Countering Your Opponent’s Style on the Tennis Court

There is an excerpt from Nick Saviano’s book Maximum Tennis about Countering your opponent’s style on the tennis court.

Your style of play should maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. Your number one objective is to impose your basic strategy on your opponent on the tennis court. But you also should be able to recognize your opponent’s style of play and make subtle tactical adjustments to expose the vulnerable aspects of your opponent’s game.

While your basic strategy may stay the same, the most effective tactics against one tennis player may not be effective against another tennis player. It is therefore important that you have some general tactical guidelines when dealing with specific styles of play of a tennis player. I have outlined a few key tactical principles that can be used against the four different styles of play.

Countering counterpunchers

1. Focus on finishing the point, and expect to hit extra shots to accomplish this goal.
2. Be patient. Play patterns and wait for an opportunity. Don’t go for an outright winner prematurely.
3. Attack whenever a good opportunity presents itself.
4. When you are out of position, don’t overhit, but hit a neutralizing shot, as your opponent is unlikely to take advantage of your vulnerable position.
5. Frequently hit behind your opponent to counter their speed.

Countering aggressive baseliners

1. Attempt to dictate the right point from the start of the point, as opposed to reacting to your opponent. Focus on making a quality first shot.
2. Occasionally hit out wide to your opponent’s strength to catch him off guard then play back to their weakness.
3. Vary the speed and location of your serve to keep your opponent out of rhythm. For example, serve into your opponent’s body more frequently.
4. Keep the ball out of your opponent’s “power zone”. Vary the pace of your shots and use a slice if appropriate.

Countering all-court players

1.    Because all-court players usually don’t have a dominant weapon, take advantage of this opportunity to play with patterns that play into your strength.
2.    Be prepared for your opponent to change tactics more than once if she is losing the match. Make tactical adjustments that clearly stay with your basic strategy.
3.    Attempt to control the point from the start, which limits your opponent’s ability to play their game.

Countering net rushers

1. Attempt to get as many first serves back in play as possible.
2. Put your returns down at your opponent’s feet.
3. Use an offensive lob, particularly early in the match, to keep your opponent off the net.
4. Focus on making two-shot passes. Get the ball down low on the first pass, and then hit it by your opponent on the second.
5. Focus on making the passing shot and avoid the tendency to be rushed into making an error.
6. Consider coming into the net more frequently than usual to take the net from your opponent.
7. Attack and exploit your opponent’s second serve.

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