Triangle Offense & Tennis 5/17

I haven’t posted in a while (yet again) as I have been very busy attending family and work responsibilities. The other reason is that I haven’t done anything spectacular in the recent times worth posting.

Despite the busy schedule, I managed to play Tennis last Saturday (5/17) and Badminton last Wednesday (the season was of course over) and managed to cheer World #2 Rafael Nadal to master series victory and Los Angeles Lakers to a lead in Western conference finals.

First on Tennis. Jack and I squared off once again on Saturday evening. Weather was decent with only occasional breeze but enough to provide some advantage from one side of the court. As you all know my knees have been bothering me (for no real reason..yet) and impacted my movement in many of the past matches. For this match, I had some preparation time and I warmed up a bit before heading to the courts. My game relies heavily on my ability to chase down balls and put them back in with topspin at strategic locations on opponent’s court.

I started off the game by breaking jack’s serve and then holding my own. There were some good rallies and one or two long deep rallies. I didn’t go with any particular strategy. I wanted to focus on the “low to high” swing motion of the racquet that generated top spin and that’s what I did most of the match. I took care of the transition game (ability to move back and forth, switch from one kind of shot into another) and picked spots to go aggressive. I won 6-2. In the second set , I was leading 5-0 and 40-30 up when I lost focus (and energy) and Jack seized the opportunity to play some fantastic tennis to make it 5-3. Realistically 5-0 is a steep deficit to overcome (though many people have done it in the past) and I won the set. All in all a good match. My serve is also showing some signs of life and it bodes well for me. I was happy with my backhand. I managed to hit a few aggressive shots and I believe my defense from backhand improved a bit- thanks to ball machine.

On Sunday I watched how Rafael Nadal won against Federer in the master series final. This is a best of 3 sets final and Roger federer had sizeable leads in both sets only for Nadal to fight back and take the match away. Federer led 5-1 in first set, lost 7-5. While lot of analysis can be done (and some already done at Tennis.com) I observed some useful stuff for me. It is no secret that I am big fan of Federer and Nadal with me taking Nadal side when these two great players square off. My game at a very very very vague level resembles that of Nadal while I do show some characteristics of Federer’s game.

In Recreational Tennis, there are some main offensive strategies.
1) Your strengths Vs Opponents weakness
You use your strengths (eg:forehand) to target opponents weakness (eg:backhand)
2) Your strengths Vs Opponents strengths
You match up your best shots (eg: cross court forehand) against opponents (eg: forehand)
3) Hide your weakness
You try to hide your weakness (eg: backhand) and play more on your strengths.
(eg: run around your backhand and hit forehands)
4) Hide opponents strengths
You don’t give your opponent an opportunity to hit his strong shots.
Eg: Keep the ball to in the middle of the court to cut away angles.
Or hit towards backhand corner so that he can’t hit forehands etc.
5) Your Strengths
You don’t care what your opponent does or doesn’t. Instead you focus on your strengths and go along with them.
Eg: Hit a blistering array of forehands and over powers your opponent.
6) You feel innovative
You don’t care what the score/result is. You play what you deem fit and what makes you enjoy the game.


There are several more but mostly variations of the above. Also there isn’t one single strategy you would use whole game. In reality, in a given point, one may use all of the above strategies. The best strategy would be to carefully monitor the game, score and analyze the situation and vary your strategies.
Eg: You are leading 2 sets to love and a break up in 3 rd. If you are in a mood, may be you can use (5 – your strengths) or (6- you feel innovative) or keep doing what you did so far that got you the big lead in first place.

Strengths, Weakness and Innovation are the elements of Tennis Triangle offense. I am working on a developing a structured Offense system in Tennis (for all you know it could be a old wine in new bottle type of scenario). As a vivid follower of Basket ball I have seen several concepts of structured offense in basket ball and I think I can apply some of them for tennis. One specific item that caught my eye was the Triangle offense. What an intriguing offense system. I won’t be able to provide full justice to describe it but it is sufficient to say this. At its peak, this is one of the most spectacular, free flowing offenses that basket ball has ever seen and provide several options to shoot the ball. This shouldn’t come as a surprise- The NBA team that uses this offense: LosAngeles Lakers. NewJersey nets and few other teams do use parts of this system but they generally use picks and screens. More on Tennis Triangle offense later.

The Badminton season was officially over and I missed the last two sessions. There was a different club where they play for few more weeks and couples of friends from work were playing there and invited me over. So I went last Wednesday. I actually played a lot better than I did in the recent times. My transition game and movement are coming back to me and I managed to hit a few back hand winners. I enjoyed the session a lot as I have been on the down trend for quite some time. This club plays for 3 more weeks though I don’t plan on playing there unless there is inclement weather and I am dying to get some sports action.

Though it is long weekend for most, for our family it is business as usual as my wife will be working Saturday and Sunday. I will try to squeeze out some time for Ball machine and may be a tennis match or two. On Monday, French open begins and that should take care of next two weeks as I will be busy watching DVR’s of matches.