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TennisOne Lessons 
Pattern Play: Setting Up a Winning PointDavid W. Smith, Senior Editor TennisOne Regardless of your level of play, be it a professional, colligiate, or just a club hack, nearly every single player has patterns of play that reflect their personalities, their personal strengths, and their perception of what will win them a points. Understanding and executing the patterns that best suit your game gives you the best chance of winning. This is what is meant when commentators say things like so and so is playing her game or dictating points. It is probably more defined at the lower levels as to how players work a point. The reason for this is simple: They have fewer weapons than highly skilled players and fewer options available. Pros and top club, college, or junior players have all the shots, footwork, and spins necessary to execute any shot or any series of shots. From inside out topspin forehands to dicey slice backhands, from powerful down the line topspin backhands to finessed angled volleys, the top players don’t have to avoid certain shots; they own them all. Players, who have limitations, tend to focus more on specific strategies within those limitations to try and win a point. For example, a player who has a weak backhand may look to avoid hitting too many by getting to the net as early as possible. Or, a player who has no volley may only hit groundstrokes all day long to keep from being drawn into the net. In doubles, we can see the same things. Those who volley well get to the net via a serve, a chip return, or when a lob forces opponents to retreat. But, certainly, even at the highest level of the game, we see specific point manufacturing tendencies and many of these patterns can be used to identify individual pros. It seems to me, as little as two decades ago the game was simpler and players had more defined patterns that were easily recognized. It wouldn’t be hard to recognize John McEnroe’s style of play, with his sweeping left-handed slice serve pulling opponents off the court followed up usually by a volley into the open-court.
Bjorn Borg’s baseline topspin game was not only easy to identify, it was the precursor to the massive topspin game that is so prevalent among professionals today. Same could be said of Chris Evert’s baseline game or, paradoxically, Martina Navratilova’s serve and volley strategy that resembled many of the men’s games at the time. Pete Sampras’ game was much different than Andre Agassi’s game as much as Jimmy Connor’s game was easy to distinguish from Stefan Edberg’s. The point is, each of these players used patterns that maximized their strengths and made it easier for them to control points. At the club level, each of us has strengths and weaknesses. Recognizing your strengths and playing patterns that maximize them while protecting your weaknesses gives you the best chance of winning more points than losing? The key here is understanding which patterns work best for you and taking advantage of them at every opportunity. Pattern Play In singles there are many options to consider when creating a point. In addition to our own strengths, weaknesses, strokes, and shot-making abilities, we may choose different strategies against one type of player over another opponent. Obviously, having more than just one or two distinct patterns available will greatly increase your ability to compete against a wide variety of opponents. While one process may work well against one opponent, we could find it fails miserably against another. Nowhere was this more evident than at this years Australian Open final. Kim Clijsters plays an aggressive baseline game, but in the finals, Li Na was playing the same game only with more success. Clijsters, however, changed the pattern of play, throwing in looping topspin shots to Li Na's backhand and softer, underspin backhands, a pattern that clearly made Li Na uncomfortable. The result was a fourth slam for Clijsters and for Li Na, well, nice try.
Players like clijsters and Federer, who have the ability to take advantage of many different patterns, give themselves the best chance to win, and quite often, they do. So, instead of just winging it, here are some patterns and strategies you should study and master, they might just provide you with a decided advantage. Slice Approach down the Line This is one of the most useful strategies that players can choose. Obviously it is dependent on having a good slice backhand and a good net game and these elements should be practiced until they become strengths. There are two key points that makes this strategy work well: The first is the effect of your slice backhand. When some people go to execute the slice backhand (and this would apply for a slice forehand should you be hitting it too) they slice too much under the ball making the approach shot float. Players will want to hit down and through the BACK of the ball more to keep from floating the slice.
The second key point on this strategy is the placement of the slice. If you are playing someone with a full western forehand grip, you actually have to choices of placement. The first obvious placement is to drive the slice deep into the corner. This shot will generally create a forehand response that is difficult to get crosscourt, making the coverage of the down the line response fairly easy. The second choice of placement is to cut with a lot of spin and keep the ball shorter down the line. When an opponent has a full western grip, one of the harder shots to pick up cleanly and to do anything with is a low-bouncing slice, short to the forehand. In many professional teaching programs, they are training players to hit the slice backhand short down the line on purpose (not necessarily as an approach shot) to expose this weakness in opponents who use a full western grip. Andy Roddick often gets into trouble because he has a tendency to take this approach crosscourt, making it more difficult for him to cut off the net. $10,000 Shot Sequence I’ve discussed this strategy in my books, (Tennis Mastery and Coaching Mastery) as well as in an in-depth article here at TennisOne, (Inside-out, Inside-in: A Tale of Two Forehands). The strategy was first described to me a number of years ago by Hank Pfister, the former top-ten world ranked singles and doubles player who was speaking at a conference I was also speaking at.
