails to recognize that by making a shot one out of three or four times times, regardless of how spectacular it may be,that ratio almost guarantees we will lose every match we play.

This is why so many players actually become dinkers and pushers. They finally realize they are losing most of their matches when they play an aggressive, offensive game. The alternative is to revert to a more passive, less offensive game. It becomes quantity over quality. And, for most players who discover this, the more defensive, pushing-style game, makes sense for winning at the levels they are playing.

It doesn’t take long for a player to realize that even playing against an opponent who may have a “weapon,” they can run down a few of these shots, forcing that opponent to hit more than one big shot in order to win a point. Again, if a player is hitting say, 50% of these big, aggressive shots in the court, and his opponent is running 25% of them down, the odds are that eventually the aggressive player will miss enough times, become frustrated, or simply find himself having an “off day” to the point that the pusher will end up winning most of the time.

There is a famous saying that “3.0 players have all the trophies.” This is true; however, all the trophies have “3.0” engraved on them! In other words, the typical pusher/dinker 3.0 will almost never emerge out of this NTRP rating. They end up staying at this level for life. Yes, they beat up on players who are developing more offensive games, but the aggressive players will soon move pass them and they come to realize that pushing the ball and hitting with minimal pace doesn’t win at higher levels of competition. And that's the common quandary, they can’t beat other pushers hitting more offensive shots so they just keep pushing the ball and grinding out wins at their current level. Forever putting off developing a more structurally sound, aggressive game until after this match/set/tournament. And then the cycle begins all over again.

As most players know, this procrastination in working on—and employing in competition—more effective shots or strategies, ends up being a lifelong occurrence.

So how does one move passed this reflexive counter-intuitive process and ultimately become the player he or she could become?

And that there is the $64 question.

The answer is in understanding and education as it applies to tennis strokes and strategies.

While there are a number of variations found within strokes executed by advanced players (IE: 4.0 and above as a general rule), there is a foundation principle found in nearly ever single player who has the ability to hit aggressive shots with consistency.

Offensive Shots More Consistently

This idea of hitting more aggressive shots with consistency brings with it a major problem. While we can obviously push a ball over the net, hard enough and high enough, to land in the court all the time (using gravity to bring each ball down in play), we realize that the minute we hit this same ball harder we have to aim much closer to the net or the ball will fly well over the baseline. So in order to hit the ball harder and still land it in the court, we have to develop spin. Topspin that is. Unless and until we can generate sufficient amount of topspin, we will be relegated to hitting the ball just hard enough and high enough to clear the net but soft enough for gravity to bring the ball down into the court. Consistency, therefore, is either a result of pushing balls with minimal pace so we can clear the net with enough clearance so that we don’t hit the net or imparting spin to increase the downward trajectory of a shot beyond that of gravity.

Regardless of age, sex, and current level of play, players who are working towards developing the right kind of spin gain several advantages. First, topspin on any shot will make the ball drop faster…the more topspin, the more the ball drops. Hence, we can hit harder and higher over the net and still get the ball to drop into the court.

In addition, topspin bounces higher on our opponent’s side of the court. This can push an opponent back further behind their baseline in order for them to be able to hit a ball at waist-level. Unless a player can take this topspin shot early, right after the bounce (which takes precise timing and very good strokes!), the opponent must back up to let this ball come down to the “strike zone” where they make their best contact.

Moon Ball Defense

I am often approached by players, usually women, who don’t know how to defend a moon ball hitting opponent. These opponents hit with minimal spin in most cases and simply hit balls high over the net and fairly deep to drive the other player nuts.

The first thing I tell these players is you must beat them with better shots that allow you to open the court up. Topspin is one of the effective ways to deal with these players because you can eventually force a moon-ball hitting player into hitting a short enough ball you can attack. Then you can strategically place shots so that you can either attack the net, or you can hit a follow up shot to the open court.

This is how the players eventually move past the typical 3.0. Through topspin, we are able to not only match their consistency, but we can hit more offensive shots in such a way that we are equally consistent on the put-aways.

What We Can Learn From the Pros

Watch the pros on television or watch the slow-motion video clips of any pro from our Pro Strokes Gallery. While many people believe the pros are just simply “too good” to emulate, I will tell you just the opposite. Pros, while hitting with explosive force, hit with utterly simplistic foundation principles. In fact, among most 3.0 players, you will find a far more complex and far less efficient or effect stroke pattern. Why the pros or any skilled player can hit with such dynamic force comes from the simplicity of their foundation.

Keep the Plane the Same

I’ve used this phrase a lot in my 35 years teaching tennis. It is simple and conveys the principle I want my students to master: Keep the hitting surface (the “plane”) the same through the stroke. When players maintain the integrity of the racquet face through the stroke, and especially through the impact zone, they will create the repeatable, reliable swing path necessary for consistency within any stroke speed.

So, as we look to move our game to the next level, we need to make sure this foundation principle has been achieved. It does us no good to try and impart spin or to swing with more force when every time we swing our racquet it is doing something different.

I’ll break down the forehand and backhand groundstroke more specifically in my next article. However, you can start improving every shot in your game by doing three things:

• Drop your racquet below the ball before hitting up into the contact phase of the stroke in order to generate the topspin necessary to bring the ball down in the court. The harder you swing, the more topspin you will need.. Many players are not conscious of where their racquet is on the backswing. Often, when trying to add a “Loop” to a stroke, they never get their racquet below the contact point. It is impossible to hit “up” on the ball to get favorable topspin if you don't drop the racquet below the ball.

• Keep the Plane the Same: As stated, maintain the integrity of the hitting surface of your racquet throughout your swing. Lock your wrist and don’t let the forearm rotate. As players master a stroke, you might see some variation in the stroke. However, as you are working to develop this pattern, consciously control your swing so you are maintaining the racquet face as long as you can.

• Hold your Finish: This is the final pattern that allows you to define your stroke. It creates a definitive “end” to the stroke and it allows a player to replicate the same stroke over and over. If there is no end to the swing, you don’t ever have a complete stroke that is repeatable the same way.

Next time, I’ll break down the forehand and backhand groundstrokes and show you how easy it really is to have a “pro-level” stroke that will give you the opportunity to hit more offensive shots without sacrificing consistency!

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Dave Smith's article by emailing us here at TennisOne .

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David W. Smith has been a coach, tennis teaching professional, Director, Head Professional and General Manager of clubs and tennis facilities in California, Arizona and Utah. As a coach, Dave had one of the finest high school team tennis records in the U.S. winning over 800 team matches against fewer than 20 losses in 28 seasons of coaching boys and girls tennis teams. 

He is the author of two top-selling tennis books, TENNIS MASTERY & COACHING MASTERY. (http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Tennis_Mastery_-_Beyond_35_Level_Revised/descpageSGTA-MASTERY2.html) Dave is a Dunlop Sports Master Professional and a USPTA P-1 and has been a featured speaker at numerous divisional and world conventions. In addition, Dave created and authored the popular Disney Mysteries, "Hidden Mickey", adventures about Walt Disney and Disneyland. For over twenty-five years, Dave has published over 400 articles on tennis in magazines, web sites, and for international tennis publications. Today, he owns Synergy Books Publishing and helps authors realize their publishing dreams. For his information, go to www.synergy-books.com. You may also reach Dave at david@synergy-books.com.