The Basics of Tactics TENNIS MASTERCLASS by Patrick Mouratoglou EPISODE 6

winning tennis match is not only about hitting shots and actually lot of players are very good at practice but very bad when it comes to matches one of the main reasons for that is that they're not good at mastering the basics of the tactics by respecting the main rules you can bring your game to the next level those rules are Universal and true for all of you stay with me I'll explain everything to you and you'll become much better player very fast as you can see it's windy day today so it's perfect day to talk about tactics don't check my hair they're going to be all over the place but listen to what say let's start with rule number one there is one rule extremely important in tennis and the rule says play cross most of the time why play cross for simple reason when play cross don't have to move because when play cross have to stand here if play 20 times cross can stay 20 times in the same place if play Down the Line have to move here so have more movement and if play too fast down the line might not have time to be placed at the right place when the bull will come back when play cross don't have to move because I'm supposed to be placed here when the opponent is hitting the ball you might think wow but there is lot of space here that's true but if play cross and deep it's going to be very difficult for the opponent to play here and if he does it's going to take big risk so put him in position where where he takes the risks why do have to be placed here it's very simple have to be all the time at an equal distance to the two best shots that the opponent can play it might seem bit counter intuitive because you might think that the best place to stand is the middle at equal distance to both sides but that's not true because if you play cross the opponent can also Play Short cross when he plays short cross that type of angle the ball will bounce and will hit the ball here out of the court and if stand in the middle this is much too far from the middle so if take this point which is the furthest point if the player on the other side plays short cross and the down the line and if want to be placed at the equal distance between those two points that have to stand here and then wherever the player plays will need the same time to reach the ball when talk about the best shot of the opponent I'm not talking about forehand or backhand I'm talking about the best execution possible in each situation if you look at all the professional tennis players nobody stays ever in the middle of the Court never they either let's say half meter from the center to the left or half meter from the center to the right for the exact reason that just explained okay now now let's talk about the depth depth is very important intuitively when you play short you are potentially in danger because your opponent can attack this is true and you have to aim at playing as deep as you can but it's not always true will give you few examples the first thing that is important to understand is that if you play without lot of angle which means if you play everywhere except close to the sidelines when you play cross you have to play dip playing dip means protection you are protected from the opponent's attacks but if you play with shorter angle let's say around here close to the sidelines then it's very interesting to play shorter for simple reason when you play cross and shorter instead of hitting the ball here the opponent will have to move out of the court to hit the ball which means that you will create an empty space for the next shot the best players in the world when they play cross close to the sidelines they are always able to play shorter angle and of course the shorter is the angle the more you pull the opponent out of the Court and the more you create space for the next shot now sometimes it's also interesting to play short when you want to bring the opponent inside the court for several reasons first of all some guys are not good when they play inside the chord if you play for example short slice and the opponent is here lot of guys are very uncomfortable so they might play with topspin slower shot and they will be placed at the worst place of the court because here they're extremely vulnerable the second reason to play short is to bring the opponent to the net there are also lot of players who are not comfortable at the net they're not great at that and if you play short enough and low enough they won't be able to attack you as well and they will have to go to the net because once you're here you can go back the only way is forward to summarize what said play cross most of the time rule number one when talk about playing cross it's true of course on both sides whether you play forehand or backhand second if you don't play close to the sidelines play deep and if you can play with topspin you play deep and heavy and you push the opponents back always be placed at the equal distance to the two best shots of your opponents which is never in the center of the chord except if you play deep middle then of course you stay deep middle if you do anything else and playing deep Center if you play with any kind of angle you have to move the opposite direction of where you play around 50 centimeters from the center of the chord to cover well both sides finally you can play short for several reasons you can play short to bring the opponent to the net you can play short to push the opponent to get inside the court where it's not comfortable but every time you play short make sure you play extremely low the slice is very good spin to the ball when you want to bring the opponent inside the court because if you play short and at good height the opponent will kill you if you play short but very low it's going to be much more difficult because when the ball is low the opponent has to play with topspin to put the ball in slower play slower and give you the opportunity to attack on the next shot if you want to improve your slice or know how to slice check out my master class about it the next reason to play shorter is when you want to play close to the sidelines when you place close to the sidelines if you're able to find shorter angle you pull the opponent out of the cord and you open the cord for the next shot but as you can imagine players don't play only