Inspired by the song Pressure Drop by Toots and the Maytals, here are 10 things you can do to drop the pressure on your opponents.

1. Be relentless with no loose points or lapses in concentration. Be focused and disciplined on every point. Make a commitment to run down everything and convince yourself that if you get a racquet on the ball, it is coming back. Scrap for every point making it difficult for your opponent to get any kind of foothold into the match.
2. Pressure your opponent with an imposing and powerful serve (the ultimate weapon in your arsenal). Power is definitely an important component for a “big” serve but just as important is your ability to hit targets and vary pace, spin and direction to keep your opponent off-balance and indecisive. Place emphasis on holding your serve. Every time you hold your serve (particularly when serving first in rotation), you apply pressure on your opponent to likewise hold serve to stay in the match.
3. Exert pressure by playing on or inside the baseline. Take the ball early and on the rise (as necessary). Approach balls hit out wide on the diagonal to cut off angles. Use a positional advantage to take time away and make your opponent rush his/her shots.
4. Be unpredictable. Modify your position when returning serve. Disorientate the line of vision and depth perception of your opponent by returning serves from a position inside the baseline and others from a position further back. Close into the net with your serves and serve returns. Fall back with others. Manipulate these and other factors you can control (such as spin, pace, depth, direction, net clearance and trajectory) to disrupt rhythm and make your opponent confused and uncertain.
5. Apply pressure by pouncing and attacking any ball left short and/or hit to the middle of the court. Look to specifically attack second serves (which in many cases provides one of your best opportunities to attack) or any serve you can drive from a position of strength. Look to close as tight to the net as possible with your volleys and use this forward momentum to finish the point with decisive and crisp volleys (affording no chance for your opponent to stay in the point).
6. Look to take as many shots as possible with your strongest shot. Set up patterns favoring your strongest shot. Look to gain a positional advantage to create opportunities to hit your strongest shot. Use your best shot as a weapon to dictate play.
7. Be consistent. If your strength is a high shot threshold and an ability to get balls back in play, do everything possible to extend the rally to make your opponent hit one more shot. Play solid, high percentage tennis by hitting with high margin to big targets.
8. Control the tempo and pace of play. Be strategic and deliberate in the time you take between serves and during changeovers taking more or less time as necessary. Lower net clearance and increase stroke velocity to up rally pace or absorb pace with spin and increase net clearance to lower rally pace.
9. Control your emotions. Exude confidence and joy. Show no sign of weakness or doubt. Be positive with your self-talk, body language and demeanor.
10. Manage the score and the risk/reward dynamics. Recognize how to identify and play pivotal points. Learn when to be aggressive and when to lockdown refusing to make a mistake. Be bold and unfaltering when ahead in the score. Be decisive and focused on the process and not the outcome when closing out a game, set and/or match. Fight and dig when behind in the score. Take advantage of the psychological advantage gained and the potential for a momentum swing after saving one or more breakpoints. Learn how to establish and reestablish momentum and how to navigate the natural up and down flows in a match to your benefit.

I say, a pressure drop, oh pressure

Oh yeah, pressure drop, a drop on you

I say, a pressure drop, oh pressure

Oh yeah, pressure drop, a drop on you

Toots and the Maytals, 1968

Objective: Learn how to close into the net behind the serve and serve return and in transition from the baseline with the goal of concluding each point with a volley or overhead.

