| How to Beat Four Major Player Types | |
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The Power Baseliner: This is the most common type on the pro tour today. As opposed to an all-court player, the power baseliner would much rather go for winners from near his baseline than at the net.
Winning Strategy:
- Keep your shots deep. If you give a power hitter a short ball, you'll have less time to react to his shot, and he'll be able to create sharper angles.
- Try to keep the ball out of his "wheelhouse," the height at which he can most comfortably hit the ball. Either slice the ball so that it skids quite low or use a fairly high topspin that kicks up above his shoulders.
- Make him hit a lot of balls. Keep running his shots down, because a hard hitter doesn't have much margin for error, and he'll eventually miss one.
- Pull him up to net with good drop shots or low, skidding slices. This is a risky play, because if your short ball sits up at all, he'll put it away. If you hit a good short ball though, you'll force him to try to play the net, and a lot of power baseliners don't volley well.
- Mix up the speeds and spins on your shots. A power hitter needs good timing, and the more variety you throw at him, the more difficult his timing will be.
- See what happens if you attack at net. A lot of baseliners aren't used to hitting passing shots and make errors such as hitting the net by aiming too low.
Winning Strategy:
- Concentrate on aim. Don't look at the incoming opponent or at where you want the ball to go. Keep looking at the ball while you aim either down the line, at the corner of the service box crosscourt, into her body, at her feet, or lobbed over her head.
- Use topspin to make your returns drop in. Topspin allows you to hit harder at a given height without hitting long. It will also make your sharply angled crosscourt passes drop before they go wide or make the ball dive down at the feet of the incoming opponent.
- Try some low chip returns at the server's feet.
- Step in on the return to take the ball early. This will get the ball back sooner, giving the server less time to set up for a volley.
- If your opponent is coming in behind her returns, too, try some serve-and-volley yourself. Take the net away from her by getting there first.
