Tactics Case Study
I recently had an interesting practice match with a top player. I'm not going to name the player, so I'll call him "Bob" (not his real name). Bob has a very good backhand, both looping against backspin and hitting against once in the rally. He also has a rather quick off-the-bounce forehand loop, so it can be dangerous going there. His serves are mostly short backspin or no-spin, with deep, spinny serves thrown in as a variation. When he flips short balls with his forehand, they almost always go crosscourt - a weakness I was about to ram an entire match through. He was playing well, and had just defeated two very strong players, while I was not playing very well. But tactics, not playing level, decided this match. Here's what happened.
Early on I could tell when his serve was going long, but I wasn't sure why - there was something different about the way he set up. So whenever he served long, I was ready to loop. (Near the end of the second game I realized it was because he set up for his long serve with his racket farther back and more closed. I pointed this out to him after the match.) Because I was looping his deep serves so well, he had to serve short over and over. This allowed me to drop them almost all short, often faking to the backhand and then dropping it short to his forehand. He mostly pushed these or predictably flipped them crosscourt to my forehand. In both cases, I took the attack. So throughout the match I was the aggressor on his serve.