Intelligent Strategy Can Lead to Victory
Intelligent strategies can often overcome stroke deficiencies and enable a player with inferior tennis weapons to defeat a physically superior opponent. In matches where the contestants are closely matched physically, strategy is often the deciding factor. I believe that this was the case in the 2002 US Open final where Pete Sampras beat Andre Agassi to win his final Slam before retirement. Of course the match itself is old history, but I believe it provides a good example of strategic intelligence in action. Sampras used an efficient strategy and won while Agassi did not, and lost.
Before the 2002 Open:
But first let’s recap the events leading up to the final. Sampras was getting older and, as is often the case as age creeps up, his results were becoming more and more spotty. (The same issue seems to be appearing with Federer in the last year or so.) I suspect this happens because as most players get into their late 20’s the gap between their physically good days and bad day seems to grow. Players can even have periods of time in their 30’s where they was feel as good as ever, like a phantom Spring, and they can play as well as ever and beat anybody. But these are mixed in with the bad days, of which there tend to be more and more each year, and where they take astoundingly bad losses.
Sampras’ results in the year prior to the 2002 Open had been of this kind – almost nightmarishly poor for him, and far worse, in fact, than even his aging game warranted. His losses reached an incredible nadir when he was defeated on his favorite surface, grass, at Wimbledon by lowly ranked Swiss journeyman, George Bastl. As one might expect, the vultures of the press circled and barraged a rankled Sampras with what he considered insulting questions about the “R” word. When did he plan to retire? Growled Sampras, “I intend to keep competing as long as I feel I can still win a major.” “Poor deluded fool,” thought the press. “Just doesn’t realize that he is washed up.” Well, old Pete wasn’t quite as washed up as he looked. His confidence had slipped, but much of his great skill still lurked in the bushes, waiting only for a couple of those latent good days to reappear and get him the wins he needed to rebuild his confidence. Then he would again become a dangerous foe. And the 2002 U.S. Open provided these.
Pete must have said his prayers with extraordinary vigor before the tournament began. Everything broke his way. His draw could not have been better. Almost every significant player he faced was either injured or mentally discombobulated or both. Tommy Haas was hurting and playing poorly, and the then-young but talented Andy Roddick, in addition to being sub-par physically, fussed and fretted his way to a straight set loss. Greg Rusedski, on the other hand, appeared physically whole, but his flimsy serve returns and passing shots allowed Pete to attack him at net, hold serve easily, and keep the match close until, as he had in 8 of their 9 previous matches, Pete figured out a way to snatch a few crucial points on Rusedski’s serve to win the match.
With these wins under his belt, Pete gained enough confidence to simply grind through his semifinal against an over-matched Sjeng Schalken. But Pete’s final stroke of good fortune appeared in the form of his opponent in the final, Andre Agassi, who defeated Lleyton Hewitt in the other semi. (Those of you tennis history buffs with good memories you may recall that the ferocious young Hewitt slaughtered Pete in the Open final the previous year, while Agassi had lost to Pete at the Open every time they played – twice in the finals and once in the quarters). By now, Pete’s mere presence seemed to scare Andre.
Agassi had quit tanking and become a consistently strong competitor.
With his new-found improvement in mental resilience and with his game in wonderful form, Andre appeared to have the edge. He was having an excellent year and was in incredible shape (thanks to the diligence and genius of the ever-present Gil Reyes). To top it off, he had Steffi Graf waiting in the wings as an incentive to keep fighting when the going got tough. Andre had, historically, been known to wave the white flag a trifle early, but doing so now and coming home to face the indomitable Steffi would be an unattractive prospect. He wasn’t going to quit, but on the other hand, looking at Pete across the net was, for Andre, a scary case of déjà vu. That and the flurry of aces coming off of Pete’s racket at the outset may have caused Andre’s brain to freeze – which finally brings us to the topic of strategy. Pete played a strategically brilliant match while Andre did not.
The basic rules of strategic planning:
The essence of successful strategy is to devise a plan that takes advantage of some part of your game that is better than some part of your opponent’s game. You do not have to be better than your opponent at everything in order to beat him. In fact, you can be worse at everything except one thing and still win, as long as you take advantage of that one thing. In strategic planning you ask yourself, “What do I do better than he does?” The answer usually originates from a gross assessment of your own and your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Using this information you can formulate a match-up where you have an advantage. Then you try to structure as many points as possible to use this edge. (Your ideal objective is to use your strengths to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses, while hiding and protecting your own weaknesses.)
Obvious examples abound. If your backhand is better than your opponent’s, try to get into backhand crosscourt rallies. (Don’t let your opponent get you into forehand rallies where his forehand may be better than yours.) If your volley is better than your opponent’s backhand passing shot, continually go to the net on his backhand. (Don’t let him keep you on the baseline where he can pit his superior groundstrokes against yours.) If your forehand is better than your opponent’s backhand but his backhand is better than yours, run around your backhand whenever possible and hit your forehand to your opponent’s backhand. Etc. All you want to identify is something you do better than your opponent.
Be persistent in using your advantage.
Once you discover an advantageous match-up use it over and over. You can throw in occasional change-ups on less important points to keep your opponent guessing, but always return to your basic strategy, particularly on the big points. Don’t worry about getting too smart. Once you get a strategic advantage the onus is on your opponent to come up with a way to escape. If he cannot, he will lose. You don’t have to do anything but persist.
