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| US TENNIS January 1998 Make your opponent play your kind of point By Paul Annacone, Coach of Pete Sampras with Alexander McNab |
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The way to win the strategic battle in tennis is to set up a situation that maximizes your strength and hurts your opponents. A succinct way to do that is to recognize what type of point you want to play against different opponents. Then, all you have to remember is one or two words that will act as your cue for what to do. That is much simpler than trying to recall and execute an intricate pattern of shots. For instance, if your goal is to play athletic points, that means keep your opponent moving, either from side to side or up and back. You don't need to be a strategic Einstein to make it work. I've been spoiled by working with Pete Sampras for the last few years, because he has such great variety in his arsenal of shots. His biggest strength are his serve, forehand and ability to serve and volley or stay back. So he can play an athletic point, a fast point, a patient point or an imposing point with equal facility. Realize, though, that everything is relative. You can tailor your strategy to different point types at every level. You may not be able to do it as well as Sampras, but your opponents aren't as good as his, either. As a club player, you have variety in your game. The key is to pick and choose how, and against whom, you use your various shots. Let's take a closer look at different types of points, what opponents they work best against and how to play them. ATHLETIC POINT Which opponent: Dictating baseliner (an Andre Agassi type) How to do it: Make your opponent move. See how much you can tax him, by hitting from side to side or short and long. In a claycourt match, for instance, an athletic point may mean bringing your opponent in to the net with a drop shot and then trying to hit over his head with a lob. In baseline rallies, it means hitting down the line as well as crosscourt. Do not hit the ball to the same side of the court over and over. Avoid patterns. Why it works: If you allow a player such as Agassi or Jim Courier to play from a relatively stationary baseline position in the middle of the court or shading toward the backhand corner, you're in deep trouble. They hit the ball so hard from there with their forehands that they dictate play and you're constantly on your horse trying to chase shots down. Moreover, the longer the rally goes, the farther to the left they move and the less target area you have to get at the backhand. Hitting backhands down the line to the dictator's forehand not only makes him hit on the run, which some dictators, like Agassi, don't like to do, but also exposes his backhand side. Even though the dictator may be able to crack a dangerous running forehand, the whole court is opened up, and by using your athleticism to run down that shot, you now have a big target to hit to on the dictator's backhand, so you can get control of the point. FAST POINT Which opponent: Steady baseliner (a Sergi Bruguera type) How to do it: In the first two or three strikes of the ball, do something very offensive to get yourself either to the net or into a position where you can go for a winner. Serve and volley, go in behind a return of serve or crack a big return of serve and be ready to pounce on the short reply. Why it works: Against Bruguera at the 1996 French Open and against Alex Corretja at the '96 U.S. Open, you can say Sampras played too many long points. Steady baseliners want to hit eight or 10 balls before they have to hit a passing shot. They want to get into a rhythm before you give them a target. Even when they are not hitting winners, the longer you rally with them, the more you're the one doing the running. It is to your advantage to play quick points, preventing the steady player from establishing his rhythm. IMPOSING POINT Which opponent: Dogged counterpuncher (a Michael Chang type) How to do it: Take care of your service games and make an impression on his serve by attacking or hitting big returns. Why it works: The counterpuncher, who usually is a fierce competitor, will take charge when you are playing passively or not playing well. You must set the tempo by imposing your strengths on the match in the early games, as Sampras did in the 1996 U.S. Open final against Chang. It's much easier to start off aggressively and then back up a little bit than it is to start off a little tentatively, playing safely, and then, at 4-all, suddenly have the guts to start hitting the ball hard. Even a fierce competitor has a vulnerable spot, and with Chang, like many counterpunchers, it is his second serve. In that case, use your firepower to impose your will by stepping around second serves to hit forehands and by going to the net behind chip returns right away. On your serve, place the ball well in the corners of the service box. Because a competitor like Chang is never going to stop fighting, you may have to adapt a little as you go along, but that's O.K. The key is to make sure at the beginning that you are the one dictating the play. PATIENT POINT Which opponent: Big server (a Mark Philippoussis type) How to do it: Take care of your own serve, and don't get discouraged if he hits lots of aces. Then, whenever he misses a first serve, do whatever you can to get the point going, and keep the ball low. Why it works: You may have trouble breaking the big server, so take care of your service games first. Have a clear picture of what you want to do on each point, with the goal that you're serving with a lead in your service games. The big server is going to get frustrated if he can't dent your serve. On his serve, be patient: Patient mentally, in not letting yourself get down when he's serving bullets to the corners, then patient tactically when