Extreme Strategy Change

[TeamOB]

I am typically a pretty aggressive baseliner. My game is centered around a big serve and heavy ground-strokes that I use to move my opponents around and get to net. However, in a recent match, I was forced to radically change strategy.

The juniors at my club regularly do a "guy vs girl showdown". Basically, they pick a guy and a girl to face off in a practice match. If the guy loses, all the guys at the club have to do a brutal fitness punishment. If the girl loses, all the girls have to do the same. So, in the most recent showdown, I was selected to face one of the top girls at our club. She is a 5-star recruit, ranked Top 100 in the country and recently committed to a solid A-10 school. She is very quick and has very long reach, and uses these assets to get to every ball and redirect it with a very flat stroke. Her racquet head speed isn't great, but she is very good at precisely redirecting opponents pace. Basically a classic counterpuncher game.

I start this match playing my normal game. Hitting the ball side to side. Trying to get an opening. It fails miserably. She uses all my pace against me, hits down the line with pin-point accuracy and gets me on the run until I miss. I quickly fall behind 0-3 (two breaks). Desperatly trying to save myself from the embarrassment of losing the guy vs girl showdown (which is a huge deal at my club), I start trying everything. The only thing that works is a slice. I discover that she has lots of trouble generating pace off a low, no-pace slice. I immediately switch to hitting no-pace junk on every shot. I chip every return, my serve becomes a 60 mph slice, every rally ball is a chip right up the middle or the court, even my normally heavy FH becomes a low skidding slice. And it works! She starts spraying errors from trying to generate all the pace herself. Realizing that she can't hit them hard, she tries to slice them back. But since she doesn't have much practice slicing, most of her shots are sitters. I run to net and easily put them away. I quickly turned the match around for a 6-4 6-2 win. Afterward, the guys are happy that I won, but say I played disgustingly ugly tennis. It was the first time I ever changed my game so radically. I honestly looked like an absolute hack, but it worked. Has anyone else ever changed their game so extremely to win a match?

PS. Sorry for the super-long post. I just thought it was a kinda funny story.

 

[LeeD]

Plan B cannot work if it's similar to Plan A.
Plan C cannot work if it's similar to Plan A and Plan B.

 

[wannabe good]

Thanks for sharing. Interesting story and very well written.

 

[LeeD]

Reminds me of JeaneHepner, NorCal No.6 Girl's 16's, circa 1977.. Can redirect, cannot create pace. Can cover all of court, sometimes doesn't set up for shots hit directly at her. Doesn't go for lines, but creates angles nonetheless.

 

[Topspin Shot]

Yes. With me it's whatever it takes.

 

[Ballinbob]

I can't bring myself to do that, I'm too stubborn lol. I just continue on with my strategy even if it's a losing one and reflect after the match what I could have done better. I can't radically change strategies in the heat of the moment like that

 

[Steady Eddy]

Congrats on your win. You were the better player, so it's good you figured out how to win. Your regular game wouldn't work because she would use your own pace against you. Arthur Ashe did much the same thing against Jimmy Connors in the 1975 Wimbledon final.

P.S. For me a 60 mph slice serve is "zinging".

 

[rkelley]

Congrats on your win. You were the better player, so it's good you figured out how to win. Your regular game wouldn't work because she would use your own pace against you. Arthur Ashe did much the same thing against Jimmy Connors in the 1975 Wimbledon final.

P.S. For me a 60 mph slice serve is "zinging".

Seriously, check out the 1975 Wim. final. And you have to remember that Connors was killing everyone at the time. On Connors' services Ashe Junkballed him to death. Connors couldn't deal w creating his own pace.

Nice job in your match.

 

[Deleted member 120290]

Playing like a hack + Winning >>>>> Playing your game + Losing (esp. against a girl with everyone watching)

 

[LeeD]

Sometimes, especially for developing players, BOTH can work.
Changing your game to win is always good, but sometimes, it curbs your development of a strong solid ATP style of game. Winning by pushing sometimes CAN promote more quick pushing, so your game never get's developed into a hard hitting solid competitive game. But you won.
Steadfastly staying on track and losing can sometimes be good for your game. You actually learn to hit your shots BETTER, because you know you are hitting higher level shots, or trying to, at least. You might lose one match, maybe several to the consistent weak hitters, but you learn to hit stronger with better placement, and within a few more tries, actually hit those better shots and start winning against all those guys you USED to lose to by mistakes trying to play a solid, pro style of game.
Which is better? It's up to you. Win now? Or win develop new to win at a higher level later?

 

[Fintft]

Sometimes, especially for developing players, BOTH can work.
Changing your game to win is always good, but sometimes, it curbs your development of a strong solid ATP style of game. Winning by pushing sometimes CAN promote more quick pushing, so your game never get's developed into a hard hitting solid competitive game. But you won.
Steadfastly staying on track and losing can sometimes be good for your game. You actually learn to hit your shots BETTER, because you know you are hitting higher level shots, or trying to, at least. You might lose one match, maybe several to the consistent weak hitters, but you learn to hit stronger with better placement, and within a few more tries, actually hit those better shots and start winning against all those guys you USED to lose to by mistakes trying to play a solid, pro style of game.
Which is better? It's up to you. Win now? Or win develop new to win at a higher level later?

