If you are playing a match, there are many things to keep in mind and many things to ignore.
One item in that first category is how to manage a game. And for that, you need some tennis game tips.
For the purpose of this article, it will be assumed that you are playing someone of about the same talent level as you are. If you are playing against someone a couple of levels higher than you, then all the tennis game tips in the world will not help you.
You can carry around all the strategy that you’d like in your head, and it won’t help if the serve is coming 40 mph faster than you’ve ever seen and the ground strokes are streaking by you like lightning. Such matches can be somewhat helpful to reveal to you how far you have to go to advance two levels, but most of the time they do little good.
They simply discourage you and leave you embarrassed and under-confident. Thus it is very important to practice tennis game tips.
Why Practice Tennis Game Tips?
Likewise, if you are playing someone quite a bit weaker than you, then you will not need too many tennis game tips to emerge triumphant. You can simply play a solid game, hitting your serves in, making solid contact on all of your ground strokes, and victory will be assured.
No, this set of tennis game tips is intended for when you are playing someone near your level, especially someone who is a bit better than you. That is because these tips might help you to steal a game or two or five and enable you to win a match that you had no real business in winning. That, my friends, is what strategy can do for you.
Let’s get more specific about these tennis game tips.
Let’s divide your strategy into three parts: low risk, medium risk and high risk.
Medium Risk Tennis Game Tips
Let’s discuss medium risk tennis game tips for a few moments. Medium risk is the risk level that you play at normally. That is to say, you are not simply trying to get the ball over the net, you actually are trying to place it somehow as you respond to the shots of your opponent. For instance, if he or she hits a short ball, then you will come towards the net and try to softly hit the low bounce deep to a corner, remaining at the net and waiting for a weak shot in return.
Likewise, a medium risk play would be a plan to return a second serve with more pace or angle or both.
Be sure not to rush this shot, but in the same way do not be reluctant to feast on the second serve a bit more than the first.
Granted, sometimes too much plan and not enough play can be deadly. However, tennis is a fluid game, and you need to respond to what your opponent is doing.
Does he or she have a weak backhand? Then during a medium risk point in the game, you will pound the ball towards that backhand with an occasional shot to the forehand side when you see your opponent cheating too far to the backhand side of the court.
Medium risk tennis is smart tennis, confident in your strokes, decisive in your serves, taking what your opponent gives to you, calculating a risk into your game now and then, but no major risks.
In other words, you are not going to aim for lines if you do not have the control to do so. However, you are also not going to simply function as a human backboard and try to retrieve the balls hit to your side of the net.
Tennis Game Tips Based on Previous Matches
You will have a plan in your head based on previous matches and instructions, such as: short ball=go to the net and stay in a ready position there; deep, high shot to the backhand=a slice from you; opponent rushes to the net=either a passing shot or a lob, depending on where you are, what you are able to hit and your opponent’s fitness level.
Medium risk tennis needs to be played during all scores of equal value and at most times when you are only down a point.
That means that normal, medium risk tennis should be played at 0-0, 0-15. 15-0, 15-15, 15-30, 30-15 and 30-30. As you can see, many possible scores have been left out of this category. There is a reason for that, as we continue with our tennis game tips.
Low Risk Tennis Game Tips
Low risk tennis needs to be adopted when you are either down by several points or nearing a victory during the game.
You need to play low risk tennis when you want to make your opponent earn the point.
This is a somewhat defensive posture, but not completely. You are not simply lobbing forehands over the net during this sequence. You are not trying to hit lines, either, or execute the fastest serve you’ve ever tried.
Low risk tennis should be used to prolong rallies and coax your opponent into making a mistake, assuming that he or she is at a level where mistakes occur as he or she gets impatient and the point drags on.
When you are down 0-30, for instance, you need to settle down and get back into the game. This is a time for low risk tennis.
Working the Point – An Important Tennis Game Tip
Make your opponent work a bit to earn the next point, because if you do not slow his momentum, you will soon be down 0-40 and as good as finished for that game. It is absolutely not necessary to concede a game at 0-30.
Even if you have made two terrible unforced errors to get to that point, take a deep breath, put them out of your mind, and vow to make your opponent work much harder to win the next point. Do not think about losing. Concentrate on getting back into the game by winning the next point. At 15-30, you can go back to medium risk tennis.
Likewise, when you are locked into a tight game, practice low risk tennis when the score is 30-40, 40-30, deuce or advantage, depending on how long you have been playing. If you have struggled in a deuce game and you have gone for about 10 minutes, you can take a risk to wrap a game up when you have the advantage. However, in most other cases when the game is near its end, play low risk tennis and make your opponent beat you in order to win.
If he or she performs two amazing shots to go from deuce to victory, tip your cap to him/her. In most cases, though, as your opponent has to work harder and harder to win a point, the chances of him making an unforced error increase proportionately. Use low risk tennis when the score is greatly in your disfavor or the game is closely contested and near its conclusion.
High Risk Tennis Game Tips
That leaves us with the category of high risk tennis in this set of tennis game tips. Playing high risk tennis can be fun, kind of an adrenaline rush, and the pros do it all of the time.
For you, the rec or club player, high risk tennis needs to be reserved for when you have a big lead in a game or want to end a seemingly endless deuce game. When you are up 30-0, 40-0, 40-15, you can take a risk because it will not hurt you too badly. In fact, this is an excellent time to take more risks because high risk=high reward.
A high risk could be putting a little more on your serve or aiming it specifically to the “T.”
It could be serving your second serve as hard as your first serve, thus surprising your opponent. It could be rushing the net after your serve and shocking your adversary.
It could be trying to smash a second serve more decisively than normal. It could be any number of shots, all of them offensive and aggressive. When you have a big lead or simply want to end the game that draws on and on, try a high risk move. The shock value alone might win you the point. If you miss that volley, no harm. You still have a one- or two-point lead.
Use Tennis Game Tips to Play Better Tennis
How you play each point within the game can go a long way towards winning more than your fair share of the games.
Using these tennis game tips, you will beat some players who are more skilled than you are.
You will discover that the longer that you hang in games and in the match, the more frustrated your opponent will become. As you practice low risk tennis at the right times, you will crawl back into games and steal many of them. Similarly, as you take risks when you have big leads, you will close out games more quickly and save your energy for the more evenly matched games to come.
Using these tennis game tips might not make you the champion of your club, but you will be sure to whip players that you have grown accustomed to losing to… until now.
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