you do get the ball back. When he hits an ace, keep your head up and say to yourself, "Too good." But when he has a second serve, do whatever it takes to get it back. He is used to winning free points with his serve, so keep the ball in play to draw an error. Big servers tend to be tall, so keep the ball down low, or high and deep, and out of the center of the court. At 4-all or 5-all, you may have to roll the dice in your return games. But try to make an impression on the opponent's serve early on and hold your serve; then the tables turn in your favor. ARRHYTHMIC POINT Which opponent: Pure ballstriker (a Yevgeny Kafelnikov type) How to do it: Hit the ball differently every time. Vary the pace, trajectory and spin of your shots to keep the ball alternating between very high and very low, with some flat ones mixed in. Why it works: Pure hitters like Kafelnikov, Agassi or even Sampras like to hit the ball a certain way, in a certain place. Agassi calls it his strike zone. So what you're trying to do is create a different strike zone for the pure hitter on consecutive shots throughout the point. On one shot you want to hit a low ball to him. Next you hit a high, heavy roller. Then a flat drive. What this will do is get him out of his rhythm and create a short ball for you that you either can go for a winner on or go to the net on. Not everyone can create such a variety of unexpected shots. But the margin for error is much greater when you're a club player. If you're playing Agassi and trying to hit a low slice that instead floats and stands up at the service line, you're dead. But if you're playing Joe Smith from around the corner and you hit a slice that floats, you'll probably still be 0.K. An unpatterned point with no rhythm to the shots can work against many players if you do it well enough. OPPORTUNISTIC POINT Which opponent: Club-level pusher How to do it: Hit high and deep down the middle, then sneak in when the opportunity arises. Why it works: The pusher is a dying breed in the pros, because the players now, as in every other sport, are bigger, stronger, better athletes. There are fewer and fewer players who can get away with playing soft high rollers from behind the baseline. Their opponents hit so big that they pay the price for their shots. The pusher, however, is still a nightmare opponent at the club level. But he's not as dangerous as you think. He usually sets up in the middle behind the baseline, and even if his high, slow, steady shots are going from corner to corner, they aren't struck hard enough to make you struggle to stay in position. So the key is to be patient while you create an opportunity to attack. The pusher leaves big gaps down the sides of the court that you can exploit. You have to be aware of where you are and where he is. I like this approach play: Hit a high, loopy ball that's deep, right down the middle. When you see your opponent retreat 10 feet behind the baseline, sneak in. Your approach must be deep. If it's short, it's easy for him to create a passing-shot angle, because you don't have as much time to get to the net, given where the ball's landing. Off the deep ball, though, your opponent will have difficulty generating an angle to pass you. Of course, a favorite response of many club-level pushers is to throw up a lob from the deep position, so you should make sure you're ready to hit overheads. Remember, the pusher's basic play is to hit deep and down the middle, so when you suddenly put this forward pressure on him, he may panic. He doesn't have the versatility to create an angle from behind the baseline. And you'll have lots of room on the sides of the court to aim your volley or overhead when he hits his usual high, down-the-center reply. MIRROR-LIKE POINT Which opponent: Aggressive attacker (a John McEnroe or Patrick Rafter type ) How to do it: Go to the net behind both serves and most returns. Why it works: One way to beat an all-out attacker is to be the quintessential counterpuncher, like a Mats Wilander, or even an aggressive counterpuncher, like an Ivan Lendl. When the attacker is at the top of his game, however, I don't like the counterpuncher's odds unless you're on a really slow court. That's because of how much pressure the attacker puts on you, how much athleticism he can throw in your face. The other way to win is to play the attacker really aggressively, like I did, and make him pass you right away. Put the pressure on him before he puts it on you. All I could play was a fast, attacking point, and it enabled me to defeat McEnroe a couple of times. Of course, he killed me a few times. Both of us served well and both of us followed our returns to the net. I chipped the return with under-spin, whereas McEnroe hit more of a flat, block return. Regardless, the points followed the same structure: trying to hit the return and go in to the net. In the 1997 U.S. Open final, Patrick Rafter and Greg Rusedski sometimes found themselves face-to-face at the net because they were employing this attack-the-attacker tactic. BORING POINT Which opponent: Player with a pronounced weakness (e.g., your club rival who has a weak backhand) How to do it: Break down the weaker side. Hit the ball again and again deep to that side, making him hit his bad shot from an awkward place in the court. Why it works: It's easier for your opponent to play a fast point, because there's less time for him to get emotionally tied in knots about his weakness. If you can draw out the point, the prospects of your opponent getting tight are a lot higher. You want to attack that weak side, but not necessarily to the point where you must go to the net and make him try to pass you off it. You can stay back, keep the ball in play, and still win. Chances are he doesn't have the patience or the tools simply to stay in the rally with you, and you'll win because he'll keep making unforced errors. |