cross otherwise matches will be very boring and it's going to be difficult to win The Point Tennis is lot about movement and being able to move the opponent and hit winners or make them Miss and in that regards it's very important to know how and when to play Down the Line there are three main situations in which you want to play Down the Line let's go to the first one the first one is when you have an opponent who's not good mover this happens lot and even with the with the pros some of the pros are incredibly good when they are set and they're not as good when they're moving when they're moving they can't be as aggressive and you can control the game when you play against that type of player it's important to change the direction extremely often put them on the run all the time then you create again you make them play shorter you make them Miss and you have lot of opportunities to win the point when you don't play someone who's moving slowly there are two other reasons why you should play Down the Line the first reason is when you want to change the direction of the game if your opponent is better than you playing forehand and you are stuck playing forehand cross with him you want to change the direction and have him play on your back end because there you're strong bear you're better than him and maybe there also you better to play Down the Line how do you do that when you play Down the Line to change the Direction you don't play Down the Line to hit winner and what is one thing is very important explained to you where you should be placed on the court so you understood that it's around 50 centimeters from the the center of the Court when you play down the line you have to move there which is around one meter you have to move one meter one meter is lot if you play fast so when you play Down the Line to change direction what is important is to play much higher with Spin and dip way slower because it gives you the time to move to the next stop when you play high the ball travels slower when it travels slower it gives you lot of time to move and you will need that time to move from this position to the next one why deep deep is very important because you'll be moving and if you play short you give the opportunities to your opponent to play behind you or if you didn't have time to move you there is big space here that they can use to hit winners let's take the example of Mateo bertini Mateo has much better forehand than backhand and he makes most of his winners not to say the immense majority of them with his forehand of course all the players are trying to be on the back end cross-course battle with him because they are better than him on that most of the time so what Matteo does lot is slicing his backhand down the line so the opponent's backhand to force them to play on his forehandle next shot why slice because slice travels slower than spin or flat shots so it gives him time to move from that position when he hits the backhand slice to this position here and he's ready for the forehand he's waiting he did this many times on this special Court when he played UTS and this allowed him to win the trophy the Zeus trophy on Discord during UTS last reason to play Down the Line is to hit winner or to attack to be aggressive the goal when you play Cross Court is to work the point to be able to go down the line that's why it's very important to be able to play also close to the sidelines because when you play close to the sidelines and with shorter angle you pull the opponent out of the court and you open the dandelion for yourself look at that the opponent is here you hit great shot cross shot look at the space incredible space and in the next shot if you're able to take the ball early and use that space you're going to hit winner or you're going to put the opponent in lot of trouble when you feel that the opponent is out of the Court far and that you have an empty space it's time to go down the line what is very important is to take the ball early when you go down the line for simple reason if you let the ball bounce and wait the opponent who's out of the Court will have time to recover and come back to the position and then there is much less space to hit winner if you take the ball early you take time away from the opponent who maybe will be in that position and still moving when you're gonna hit the down the line and it's going to be much more efficient and finally you can even play behind the player because it is running to go back to his position which is here and you can play behind him while he's moving you won't be able to come back or he will be in very bad position now sometimes playing the Cross Court battle the opponent plays short and that's also the point if you are able to play deep with lot of spin heavy ball he will have to move back and he might play short and this is the perfect moment for you to attack him down the line same again when he plays short take time away from him take the ball early he will be far he won't have time to come back close to the Baseline he will have to stay far in defensive position and then maybe he's going to reach the ball which is not sure but he'll be very far and you will be able to keep controlling the court or even come to the net to finish up the point most importantly check your opponent see in which type of balls is not efficient and use it to your advantage some players are great hitting the ball between the hip and the shoulder in this position they're extremely comfortable and they're extremely efficient some others are very efficient when they're hitting the ball over the shoulder but much less here some players love to have time because they're preparing late and when they have time they're very good when you take the ball earlier and you play Fast they're not able to maintain the same contact point they're hitting the ball behind and they give you lot of short balls so it's important to be able when you play your opponent to judge on all type of balls on which they are less efficient and to use it showed you most of the Tactical Basics now you have to work on it this is key because you're not going to be only good player but you're going to be also good competitor if you like this video check my other master classes let me know if there are some things you would like to know about And subscribe to my YouTube channel foreign