Tennis match play: Learning how to construct a point
Good tennis players are able to win by building points - which means an ability to think several shots ahead. Here’s a guide to constructing points – and a fun game to help you practice it…
If you want to be an effective match player, you need to be able to think ahead in a point. You win matches with your brain as much as with your body.
So many times I see club players playing without a gameplan. Either going for winners almost at random, or being purely reactive in points, hitting the ball back and relying on their opponent to make unforced errors. There is no strategy, and whether they’ve won or lost, they come off the court without really knowing why.
But good players have another dimension in their game: namely, strategy. They play smart tennis, hit shots with a purpose and work out why they’re winning points so they can keep doing it - or come up with a Plan B (or Plan C…) when things aren’t working.
Part of strategic tennis is the ability to build a point.
What does it mean to build a point? It’s about gaining control of a rally, sometimes gradually chipping away or sometimes instantly, exerting pressure on the the other player’s weakness and maneouvering them until you are in a sufficiently advantageous position to win the point.
Players that do this well can do it because they are proactive; they can think one, two or more shots ahead in a point.
This is a skill that every match player needs to develop. But how can you practice something as seemingly abstract as this? I’ve created a game to help… It’s called Construction, and this is how it works…
How to play Construction
One player is the Constructor; the other is the Trader. The Trader is simply rallying - they’re not allowed to hit winners but ideally are hitting good solid baseline shots that are neither too challenging nor too easy (good practice for their aggressive patience!).
The game starts with the Trader feeding the ball to start the point. As the Constructor your job is to win the point in a particular number of shots.
Start with just one - so quite simply you need to hit a winner straight off the feed or force your opponent to make an error. The following point you need to win it on your second shot, followed by the next point you need to win it off your third shot, and so on until you are finishing the point on your 10th shot.
Then you can swap roles.
The great thing about the Construction game is that it really forces you to think ahead. When you know you have to win the point with your 10th shot, you realise how important the 9th shot is – because that penultimate shot has to set you up for an easy winner. And then once you realise how important the 9th shot is, so you realise that you need purpose on the 8th shot, to set you up for the set-up!
That process of working your opponent until you can win is what building a point means.
Note that the game is not about practicing a particular tactic or specific way of winning points (such as pushing your opponent wide, or exploiting a backhand). Nor is it teaching you how to spot an opponent’s weakness. Rather, it teaches you how to think ahead within a point, because it forces you to plan for the next shot after the one you’re hitting, or even the one after that.
Of course, in a real match you don’t have a particular number of shots in which you have to win the point. But you will develop the skills needed to build points effectively, so you can confidently exert control of your rallies and successfully execute your game plan.
Happy hitting - let us know how you get on!
See also:
Mastering the contact point: How to read the ball and get in the perfect position to hit it
Smart tennis: why you should hit a lot more balls cross court
Aggressive Patience - the essential strategy for winning more tennis matches
Lizzie Flint is a writer and a practicing level 3 LTA professional tennis coach.
She has been in love with the game since picking up a racquet at the age of four – and she has seen it from every possible angle: playing, analysing and reporting on tennis all over the world. Read more about Lizzie here.