Winning Strategies for Tennis Professionals

This is where I stand radically different from the common knowledge and the opinion and trainig of the coaches.

If you really want to win at tennis there are really only a few things to do:

1.   You must improve your PNL, see the article about PNL. Unfortuantely there is not much you can do here but there is some hope. See the said article for details.

2.   The second and most critical element is your ability to exploit the back hnad of your opponent. This is of the cardinal importance. By the way, this is the least understood strategy and employed with even less understanding.

I will discuss this element here. Please be aware that this is addressed to the world class professional players. If you are not one of these then you can use any other strategy that you like. But if you are a professional and are not following this strqategy, I can guarantee, you will not be winning too many matches and your revenue will be way less than what it could  be. I will also try to 'prove' or rather support it via analyses of the games of some of the current players. I will continue to add to this article.

The backhnad of most players is not strong. I know you have heard it and  you think you know it. You do not! It is one thing to know something but another to know and use it. And that is what makes for the difference among people. So let me repeat for you:

The backhnad of most players is not strong.

 The backhnad of most players is not strong.

Since this is so critical, it is repeated above. Now I will 'prove' it to you that you cannot go too far without this strategy. You may win some matches but you could win a whole lot more with this strategy.

So let us start with our assertion. The backhand of most players is not strong. Even the players that you think have a strong back hand, cannot place the shot with the backhand with the ease and control that they can employ with their forehand. Also there is this unshakeable psychological advantage of unnerving the opponent if you press their back hand with their full knowledge that you are going to go for their back hand. It is just like the standard pre-dawn attack in warfare, even though everybody knows about it.

But before we go on since everybody knows about exploiting the backhsand, why am a I even talking about this well known fact and used by most players?

Because there are levels of undersatanding and implementation. Let me ask you this:

Do you really employ this fundamental stragtegy as often as you need to or could?

Are you even aware of this strategy when playing or are you just playing your game?

Do you even consciounsly employ a starategy or you just try to put the ball where is the opponent is NOT or the empty court?

Are you really conscious of this strategy when on court?

I am not going to anticipate the answers and analyse them. You can see/experience the answers next time you play. But I will add that it is very hard to use a strategy when playing. In the heat of the match you have to do what you have to do. So I do understand it is hard to exploit the back hand with the  required relentlesness but one could set up a frame of mind before going in and could try to stick to it.

Let us examine some cases in point:

1.  Jelena Jankovitc:

She has some very clean backhand and forehand shots and has a high PNL. I can see that with a casual observation of her game but she is unable to win many matches. Why?

The problem is that she seems to play without any particular plan or at least that is what I get when watching her play.

She doesw not exhibit any clear strategy when starting the play or in the course of it. She seems to try to put a lot of balls back in play. It appears that she is waiting for the opponent to miss rather than making an effort to win a point. I think this is not just her.I see many other players do the same. Let us explore this a bit more since this is so common.

The reason that a lot of players are just returning the ball instead of doing something with it, is because of many reasons but I feel the 2 below to be the foremost ones. In fact all others will be some form of these anyway.

1.  In the heat of the game there is a lot of pressure. So it is a lot easier to just keep hitting the ball and to keep it in play. This approach ofcourse makes sense when you barely have the time to even think of anything.

2.  A built in fear that trying anything other than returning the ball will make you the first one to miss it. This is essentially a lack of confidence in your own ability to execute.

I can understand the unwillinness of the players to take an initiative since that is or can be costly. But the problem is that a very simple solution is available and you do not have to think much either. So the psychologial stress is also less and yet that gives you an advantage. Just press the opponent's back hand. I can undestand that it is hard to do this specially when it requires a change in the direction of the ball. But I have seen when the players' position and footwork allow a change in the dirction of ball, they still do  not press the back hand. In fact, I can see when they are about to lose a point, when they give it to the oponents in their forehand. How do you think Djokovic defeated Nadal 7 times in row. He pressed the backhand of Nadal most blatantly and so much so as  corner him (Nadal) on the backhand side of the court although the court was open all the way o the other side! He knew what he had to do.

Indeed, I would even go further and say that the winner is the one that makes the opponent play on his/her backhand with his own forehand.

So don't even think for a moment that these are world class players and the pressing of the backhand is not going to be much of an advantage. FAR FROM IT. Everybody's back hand is relatively week and can be exploited even if they know what you are doing. Without a doubt, if you have also a high PNL and if you exploit this backhand strategy then you will be the winner most of the time.

So if Jelena were to put some thought in her game she would be a much beter player than her recent mathces indicate.

Based on my analysis and observation of her game, she cannot continue as the top player she was unless she makes a radical change in her game. The current state of womens tennis does not allow her to continue as a top player. She will continue to slide in the rankings.