Strategies, tactics, and techniques: 3 levels of tennis to understand

How do you think about your tennis play? Other than physical conditioning and basic technique, do you put much thought into your game? If you want to reach greater heights as a player, you need to consider your development on multiple levels, pursuing superior technique, tactics, and strategy. To do that, you first need to understand what each entails, how you utilize it in overcoming opponents, and how it interplays with the other two.

• 1) Technique

This may be the simplest aspect of tennis, but don’t underestimate its importance. Your ability to hit a serve your opponent can’t return, counter every shot with a flawless backhand or forehand as necessary, and your footwork — all of this forms the foundation for your play. If you can’t trust your body to pull off certain maneuvers with consistency, you can’t think about the other levels of your play. But once you have these pieces in place, you’re ready to consider the bigger picture. In warfare, this would be how your soldiers swing their swords and poke their spears.

• 2) Tactics

In warfare, tactics would be the way you move soldiers on a particular battlefield: shifting units this way, having them form up in this formation or that formation, and combining their techniques into a larger whole. In tennis, these are the little gambits you use to seize individual points, such as setting the opponent up with one shot so your next can slam past, baiting them to send you the perfect shot for your abilities. To use tactics well, you need to understand your technique and the technique of the person you’re playing against, and make the interplay of the two favor you — even if your techniques don’t stand up head-to-head, you can still win with better tactics.

• 3) Strategy

In warfare, strategy is the big picture — how you win the war. Seizing key cities, cutting off supply lines, and suppressing the enemy with victories and losses. In tennis, this means looking beyond a point or set to the bigger picture of you against the opponent. A winning strategy might be exhausting your opponent by playing to your superior stamina, or dragging them into your pace while shaking theirs up. Holding back a bit so you can throw a wrench in your opponent’s pacing might seem nonsensical at the technique or tactical level, but mean winning the match.

Photo: Aircel Chennai Open -- Match 2 by Ashok666 licensed under Creative commons 5