Have you ever been on a tennis court and felt lost? Have you ever felt like you had no idea what you were doing, trying to do, let alone what your opponent was doing or trying to do?
If this sounds familiar then you might be playing reactively instead of proactively. As a competitive tennis player, you want to use your strengths to both exploit your opponents’ weaknesses and protect your own. In concept, this may seem complicated, but it can be boiled down to one word: awareness.
A keen sense of awareness about both your and your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses provides you with the basis to form a strategy. You are no longer hitting forehands cross court for the sake of hitting balls cross court, but because you have recognized that your forehand is far superior than your opponents’ forehand. Choosing your shots with intention and purpose will eventually break them down for a short ball or an error.
Developing awareness and strategy is the first step towards becoming a dominant force on court. The implementation of strategy itself is known as tactics. Tactics can be mental or physical. For example, if you are playing someone who is very tall, the tactic would be to expose their lateral movement and change of direction, which is likely poor.
There are many ways to implement or execute the same tactic depending on the patterns you choose. A pattern is a two or more shot combination. Coaches often teach patterns starting from the ground, however I believe patterns can also begin off the serve and return. How can we ignore the serve--an element of tennis that makes up 50% of a match?
As a coach, I am a strong believer in incorporating serving and returning into pattern building. Without an understanding of how the serve, return and ground strokes connect, you end up with a disjointed game. Without understanding the game a a whole, integrated practice, your incredible forehand, for example, will never be as effective as it can really be.
As you develop your game with variation in shots, spin, speed, height, etc., it is important that you are connecting all of the pieces as they would apply to a real match situation. Mastering your Serve +1/Return +1 patterns will separate you from the pack.
In theory, we’ve taken you from feeling lost on court to having intention with strategy, tactical direction, and the patterns that will bring your tennis to life. The important thing to remember is that almost 70% of all matches are decided within the first 0-4 shots of a rally. This statistic supports the idea that most matches are decided by the better server. Therefore, it’s critical to work on and master your Serve +1 patterns in order to set yourself up for success.
To help you improve your Serve +1, I’ve created a Tennis Playbook filled with strategies and tactics to level up your game. If you have ever wondered which Serve +1 pattern to use when playing an All Courter and how this pattern may vary when playing an Aggressive Baseliner, then this playbook is for you.
Download your FREE Tennis Playbook below!
Coach Gary