Tsonga Can Help Revive Attacking Tennis | Thebigtip

As you know by now, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga produced a great comeback in the Wimbledon quarterfinal against Roger Federer. Tsonga lost the first two sets 6-4 and 7-6 but fought back to win the next three sets 6-4 6-4 6-4. 

It was the manner of Tsonga’s comeback which was really impressive. Federer played a good match and his level didn’t actually drop, but Tsonga stuck to his principles and style of play and got his reward as a result. Meanwhile Federer probably played too passive which he is prone to doing.

The style of play which could be described as attacking tennis, is a rare sight in the men's game today. We hear the phrase "aggressive tennis" a lot but certainly not attacking tennis.

Aggressive tennis can be described as taking the game to your opponent. That usually means big groundstrokes off both wings and a big first serve. The majority of players have adopted this strategy over the last 10 years. Examples of this style of play are adopted by players such as James Blake, Andy Roddick, Thomas Berdych, Robin Soderling and Juan Martin Del Potro among others.

I would describe an attacking player as someone who is not afraid to go for the big second serve, comes to the net regularly either off the serve or on a set up shot. A player who can perform all types of volleys including stop volleys and someone who would take a mid court ball, slice it and attack the net.

This type of play can be described as high risk: part of the risk and reward strategy. This player will also have a big return game because they are confident of holding serve regularly. They can all stay in rallies and hit winners or wait for the short ball to attack. Tsonga is a player who ticks all the boxes of an attacking player.

Many factors have led to the demise of the attacking player over the last 10 years. These factors have been discussed many times in print, but essentially, they include the slow nature of the grass at Wimbledon, hard courts becoming more medium paced, string technology, heavier balls being used more regularly and coaches training youngsters to play in a certain way.

That means the players who want to attack, improvise at the net and play off the cuff has been discouraged in recent times.  In decades gone by, naturally talented players would gravitate towards attacking tennis. However, in the 2000s, attacking tennis became the domain of the journeyman who didn’t have much of a baseline game and couldn’t return serve adequately.