Looking at the relative strengths and weaknesses of Sampras and Agassi:
With this in mind, let’s go back to the Sampras – Agassi match. Andre’s strengths were in his balanced, consistent and deadly groundstrokes, his mobility, and his fitness. In particular, his backhand was much better than Pete’s. Pete’s advantages were in his overpowering serve, volley, and forehand. Since he was less fit than Andre, Pete’s best plan was to keep the points short. He planned to take chances early, and use his serve, forehand, and net game to attack and end points quickly. Pete recognized that the longer he stayed on the baseline with Andre the worse off he would become. He was determined not to let this happen and was singularly successful at using his weapons to shorten the points. He served and volleyed, chipped and charged to net on his return of Agassi’s second serve, and attacked as quickly and severely as possible with his forehand whenever he was caught on the baseline.
Andre, on the other hand, made no obvious effort to implement an advantageous strategy of his own. Instead he counterpunched Pete’s attacks or tried to beat him to the punch with attacks of his own, possibly because he feared that Pete was about to hurt him at any instant. In essence he tried to beat Pete at his own attacking game, matching his attacking weapons against Pete’s, and it was a losing proposition because Pete’s were better.
A better plan for Agassi:
There was not much to be done about Pete’s service games because of the violence of the delivery, both first and second serves. Andre did what he could there, but if I had been coaching him on the court I would have suggested that he keep a better eye out for Pete’s favored serves and move over a step to cover these. In particular, Pete caught Andre repeatedly for the first two sets with winning second serves down the ”T” in the ad court. Andre finally moved over to cover these towards the end of the match, but he should have been on to it about five years earlier since this wasn’t his first match against Pete. * See footnote
Andre could have constructed a more reasonable plan had he started with the basics – that long points were greatly to his advantage and his backhand was better than Pete’s. Andre’s plan would then have started by trying to get into long backhand crosscourt rallies with Pete. This would have extended the points and given Pete less opportunity to mount an attack. It would have tired and weakened Pete. By late in the match it would have reduced his ability to hit aces, big forehands, and lunging volley winners, the shots that ultimately led to Agassi’s demise.
In the long crosscourt backhand exchanges Andre would need to be wary of prematurely hitting his backhand down the line to Pete’s dangerous forehand. He would need to wait for big openings before attacking Pete’s forehand side. These would have occurred during the course of the backhand crosscourt exchanges when Pete either: 1.) hit his backhand short, 2.) hit it down the line, or 3.) hit it down the center. Then Andre could hurt Pete on the forehand side without suffering undue risk from a Sampras counterattack. In the meantime, Andre would have had the advantage in the long backhand exchanges, where Pete was disadvantaged from start to finish. He would have had to keep moving back and forth to the center to guard against Agassi’s excellent backhand down the line but would have had no opportunity for an attack. (In the event, Andre did none of these things. He played Pete as he would have played anyone else – by hitting into the open court and moving him side to side. This worked against most people because Andre was such a great striker of the ball, but not this time.)
One of Agassi’s biggest mistakes was going for big first serves in an attempt to hit aces or force missed serve returns. Although he did get some free points, he missed them too often and gave Sampras a chance to shorten the points by attacking his second serve. Even when Andre hit his first serve in and elicited an error, Pete at least got the benefit of a short point. Instead, Andre should have spun in more first serves to Pete’s backhand. Although Pete could hit the occasional great return here, most of the points would then have started with Andre in control and able to grind Sampras on the baseline. (As an aside, the player receiving serve will usually hit a weaker return off of a first serve as compared to an identical second serve. This is because on first serves the receiver will be returning from further back and will be less sure of what the server is going to do.)
Andre also served randomly to Pete’s forehand and backhand, constantly trying to fool him and keep him off balance. This is unwise against a player whose forehand is so much better than his backhand. It was Pete’s forehand that was most likely to hurt Andre and was at the heart of Pete’s baseline attack. Of course Andre could not simply hit every ball to Pete’s backhand. He had to keep him guessing somewhat, but Andre’s serve should have been more biased toward the backhand, particularly on the big points.
Sampras was beginning to tire in the fourth set, even with shortened points.
All of this came to a head in the fourth set. Pete was starting to wilt and desperately needed an opening for a quick finish. Andre eventually gave it to him while serving at 4- all. Andre had faced break points twice in this game and had twice spun in first serves to Pete’s backhand. Both times Pete chipped returns into the middle of the court and both times Andre took control of the points and finished them with punishing groundstrokes. But when Pete reached break point for a third time Andre opted to fool him with a first serve to his forehand. It was a fatal mistake. Pete whacked a vicious return into the corner, broke serve, and finished Andre off in the next game.
Use cold logic to develop strategic plans.
It was a great match between two great champions. Yet as Agassi apparently did, even great champions occasionally make poor strategic decisions. It is my guess that it happened because the situation was huge and Andre’s experience against Pete in such situations had been so bad that it caused a bit of a “deer in the headlights” response. Strategy is best determined coldly and logically. We all must beware of the strong emotions that sometimes surround tennis matches, impacting our logic systems and blinding us to effective strategies.
* As a general rule, everyone has favored serves and it is the obligation of the receiver to figure out what these are as soon as possible and move over to close them up. This forces the server to use less favored serves that he is more likely to miss. The receiver’s objective is to balance the damage from all possible serves and to avoid being hurt repeatedly with a particular favored serve. He does this by moving his receiving position. The common receiving error is to stand in a balanced central position against all opponents and attempt to cover all serves equally.
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