Do you find yourself in the middle of the court with a nice ball that is easy to close but you don’t know the tactics of the attack in proper tennis and you make yet another free mistake by shooting the ball into the net or on the backcountry fences?
Well, if this situation happens to you frequently, you need to know that you are in really good company because 98% of passionate tennis players don’t know how to close easy balls from half court .
Also because, if you think about it, this is the most difficult game situation in tennis.
Tiz, I’m a little confused …. but is it an easy shot or a hard one?
This game situation is defined by many as the easiest situation precisely because you have all the time to prepare the shot and to throw a ‘cannon shot’ closing the point without showing the ball to your opponent.
However, in reality, this is the most difficult situation to interpret for 3 simple reasons:
1) You have full responsibility for your actions: either you close the point or you are wrong
2) On a technical level, the ‘loose’ ball in the middle of the field is the most difficult to push
3) On a tactical level, you have to play along the line and take risks
The tennis attack tactics: take your destiny in hand
Regarding the first point, when you are in the middle of the court you have full responsibility for your actions .
There is no middle ground, you must necessarily push the blow hard to generate a winner that leaves your opponent ‘stunned’ .
And pushing hard ‘full arm’ means going into an unforced error because you don’t always play fast and on the pitch, right?
This is why this situation is very difficult in modern tennis, because you are in an awkward position on the court, in which if you support the shot you are passed and if you push you risk making mistakes.
The tactics of the attack in tennis: the technical and biomechanical component
Even on a technical level, this situation hides pitfalls because your opponent’s ball arrives slow….
In fact, you managed to take your opponent off the pitch who, with the tips of your fingers, sends you a comfortable ‘mozzarella’ in the center of the field.
Surely you will have realized it, pushing hard a slow ball is not that simple because you have to draw all your technical ability to generate ball speed practically on your own, without leaning on the incoming ball which is practically weightless.
The tactics of the attack in tennis: direction is essential
Coming to the third point, the one that interests us mainly in this article, it is important to emphasize that, in this game situation, you need to push hard along the line .
In fact, by choosing this direction the ball arrives earlier and you have a much better chance of closing the point quickly.
On the other side of the coin, you have a much better chance of making a mistake because the long line is considered a high-risk shot than playing diagonally.
How to close 9 out of 10 points from the half court
Very well, at this point you have understood that to close from the middle of the court you need to be ‘cold’ (the point depends on you and your attack), to have excellent technique and biomechanics and that playing long line is better than push diagonally .
But I’m sure that even if you put all these 3 things together, haste grips you and you always end up risking the line and hitting like you never should have, right?
You see, if all this happens to you it is because you have not yet considered the tactics of the attack in tennis that allows you to immediately generate ‘snowball’ winners and to push those slow balls into the middle of the field like never before. done before.
Close the point without risking too much
I am sure that in such a situation you get ‘ enticed’ by the long line and you try to play deep and close to the lines just like in the photo below, don’t you?
And it’s pretty normal as a thing because you see your opponent far away and try to close the point quickly, quickly, thinking that risking the corner is the best solution.
Unfortunately, however, this choice is not the best to consider because the risks are very high and, if you have moved your opponent well off the field, you need much less to generate a winner.
I’ll explain….
Your opponent plays short because you managed to play a nice aggressive diagonal and, now, he is in an area of the field extremely far from where you have to play your attack.
As you can see, analyzing the situation from this perspective, it doesn’t make much sense to risk the last few inches of the pitch to generate a winner, don’t you think?
Also because your opponent has 10 – 12 meters of field to recover by running at ‘full speed’ before arriving to play a passer-by running along a ‘full-arm’ line that is not at all simple.
That’s why my advice in this game situation is precisely to ‘close on the sidelines’ .
The tactics of the attack in tennis: Close to Margine
Going out on the sidelines simply means hitting in the mid-high range and having your ball bounce close to the half way line so it ‘splashes’ away low and fast.
To do this, the shot has to start mainly flat with the aim of ‘crushing’ the ball and making it impregnable for your opponent.
Indeed, this is precisely the attack tactic in ideal tennis.
There is no need to play deep and top spin because you are already heavily in the field and would risk making a mistake in length.
Plus, your opponent is a long way off and you have plenty of time to ‘place’ your flat, short shot without risking too much.
It’s all about timing
Just take the right timing on the ball and that’s it!
Hitting it in the ascending phase and at the height of your shoulder is all you need to play with good muscle relaxation and in the area of the field indicated by the photo below without running the risk of going ‘over the top’ .
Conclusions
Very well! Even today we have reached the end of this article where we have seen together really many very interesting and above all practical things to improve your backhand right away!
Before concluding this ‘succulent’ article I wanted to tell you that…
