How do you match up?

How come Nadal can be unbeaten at Roland Garos on the clay for over 30 matches and then suddenly lose to the little known Swede Robin Soderling.

We’ve mentioned it before on the site – but time and time again in tennis we see that a big factor in the result of tennis matches is how the two players’ games ‘match up’ against each other.

Rafael Nadal and Robin Soderling

Taking Nadal against Soderling as the example – I guess it’s easy with hindsight, but Soderling possesses all the things you need if you’re going to hurt Nadal.

• He’s got a big forehand that he can attack with from all parts of the court
• He’s got a good serve with an especially effective slice out wide from the right court - taking Nadal off the court on his backhand
• He’s prepared to come to the net to finish points off
• He’s pretty comfortable when the ball kicks high into his backhand - Nadal likes to build an advantage with his cross court forehand.

So the ‘match up’ is pretty favourable for Soderling. His strengths are ideal to expose Nadal’s weaknesses and also he isn’t that weak in the areas that Nadal likes to attack.

Andy Murray and Roger Federer

Other examples of match ups would be Murray against Federer. Murray’s record is astonishing against him, he currently leads 6-2. Looking at their games, however, you can see how Murray is just the kind of player that Federer doesn’t like to play.

• He’s not bothered by pace - so Federer’s big forehand doesn’t worry him
• He’s incredibly accurate with his hitting - so can make Federer hit backhands
• He’s got a great backhand down the line - which makes Federer unsure about running around his backhand
• He gives the incoming player tough volleys - and Federer can start to miss volleys when it gets tight.

Strengths versus weaknesses

It’s good fun looking at how players match up when they are about to play and the seeing if it works out as you predict. Things to look for include:

• Does one player’s strength go in to the other player’s weakness?
• Does one player have the shots to minimise the other’s strength?
• How do the grips match up? For example, does one player have grips that are not as strong on high balls and does the other have grips that generate lots of top spin?

When you’re watching matches with your children, either on television or at an event, encourage them to do the same – perhaps even make a competition out of it. It passes the time and will also help them develop their strategic skills.

The starting point of developing the right strategy for a match is to understand how your strengths and weaknesses relate to your opponent’s.

How to 'scout' future opponents

After a bit of practice you can develop this into ‘scouting’ future opponents. Watching the players you’re likely to come up against means you can gain an advantage before the match even begins. Things to scout are:

• Opponent’s strengths – how do they try to win points?
• Opponent’s weaknesses – where are they struggling and making errors?
• Where are the strong and weak points in their groundstroke? For example, players with extreme grips will like the ball high and in the centre of the court, but will not like anything low and wide.
• Are there situations where they are limited and predictable? For example, a lot of players struggle to hit cross court on their backhand when under pressure – so if you approach to the backhand, chances are, they will try to pass down the line. Another common one is players that float the ball if you wrong foot them on the backhand – these players are a sucker for a late approach.
• Serve direction – where do they tend to serve on the big points?
• Return grips – which grip do they wait with in there ready position? They may be weak on the other shot.

Once you’ve done the scouting and made a few notes, you can then start to devise a plan to impose your strengths onto your opponent’s weaker areas and how to neutralise their strengths.

Encouraging your child to do this kind of work can really help their results. But perhaps more importantly, will develop their tennis brain for the future.

The other benefit for all of us is that it can provide that occasional opportunity to beat the bookie come Wimbledon!

Good luck!

• Competition age groups
• Unfair advantage