Playing the Score (Game Points)

One of the strongest strategies that anyone can employ in their game is playing the score. If you don't play the score and play like you need to win every point, you might lose your intensity over a long period of time. By organizing the points in a matter of importance, you can better judge how you react at certain times and change your game accordingly.

The simple way to do it is to play in gears. 1st gear being the easy warm up when you can hit and talk at the same time. 4th gear is the full out footwork, grunting, run everything down, fist pumping intensity. The gears are technique based. It should be the same strategy and pattern that you follow.

If you are serving, you want to play at about third gear and up it to 4th gear if you get behind in the count. So, say you double fault the first point away. You are down 0-15. At that time you want to raise it to 4th gear because if you lose the next point you will be down 0-30 (two points away from losing the game). At any game point, you should up the gear to 4th.

If you are returning, you want to play about 2nd gear. Then if you happen to be up 0-30, you can up it to gear 3 and then to gear 4 at game point or at 15-30.

Keep in mind that if you are lifting gears, your focus and technique is suppose to go up. So if you start missing shots badly, it is usually because of either focus or technique. If it is focus, reaffirm what the plan is and play the next point. If it is technique, add more topspin.

Of course, with tennis, it can get much more complex. For instance, if the player has a very good weapon that they rely on like a big first serve, you might have to up your return a higher gear just to get the ball in play. But after that you can lower the gear back to normal. With this basic concept of game points as the skeleton, you can determine where you adjust your game while you play.

Next time...Set Games