1. Establish a mentality of constant pressure and attack. Look for every opportunity to close into the net with the goal of concluding the point with a volley or overhead. Maintain a commitment to closing into the net despite setbacks with the understanding the goal is not to win every point but most of the points. Recognize how an aggressive campaign of closing and attacking with every shot disrupts rhythm and exerts pressure on your opponent particularly on key points of a match.
2. Work on your ability to hit the three key targets and control pace, spin and net clearance with your serve to create an opportunity to move into the net with the serve to conclude the point at the net (or should you stay back, to provide an opportunity to come into the net with an approach shot off of the serve return). Work on your ability to take pace off the ball with spin to afford more time to close into a tighter position at the net for your first volley. Learn how to vary your serve to keep your opponent off balance and unable to gain any advantage with the return.
3. Work on your footwork and line of approach to the net following the serve and serve return and when closing with an approach shot. Work on your ability to better anticipate and gauge the shot response of your opponent.
4. Work on executing serve and volley (closing into the net with the serve), delayed serve and volley (delay closing into the net after the serve either to disguise your intent to close or to wait to determine the strength or weakness of the return) patterns. Rehearse serve and approach shot patterns with both your forehand and backhand.
5. Work on your ability to neutralize the serve with your serve return. Learn how to attack or create opportunities to control the point with your serve return. Learn how to close into the net with the return to conclude the point with a volley or overhead. Work on executing serve return and close into the net, serve return, wait and then close (closing into the net after recognizing serve return will likely elicit a weak reply) and serve return and stay back patterns. Practice hitting your serve return from different positions on the court (on or inside the baseline and progressively further back behind the baseline). Learn how and when to vary the serve return spin, pace, net clearance, trajectory and location to disrupt the rhythm of the server.
6. Work on your ability to transition from defense to offense. Work on attacking short and mid-court balls. Work on hitting and closing into the net with the shot (approach and volley), hitting and holding your position (or readjusting your position) to take the next shot on the ground if necessary and hitting, waiting and then closing (into the net) patterns. Work also on your ability to close into the net from a baseline position. Learn how to vary spin, pace, net clearance, trajectory and location target for your shots and shot combinations.
7. Work on your ability to hit your targets with your volleys with emphasis on target accuracy with your first volley. Learn how best to execute your volley and where to place your volley when taking the ball below and above the net height. Learn how to push your opponent back and how to draw your opponent in with your volley(s). Learn how to finish the point with soft and hard angles. Learn how to keep the ball down with your volley forcing your opponent to hit the ball up to your strike zone.
8. Work on your ability to conclude the point with the overhead. Learn how to extend your range of coverage with your overhead (how to kick back and take deep lobs in the air before the bounce). Learn also how to defend and return lobs that clear your reach.
9. Learn how to take the ball early not just when at or approaching the net but in your execution of all shots. Learn how to take the ball on the rise, how to cut off angles, play on or inside the baseline and establish forward momentum behind every shot. Learn how to take time away from your opponents by closing, taking the ball early and hitting from a positional advantage on or inside the baseline. Utilize this tactic to rush and disrupt the rhythm of your opponents. Be relentless and committed to moving forward despite errors. As noted earlier, the goal is not to be perfect and win every point but to win most of the points.
10. Learn how to employ or incorporate serve and volley and serve return and volley tactics not consistently as an overall game plan but strategically and selectively as dictated by the score, in recognition of a specific vulnerability to exploit such as a deep return position by your opponent, as a change of pace to disrupt rhythm, to take advantage of unique playing conditions such as a strong headwind when serving, etc.

Objective

Learn how to dictate play with an aggressive baseline style of play.

1. Learn how to control the baseline. Work the point to hit most of your groundstrokes on or just inside the baseline. Learn how to take the ball early always looking to move forward. Work on your ability to hit the ball on the rise to maintain a strong court position. Learn how to use your position on the court to take time away from your opponent.
2. Work on your ability to generate pace and hit penetrating shots through the court. Learn also how to absorb and vary pace with spin as necessary.
3. Work on your ability to raise the height of your ball and hit with depth and topspin to push your opponent back and in turn, establish or reestablish a positional advantage on the court.
4. Work on your ability to close after opening the court to finish the point with a volley, swinging volley, mid-court groundstroke drive or overhead. Learn how to anticipate when your opponent is likely to hit a short ball or hit a ball up affording you the opportunity to move in to capitalize. Work on your ability to not allow your opponent time to recover after each exchange of shots.
5. Work on your footwork, court coverage and positioning to cover the baseline. Learn how to take the most direct, forward line to the ball. Learn how to run around your forehand to hit inside/out forehand drives with angle and/or depth and inside/in forehand drives for depth.
6. Work on your ability to hit targets with your serve to set up opportunities to finish the point with one more shot. Learn how to execute different serve first-strike patterns.
7. Work on your ability to hit targets with your serve return to set up opportunities to finish the point with one more shot. Learn how to execute different serve return first-strike patterns.
8. Work on your ability to hit all four key targets (two deep, corner and two short, angle targets) with your groundstrokes and volleys. Learn how to execute cross-court and down-the-line patterns hitting to these four targets to create openings and opportunities to successfully conclude the point. Focus on your ability to open the court with redirection and angles.
9. Work on your intensity and focus and your ability to sustain a relentless attack from the baseline with controlled aggression. Controlled aggression requires looking to maintain advantage by systematic, sustained pressure not by looking to end every point with a quick strike. Controlled aggression requires hitting with acceleration and length, hitting with heavy spin as necessary for margin, hitting to big primarily cross-court targets and hitting over the middle of the net. At the same time, it requires being bold and decisive and going for a shot to end the point when given the right opportunity.
10. Learn how to exude confidence and how to establish command with your on-court presence. Appear bold and decisive in your demeanor in alignment with your on-court aggressive baseline style of play. Learn how to bolster confidence with positive self-talk and body language. Learn how to control the tempo of a match to apply perceived pressure on your opponent by managing the pace of play. Be deliberate but tactical in how much time you take to start each point with your serve with the goal of dictating the flow of the match on your terms.