I'd say always plan long term, so generally speaking develop your game/technique with that in mind.

Having said all of that, younger players might get low on morale if they loose too much so a ballance is needed (starting with planning how often one should play up and so forth).

 

[pkil]

Reminds me of my last match. I played a good under 18 junior and I probably played the worst tennis of my life. Slicing backhands, chipping forehands, hitting right down the middle, playing so safe just waiting for his errors. Its a bad habit of mine, I play down to my opponents level and just barely do enough to get the win.

 

[RajS]

@TeamOB: That was a remarkable recovery, and a very astute change of plan. At a much lower level, I myself have done some similar things against some good players, like pushing, lobbing, slicing more, putting junk spins on the ball, etc., when the score was not going my way. It has worked sometimes and failed at other times, but kudos to you, you seem to have executed the perfect strategy for the occasion!

 

[WinnersMentalityTennis]

I am typically a pretty aggressive baseliner. My game is centered around a big serve and heavy ground-strokes that I use to move my opponents around and get to net. However, in a recent match, I was forced to radically change strategy.

The juniors at my club regularly do a "guy vs girl showdown". Basically, they pick a guy and a girl to face off in a practice match. If the guy loses, all the guys at the club have to do a brutal fitness punishment. If the girl loses, all the girls have to do the same. So, in the most recent showdown, I was selected to face one of the top girls at our club. She is a 5-star recruit, ranked Top 100 in the country and recently committed to a solid A-10 school. She is very quick and has very long reach, and uses these assets to get to every ball and redirect it with a very flat stroke. Her racquet head speed isn't great, but she is very good at precisely redirecting opponents pace. Basically a classic counterpuncher game.

I start this match playing my normal game. Hitting the ball side to side. Trying to get an opening. It fails miserably. She uses all my pace against me, hits down the line with pin-point accuracy and gets me on the run until I miss. I quickly fall behind 0-3 (two breaks). Desperatly trying to save myself from the embarrassment of losing the guy vs girl showdown (which is a huge deal at my club), I start trying everything. The only thing that works is a slice. I discover that she has lots of trouble generating pace off a low, no-pace slice. I immediately switch to hitting no-pace junk on every shot. I chip every return, my serve becomes a 60 mph slice, every rally ball is a chip right up the middle or the court, even my normally heavy FH becomes a low skidding slice. And it works! She starts spraying errors from trying to generate all the pace herself. Realizing that she can't hit them hard, she tries to slice them back. But since she doesn't have much practice slicing, most of her shots are sitters. I run to net and easily put them away. I quickly turned the match around for a 6-4 6-2 win. Afterward, the guys are happy that I won, but say I played disgustingly ugly tennis. It was the first time I ever changed my game so radically. I honestly looked like an absolute hack, but it worked. Has anyone else ever changed their game so extremely to win a match?

PS. Sorry for the super-long post. I just thought it was a kinda funny story.

Excellent. Good stuff, TeamOB. It's better to win by adjusting your tactics than to lose by sticking to your original game plan.

What you did is exactly what I believe a lot of players don't capitalize on - recognizing your opponents weakness and exploiting it.

I too play an aggressive-style baseline game and have lost way too many matches to counter-punchers until I started figuring out which shots drove them nuts and then applied the rinse, repeat tactic.

Not pretty... but it gets the W.

 

[WinnersMentalityTennis]

I can't bring myself to do that, I'm too stubborn lol. I just continue on with my strategy even if it's a losing one and reflect after the match what I could have done better. I can't radically change strategies in the heat of the moment like that

C'mon Ballinbob, you're better than that!

Just think - you can win so many more matches if you are mindful about your game plan and your opponents game plan.

 

[Fintft]

I can't bring myself to do that, I'm too stubborn lol. I just continue on with my strategy even if it's a losing one and reflect after the match what I could have done better. I can't radically change strategies in the heat of the moment like that

That might not be a bad idea per say, i.e. when you are trying to develop your technique.

 

[Shroud]

I won a tournament by doing that in the finals.

 

[spaceman_spiff]

I won a singles match once where I had to switch to a slice-and-dice, serve-and-volley strategy. I only had one strung frame going into the match, and the strings snapped in one of the early games. So, I borrowed a teammate's racket, which was significantly lighter and less powerful. At the same time, I discovered that my opponent could handle flat and kick serves but not slice serves for some strange reason.

So, I went with slice serves and backhands for the rest of the match. And since I couldn't really drive my groundstrokes as well as with my normal frame, I rushed the net a lot to finish points.

Between the errors off of my opponent's returns and the points won at net, I managed to squeak by.

 

[sovertennis]

OP--nice post, and nice win. A key piece of advice I was once given is this: "Change a losing game." Surprising that few players can grasp this simple concept.

 

[LuckyR]

Don't fear winning by any means necessary because it'll be a style that isn't the style you hope to use in the "future" when you're better than you are now.

Face it, matchplay is NOT where you learn to play tennis, it is where you prove you're a winner (and not a loser) with the skills you obtained on the practice court.