The Four Components of Match Play:
Tactics and Patterns

By Larry Jurovich

In the first article in this series, we looked at the first two components of match play, Strategy and Game Style. (Click Here.) Now let's look at the other two components: Tactics and Patterns. Let's see how players can develop tactics and patterns based on their strategy and game styles.

As I said in that first article, there is considerable confusion among coaches and players regarding the terminology used to describe the components of match play.

Different coaches use different terms to describe the same components. Or they use multiple terms interchangeably. This can make understanding what is actually happening--and communicating it--more difficult.

In this series, I am offering my own way of looking at these four components. I believe this can improve clarity when analyzing competitive matches. I also believe that it can improve communication between coaches and players, and therefore help players at all levels improve their results.

Tactics

As we said in the first article, the first two components are Strategy and Game Style.

Strategy is the overall plan to win a match against a given opponent. Strategy in turn is based on Game Style. Game Style defines what a player is actually capable of doing on the court, the strengths and weaknesses in his or her shot making, movement, and temperament.

Now let's turn to the third component, Tactics. Tactics are the shot combinations a player with a specific Game Style uses to implement Strategy.

With versatile players, tactical options can be almost infinite. But for the purposes of understanding how tactics work let's examine a few simple examples.

Let's assume the strategy you adopt against a given opponent is one of the basic strategies we outlined in the first article one of the basic strategies we outlined in the first article "Exploiting A Weakness."

Let's further assume that the weakness you want to exploit is your opponent's backhand. Let's assume your Game Style is the Big Forehand, again one of the game styles we talked about previously.

So what tactics allow to use your big forehand to exploit a weak backhand?

There are two basic tactics. The first is to play in the middle of the court and hit as many forehands as possible to your opponent's backhand side. The second is to move around your own backhand and hit inside out forehands again to the backhand side.

In both cases, if your strategy is correct, your forehand is going to be stronger than your opponent's backhand and lead to wining points in several ways.

From the middle of the court hitting your forehand to a weak backhand should produce short balls that in turn you can hit even deeper and/or wider to the same side.

This will naturally produce backhand errors. It will also produce shorter, weaker replies to hit crosscourt for winners in the open court. From the inside position, you can do the same. But you should also be able to hit forehand winners going down the line going inside in.

So, again, it works like this: Tactics are based on Game Style and are used to implement Strategy.

This may sound simple. But it is amazing that at the club and even high competitive levels how few players take the time to analyze an opponent's weaknesses, see how their own games match up, and devise simple, specific tactics that are the difference in winning or losing.

All Court Variation

Let's look at another example for a player with a different game style. What tactics should an All Court player use to implement the same strategy of exploiting a weak backhand? How does this differ from the Big Forehand tactics?

The All Court player will typically play up much closer to the baseline, and also typically closer to the center of the court near T.

From this position, he can take the ball earlier with either his forehand or backhand, working the ball to the opponent's backhand off either side. Again this will be likely force errors.

But the All Court player will also look to finish points in additional ways. First because all court players tend to be more balanced on both sides, they can finish hitting backhands down the line.

The All Court player will also look to hit approaches on short balls. Depending on the strength of the opponent's forehand, these may be primarily to the weaker backhand side, but he may also approach hitting forehands down the line.

In either case, he can then finish hitting volleys and overheads, as compared to the big forehand game style, which relies mainly on hitting winners off the ground.

Patterns

Now that we understand Tactics at a basic level, let's move to Patterns. Patterns are the fourth, final component. What is their role? Patterns set up opportunities to implement Tactics.

The goal in a tennis match is not to play along waiting for the opportunity to use a certain tactic. The goal is to use patterns to set up the tactical plays you want.

For a simple overview of how Patterns work, let's follow out the examples with the two game styles with having been discussing, the Big Forehand and All Court styles. Let's pick the example of where to serve in the deuce court.

What serving patterns in the deuce court set up preferred tactical plays for our two players?

In both cases, as we know, the Strategy for either game style is to exploit a weak backhand. But the tactics are different, and therefore so are the serving patterns to bring tactics into play.

For the Big Forehand, once the point has started the tactic is to hit to forehands to the backhand corner from the center of the court, and also, from the inside out position.

In the Deuce court the serve pattern that sets this up is the "T" serve. Why would the "T" serve be better than the wide serve for this combination of strategy, gamestyle, and tactics?

If you serve wide you must recover more to your right than if you serve T. This means that the amount of the middle you can take with your forehand is decreased. Even if you cheat to look for more forehands the ball will be more difficult to play as it comes across your body.

But by serving to the T, you reduce the angles the returner can create, allowing you to recover closer to the center of the court. In addition, your opponent's must return from his backhand side (also his weakness) and will tend to hit returns that land shorter and nearer the center of the court.

