Tennis Tactics That Work

When it comes to tennis tactics, the serve is the most crushing tennis stroke. Starting from a static and ostensibly innocuous beginning, a timely serve will blast a ball into the other player's court at an incredible rate.

In order to serve with maximum power, you ought to sense the movement accumulating and ascending through your torso from the ankle joint upwards as your legs, pelvis, abdomen, backbone and shoulders produce an unstoppable force field.

Excellent service tactics focus on 3 things:

Stance

Grasp

Throwing action

The effective grasp centers on you holding your tennis ball in your free hand between thumb and all 4 fingers. Whenever you want to accommodate two tennis balls at the same time, simply grip that first ball with your thumb and the second against your hand with the 3rd and 4th fingers. Next, hold the ball (or balls) tight to your racket strings.

In order to adopt the correct service position, you need to stand behind the baseline side on to the net, your feet shoulder width apart.

Gently flex your knees and keep your weight centered on the back foot.

One great serve tactic is to observe where your opponent decides to stand and then choose which part of the court you want to serve to. You then glance at the ball against your racket strings while you begin your serve.

Make sure to keep your arms loose and knees flexed. Keep your weight on your back foot. Be sure to point your toe in the direction of the right hand net post.

Keep your back foot parellel to the baseline.

To start with, apply a modified forehand grip before moving on to the Continental grip as your game and tennis strategy improves.

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 The ability to consistently return a serve is an important weapon in your tennis tactics armory.  It is tactically vital to return every serve effectively but the serving strengths of your opponent govern the type and quality of your return. It is crucial that you learn to adapt your basic groundstrokes to counteract the height, spin, speed and placement of your opponent's serve.

When initially working on your service return, use your basic backhand and forehand drives and then adapt them to learn to play more complex returns such as the chipped return and the blocked return. 

Blocked Returns

Blocked returns are played with a short take-back and volley like punch.  Start just inside your baseline and take the ball early.  Block through the back of the ball, aiming deeply to the far baseline to nullify the server's advantage.

Chipped Return

The chipped return is very useful against high bouncing serves. Move inside your baseline and make a short, high take-back, chipping down through the ball as it rises between waist and shoulder height.