Objective

With specific purposeful training and match play application, develop an ability to get the ball in play with consistency and depth for the serve, groundstrokes, volleys and overheads for both singles and doubles.

1. Work on your control of net clearance. Increase your margin for error by hitting four to seven feet above the net for your rally balls. Focus specifically on making no mistakes in the net. Eliminating mistakes in the net can improve consistency considerably. Learn how to raise the height of the ball with a lob or semi-lob in response to a difficult “get” to allow time to recover back into position.
2. Work on your footwork. Keep your feet constantly moving with multiple adjustment steps in preparation for each shot. Work on your multi-directional speed and agility to run down every shot. Work on your scrambling skills and “hands” (your ability to manipulate the angle of the racquet face) to retrieve difficult shots (including difficult to anticipate errant or misdirected shots).
3. Work on your depth and the margin established by depth. Develop the ability to consistently hit past the service line (preferably having the ball bounce midway between the service line and the baseline). Work predominantly to the middle of the court (middle 1/3 of the court) particularly to get into the rally.
4. Work on developing a sound stroke pattern for the groundstrokes with a long extension through the strike zone and a consistent finish and look to your stroke. Keep your head down at the point of contact (through the finish of the stroke) to maintain your racquet plane and to ensure solid and consistent contact in the sweet spot of the racquet and extension of the racquet through the hitting zone
5. Learn how to control the pace to your preferred tempo and rhythm. Work on maintaining a manageable pace. Learn how to take pace off the ball (with spin) when the tempo of the rally starts getting out of control.
6. Work on your shot tolerance (your ability to stay in a rally or point for as many shots as necessary). Do everything possible to make your opponent hit one more shot. Work on your focus and discipline to get a racquet on every ball. Adopt a mindset that if you get a racquet on the ball you are able to get it back in play.
7. Work on your ability to stay in a point by maintaining the direction and angle of each shot. Learn how to maintain direction by hitting over the middle part of the net (using the center strap as reference). Improve consistency by hitting to big targets. Work also redirecting the ball down-the-line with consistency. Make sure to create margin and not force a mistake out wide of the sideline when redirecting a shot down-the-line. With down-the-line redirection, account for the difference in net height and establish a hitting line that has the ball clearing the opposing baseline at a perpendicular angle.
8. Learn how to develop a rhythm and flow to your game by focusing on the ball and the bounce for a mind-body connection. Work on developing a fluid, effortless, tension free style of play with a relaxed and lively hitting arm. Be conscious of the small details such as relaxing your grip and supporting the racquet with your non-hitting hand between shots to reduce both tension and fatigue.
9. Work on getting your first serve in play. With the goal of establishing a defensive, consistent style of play, target to be able to maintain a 1^st serve percentage of 75% or higher. Consistently getting the first serve in play helps to maintain your rhythm for the ensuing rallies and point exchanges and supports a game plan for consistency, depth and your ability to “grind”. Conversely, struggling with the serve or going for too much on the first serve (without positive results) can be disruptive and counterproductive for a player looking to be consistent. Equally important, in singles work on getting your return of serve back in play preferably deep to the middle of the court or crosscourt (maintaining the direction of the serve). Ideally as a consistent player you would like to get every serve back in play but more realistically, target to get 80% or more 1^st serves back in play and 90% or more of 2^nd serves back in play.
10. Work on being purposeful in practice and training with the focus being repetition. Do cross-court and down-the-line rallies with depth using primarily your outside stroke. Simple counting also works for consistency and rhythm. There are many cooperative drills and point situations to improve consistency. One example of a cooperative point situation is a drill where two players are required to hit X number of shots in play before playing out each point. It helps establish the rally and promotes rhythm, patience and discipline. Another example is an offense-defense role playing point situation where one player on defense looks to extend the rally beyond x number of shots while at the same time the other player on offense looks to end the point in less than x number of shots. Work on your consistency in match play for both singles and doubles. Look to work the point with a high shot threshold to improve your consistency under the pressure of competition.

