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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.
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.
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 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.
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.