Improving tactical skills at home

Tactical skills can decide about the final result of the match. Players who know where to aim the ball and why to choose given shot have big advantage over opponents who base own decisions on emotions or quick ideas. That is why it is crucial to spend some quality time on improving tactical skills and the best thing is that players can do it at home.

While I am writing this article all the world fights with coronavirus and in many countries people have to stay at home all day. That’s really limiting situation for tennis players to grow but it doesn’t mean that they have to waste this time and decrease own performance. If players will use this time effectively they can get on the court in the future and achieve better results than ever before.

Virus, injury or sickness are just a few reasons why athletes have to stop their on-court sessions. Top tennis players exactly know that to succeed in sport they have to adapt to every difficult situation and nowadays we have the exact situation that we have to adapt to every day. There are many areas that players can improve while staying at home and tactical side is one of them. By focusing on tactical solutions players can start to understand the game more and see the options that already cost them many points or give them a new possibility to beat more technically-advanced opponents.

Improvement in tennis doesn’t happen only by performing physical activities. It is all about the practice and consistency so having more free time means that players can consider working on areas that they normally don’t focus too much on. When we see Rafa Nadal or Roger Federer in action we can be sure that there won’t be too many lackadaisical attempts to win the point. They mastered the tactical game and that is why they can still win the match even when they struggle technically or physically.

There are many opportunities to get your tactical game to the next level while being at home. Here are few of them:

Watch and write down

It is a great idea to learn from the best players in the world. Watching professional tennis match guarantees many lessons for competitors at all levels of performance. We should pay attention to the decisions players make in different situations and moments on the court. What type of serve they use while dealing with break point? How do they approach short balls with own stronger side? What kind of balls they use to neutralize the opponent’s offensive shots? If you watch the match and pay attention to details you will see that there is plenty of information that you can use to improve your game.

Create your own patterns

Every player has many strengths. You have them too. It is necessary to try to use own strengths as often as possible to maintain good quality of own game as also to put more pressure on the opponent. All top players have their own individual patterns of play so if you want to play automatically like them make sure you also create your own tactical patterns. Take pen and paper, note down all your strengths and try to connect some of them to build effective schemes. Do you have great forehand and can control every direction of the serve? Then think about serving wide from the deuce side and using forehand on the next ball. Have a good drop shot from backhand side? Imagine hitting 3 deep backhands cross-court and using short ball to finish the rally with a precise drop shot. Possibilities are endless but it all starts with awareness of own strong points.

Study statistics

Stats don’t show us everything that happens on the court but they can be useful to understand and improve tactical side. By studying statistics of different players you can discover some interesting points. You can clearly see in which area they feel comfortable and in which area they struggle the most. Additionally, you can also include these areas in comparison to your own game and think about your comfortable and uncomfortable situations on the court. Analysis of the numbers is a great tool to pay attention to more things and make conclusions that can give you simple advice on what to focus and work on.

Improvement can happen everywhere. It all depends on player’s knowledge and motivation. If you use your opportunities to get better no one will stop you. Staying at home is great to rest a little bit but it also provides possibility to take care of different areas of tennis development. If you improve your tactical skills you will be definitely more dangerous opponent to beat.

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