The first fundamental strategy is to challenge your opponent's reaction time. There is a limit to how fast a human can react to a ground stroke. This is a different reaction time problem than for the serve. The serve must be confined to an area one quarter of that of a ground stroke. You have the opportunity of knowing the general direction and placement of the serve. This is not true for a ground stroke which has 4 times more area to land in and you do not know in advance where it will land. Further, yo may have to run a significant distance to reach the ground stroke. Hence, a ground stroke with an initial speed of over 70 mph is nearly impossible to run down unless you are anticipating its direction.

These facts mean that for defense, you must prevent your opponent from being able to hit a 70mph ground stroke, and for offense, you must seek every opportunity to hit the 70mph ground stroke. The problem becomes all the more clear when we consider what steps we must take to react effectively to any high speed ground stroke. These steps are known as the action cycle, see the figure below.

The Action Cycle

As your opponent is preparing to strike the ball you must be in an (1) observing state, watching for when their racquet begins to move forward. After the split step, you must (2) determine the general direction the ball will follow and then begin to (3) adjust to both the direction and height of the ball. As the ball, nears you must begin to (4) prepare the racquet for action and following this execute the (5) strike. Following the strike, you must (6) recover to a controlled and balanced position to begin the cycle over again. IN power tennis this must be done in slightly more than one second in a standard rally. If your opponent strikes the ball at 70 mph, all of this must be done in less than one second. This is a tall order and usually means that something has to be hurried resulting in a weak return that your opponent will hit for a winner. This is why so many winners are hit from the baseline in today's game. If your opponent strikes the ball at 77 mph the time you have to execute the action cycle in less than 0.9 seconds. Just orienting yourself to the direction of the ball can consume 0.2 seconds. Simply preparing to execute the stroke can consume another 0.2 seconds. Then executing the stroke can require another 0.2 seconds. This leaves 0.3 seconds to adjust to the ball (move into position). This requires that you be able to run at nearly 30mph to cover only 13 feet of court. At this speed it will be humanly impossible to hit an effective shot in return. The moral to this story is that you must hit with power in order to prevent being beaten by power.

Thus you must be able to keep the ball speed up over 65mph in the men's game and 60mph in the women's game, or make your opponent run to be competitive. Luckily this is entirely possible to do.

Once you have achieved the skill to hit at the target speeds we describe in Power, it is time to develop your strategy. The first and simplest strategy is to challenge your opponent's reaction time. This is done by hitting the ball straight at them at high speeds. A ball hit at over 70mph straight at your opponent will rarely be returned with pace providing you with the opening to hit a winner. This strategy may eliminate many first round opponents.

Strategy number two is to be able to hit two high speed shots in succession to opposite sides of the court. Even if your opponent's reaction time is good, they must now combine good reaction time with foot speed and stability. This will eliminate another group of opponents. Doing these two things well can easily land you in the top 100 in the world.

Now for the fast player with good reaction time and the ability to hit at high speeds also, the problem becomes more difficult. You must now add to your game all the classical skills of off pace shots, slices, moon balls and drop shots. None of these shots require speed. Rather they require choosing the right moment to execute. If any of these slow shots are hit at the wrong time your opponent's ability to hit with speed will result in their hitting an out right winner from the baseline or putting away the drop shot.

Thus what distinguishes the modern power game today is that it overlays speed on top of the classical game. Without speed, you simply will never get to a position of utilizing the classical tools and strategies to win. A power opponent will simply crush you first.

On the other hand, without adding the classical tools to your repertory, you cannot get from the top 100 to the top ten.