Tennis players must constantly make tactical decisions about the best way to win a point. It starts with where to put the serve and how hard to hit it, but once the rally starts the question often becomes whether a player should aim for the lines or hit the ball hard to a safer target with more margin for error.
Choosing right is especially vital in a close match when the stakes are high and the opponent is one of the world’s best players, as they will be at the Laver Cup.
The best tactical approach, players and analysts say, requires a mix of both styles.
“It depends on your strengths, your opponent and the situation in the match,” said Patrick McEnroe, Team World’s vice captain. “That’s what makes it so interesting at this event. Every match is against top players, and you have to weigh all three of those things.”
That’s not so simple. Anyone who watched Carlos Alcaraz in the United States Open knows the sport’s new king (who isn’t at the Laver Cup) will run, run, run in endless rallies but also happily goes for broke anytime and from any place on the court; superb players like Team Europe’s Caspar Ruud and Frances Tiafoe of Team World tried matching him for hours and fell short.
“When Tiafoe got a midcourt ball, he probably thought, ‘I have to hit it closer to the line’ than he would against, say, Fabio Fognini,” who is ranked at No. 55, McEnroe said.
A fitter and quicker player can be more patient and try to force errors. The first of Alcaraz’s five-set Open wins came over Marin Cilic, who is fit but 14 years older and without Alcaraz’s blazing speed. “I have no doubt Cilic was trying to play more aggressively because of that,” McEnroe said.
Nick Kyrgios, who played in the first four Laver Cups, said that he preferred going for broke, especially at the biggest moments.
“I like low-percentage tennis,” said Kyrgios, who landed two risky cross-court short-angle forehand winners down 0-30 at 4-4 in the fourth set of his second-round win at this year’s U.S. Open. “My strength on the tennis court is my unpredictability. Why wouldn’t I just go for it?”
But Arias noted that in the next round, against the young, big-hitting J.J. Wolf, Kyrgios switched gears, hitting safer shots and letting Wolf make mistakes. “You could see the light turn on in Nick’s head during the match,” he said.
Shifting gears is easier said than done, of course, especially in the middle of a match. “It can make sense to switch,” McEnroe said, “but against the top-level players all of those decisions become magnified.”
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