This serving pattern therefore generates the ball you are looking for to implement your tactic, hitting forehands to your opponent's backhand from the middle of the court.

The T placement also facilitates the second option. If the opponent tries to return down the lone to your backhand, it is difficult for him to create an angle, especially when he is trying to hit this return with his weakness.

In general the big forehand player will be able to get around many of these returns and hit backhands inside out to the opponent's weakness. In either case, the T serve pattern is creating the opportunity to use the tactical plays required to execute your match strategy.

All Court Pattern

Now let's look at the placement the serve for the other game style, the All Court player. For the Big Forehand game style, the serve down the T yields geometric and positional advantages.

For the All Court player, it's the opposite. The wide serve is the pattern that sets up this player to use different tactics to exploit a weak backhand.

Why the wide serve for the All Court player?

If an All Court player is equally comfortable playing aggressively with both the forehand backhand, there are two advantages. By pulling the opponent toward his forehand sideline with the wide serve, you open up space to his backhand weakness no matter which way he returns.

If the return is hit cross court, the All Court player can take the ball early and hit the forehand down the line to the weaker backhand side. If the return is hit down the line he can do the same and hit his backhand crosscourt to the weakness.

When the All Court player serves wide his opponent not only loses position, he loses time. To defend his weaker backhand side, the returner has more distance to recover.

But because the All Court player stands in closer, he hits his groundstrokes sooner on either side. This means the opponent he has less time to make the recovery.

The end result is that this pattern sets up the all court player to use his own tactics to exploit the backhand. He can force backhand errors, he can hit to the open court, and he can generate shorter, weaker balls to approach. Again, the patterns sets up the player to use the tactics based on his game style.

Four Situations

These are very basic examples, and I will go into more detail in future articles, outlining the patterns and the tactics to implement other strategies depending on the game style you play.

To bring tactics fully into play, a player must understand and be able to use patterns in 4 basic situations. These are: when serving, when returning, when both players are back, or when either player comes to the net.

The Pyramid shows how the four components are interrelated. At the top is strategy, based on game style, which is second from the top. The third level is tactics based on the strengths and weaknesses of game style. Next down are Patterns, which allow players to use the tactics that are appropriate to game style.

The reality is that the possible structure of the patterns varies greatly as we move across the range of strategies, game styles and tactics.

Once we understand the relationship between the components, I am sure you will identify tactics as the area in which decision making becomes an important skill.

There is no decision to be made about gamestyle, once it has been developed. You have yours and you will not change it much if at all from match to match.

There is a level of decision to be made in strategies. You must weigh out the influencing factors to determine the best strategy for that day. There is also the possibility that in the middle of a match if it is not going well that you may choose to move to a "B Plan" or a secondary strategy.

However with tactics you must be making decisions shot by shot. When and where do you hit the tactical shots you are hoping will succeed? What patterns are setting up high percentage opportunities to do this?

If your strategy is to exploit the backhand, a common tactic would be to change direction and hit down the line to the backhand from your forehand side. But depending on the nature of the exchanges, there would be many times that you would stay in a cross court forehand rally.

So what influences individual tactical decisions? We can divide the answer into factors to evaluate before the point, and others factors that occur during.

Before the Point factors include the environment you are playing in and how those conditions affect the ball (as discussed in the first article Click Here.) Plus the score in the match, the state of momentum in the match, and your confidence at the moment.

Factors that go into tactical decisions during points include: the quality of the ball you have sent, the quality of the ball you receive in response, your opponent's court position relative to his strengths and weaknesses, and your court position relative to your game style.

So here we go from the examples above which seemed quite simple, to actual circumstances over the course of a match, circumstances that often boil down to the intuition and judgment of the player who alone can feel what is happening in the ebb and flow of the moment.

Nevertheless having an awareness and first hand understanding of the above principles is critical to make smart decisions, for example, when you would continue to go crosscourt on the forehand --even if your overall plan for the day is to exploit the backhand.

You might go crosscourt to the forehand for example when your opponent's court position, due to a short ball or a poor recovery, or other factors, leaves them significantly closer to their backhand sideline. Then you could choose to hit into the open space regardless of strength or weakness.

Or the factor could be your court position. If you are very close to your forehand sideline, you could decide to stay crosscourt, understanding that if your line ball wasn't a winner your recovery would be too difficult. Or if the ball you receive is too deep or too high tempo you could also decide it was too risky to try and change direction.

I hope the basic examples above give you a clear understanding of the way the four components work together. And an indication of how the interplay of the four components is endlessly creative in the effort to play your best in matches.

Coming up we'll explore other combinations of strategy, game style, tactics and patterns, by looking at the 4 situations described above. We also study how the very best players combine the four components. Stay tuned!