The $10,000 shot sequence is basically the idea of how to get the percentages in your favor during a rally. Typically, during a crosscourt rally, all things being equal, players have a 50/50 chance of winning a point. Until one player hits a more effective shot (deeper, angled more, or taking the ball down the line with effect), a crosscourt rally is a neutral rally. If we are in a backhand to backhand crosscourt rally, the $10,000 shot is to move over and take a legitimate backhand with a forehand, or looking for a shorter backhand that you can aggressively run around and hit a forehand. This now, in theory, gives the player an advantage as the player can take this forehand either inside-in or inside-out very effectively. This is a pattern we see pros use all the time. Drop-shot Approach This is a great strategy for club players and high school competitors for many reasons. Of course, you need to be able to hit a decent drop shot to take advantage of it. And, the drop shot can be down the line or crosscourt. The general strategy is this: after a fairly well-disguised drop shot (you should be able to determine the quality of the drop based on the reaction by your opponent as well as how well you hit the drop) you come into no-man’s-land once you determine your opponent is going to have difficulty getting to the ball. When your opponent is close to hitting the ball, move in further and cover the line closest to the drop shot. Because your opponent must hit the ball up to clear the net, and because your opponent is close to the net, you have two things going for you to win the point: 1) he won’t be able to do much with the ball because he is so close to the net and has to hit up to clear it; 2) he will be in the worst possible position to cover your shot immediately after he hit your drop shot back. All you have to do is block the shot to the open court.
This strategy works even better when you play opponents who hate to come to the net. They are likely not well-suited to get to the ball nor do much with the ball in case they do. Crosscourt or Down the Middle Approach (and a drop shot!) The down the line approach shot isn’t the only choice you have when facing a short ball. In addition, a good drop shot is often a great response since most people will attack a short ball with a deep approach, and opponents tend to be preparing for the deep ball by retreating a step or two in preparation. But, there are other choices and well. Two shots to consider are to hit the crosscourt slice as an approach shot. If hit with a lot of spin and with a good driving pace, the ball because it is hit crosscourt, will tail away from your opponent some, making it very difficult to hit a crosscourt pass. Thus, you can anticipate a down the line passing attempt or a weak lob from such an approach shot. The key here is to make the slice very crisp and deep, and to be able to get over to cover the down the line quickly. Down the middle approach is a great way to keep your opponent honest. Because most approach shots are either the aforementioned down the line or crosscourt variety, down the middle almost always gets opponents off balance since they are anticipating moving to one corner or the other to cover the more traditional approach shots. Also, down the middle takes away the more angled passing shots that those hit to the corners often provide. Serve and Volley: It is not dead!
The serve and volley (and likewise the chip and charge) is not dead, even among the pros. Obviously, having an effective serve or an effective approach shot off a weaker serve, will dictate the value of these strategies. Moving in behind a great serve can give you an edge right from the start, depending on your ability to hit volleys well. And a chip and charge strategy off your opponent’s serve can be very effective because players are often a little off balance after hitting a serve, giving you a slight advantage by taking the serve and approaching with one of the three approaches I’ve mentioned in this article. Also, think about this: the serve will always be a shot you can return that has bounced short of the service line, making the serve return one of the shortest balls to attack among most rallies. Conclusion These strategies dictate specific shots and subsequent responses from opponent’s shots, based on generalities that such strategies tend to produce. There are exceptions and variables that include foot speed, court surface, opponent strengths, and your own strengths and weaknesses that will dictate the odds of any strategy being successful. Obviously, the bottom line is you must make your shot; whether it be a slice backhand approach or a simple open-court volley or overhead, you must execute to win any match. Failure to execute often result in players pushing or dinking the ball or simply becoming the "human backboard"…all of which are strategies that can win at certain levels. However, as we play more advanced players who can execute well, then the dinker, pusher, and human backboard find themselves overwhelmed and not able to compete against those who can manufacture points well. To give yourself the best chance of winning, build patterns and strategies around the strongest parts of your game and practice them over and over again. Then, during match play, force your opponent to play your game.
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 has taught over 3000 players including many top national and world ranked players. He can be reached at acrpres1@email.msn.com. |
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