Objective

With specific purposeful training and match play application, master the ability to cover the full dimension of the court with efficiency, dynamic balance and agility in movement to the ball and in recovery after the shot in the process of hitting groundstrokes, volleys and overheads and in movement after hitting the serve. Demonstrate control of all footwork patterns required to facilitate court coverage. Learn how to cover the court for both singles and doubles.

1. Learn how to take the most direct line to the ball to reduce the amount of court to cover. Ensure to make accommodation to ensure proper spacing for stroke execution. Work on taking the ball early to reduce the time your opponent has to respond.
2. Work on footwork patterns to the ball and in recovery after the shot. Learn how to execute and apply a drop step (to initiate the first step to the ball), crossover steps, shuffle steps, skip step (in aligning feet), double skip step (in driving forward with an approach shot or in attacking a short ball with the forehand), carioca steps (most often used when approaching the net with a down-the-line slice backhand), adjustment steps, split step, dynamic split step (where you split and turnout to initiate the first move to the ball), one foot and two feet pivot steps (to generate ground and rotational force for the forehand groundstroke), jump step (to attack a high ball up and out of your standard strike zone), scissor kick (for the overhead), and (for lack of a better word) a corkscrew step (where you step back, load and kick up and out in response to a ball hit high, deep and slightly behind you). Learn how to transition from one footwork pattern to another and how to transition out of a footwork step pattern. Work on your ability to hit from closed stance, semi-open stance and open stance with the forehand and backhand groundstrokes.
3. Work on linear and multi-directional court coverage – up, back, left and right. On average, spend 70% of your focus on lateral movement, 20% on forward movement and 10% on backward movement (with variation based on your playing style and specific needs). Learn how to move forward to take balls with momentum inside the baseline including closing into the net following your serve (serve and volley). Work on moving forward to dig out balls hit short. Work on leading with both the left foot and right foot with the choice of which foot to lead with depending on your intention to move forward, hold your ground or retreat back after hitting the shot. Learn how to move back in response to deep balls. Work on running down lobs. Work on moving back to hit overheads. Work on lateral and diagonal movement to the ball for volleys and groundstrokes hitting with both open and closed stances. Work on coverage patterns and point situations requiring three to five changes of direction per exchange (the average number of changes of direction you would expect to encounter each point).
4. Learn how to slide when stretched on court surfaces conducive to sliding. Work on timing the slide into the shot. Learn how to lower your center of gravity. Learn how to apply equal pressure with the ball and heel of your front or lead foot in initiating the slide. Learn how to adjust pressure with the lead foot, flex the back leg and drag your toes to control the slide. Work on recovering after the slide and execution of the shot in anticipation of the next shot.
5. Work on recovering after the shot to an ideal position on the court bisecting the angle of shot options for your opponent left and right. Work also on recovering to a position that allows coverage of balls hit both short and deep. Learn how to recognize tendencies to better anticipate the location of each shot by your opponent. Learn how to establish a position on the court with each shot that plays to your strengths (provides you with the best opponent to hit your strongest shots). Learn when it is best to fall back in a more defensive posture, when to close in on top of the baseline and when to close into the net.
6. Work on acceleration to the ball (quick, explosive movement) and deceleration as you approach and prepare the feet for stroke execution (contact). Deceleration ideally includes short, abbreviated adjustments steps to position the body in preparation for the shot. It also includes a gathering of your feet (not necessarily a full stop) as for example when you are closing to hit an approach shot.
7. Work on your ability to successfully execute all shots from any position on the court. Establish and maintain an exchange from different positions on the court (ranging from up close to the net to a position well behind the baseline) and in transition up and back, left and right. Develop the ability to be agile with your footwork utilizing adjustment and other footwork patterns to get into an ideal position in relation to the ball to execute each and every shot. Establish control of the contact point in relation to the bounce hitting the ball on the rise, as the ball peaks or as the ball drops into your strike zone as required by your position on the court.
8. Work on your anticipation, ability to get a read on what to expect with each shot from your opponent. Work on recognizing cues for location, depth, spin and pace of the serve of your opponent based on the toss, grip changes, path of the swing and tendencies of the server. Learn the most likely shot option by your opponent based on the location and characteristics of your prior shot. Understand the concept of mirroring and the expectation that opponents often match the height, trajectory, spin and pace of your prior shot, particularly if they have difficulty changing pace, spin and trajectory, taking the ball on the rise and adjusting to balls outside their strike zone. Look at the grip your opponent uses in preparation to return your serve. A backhand or continental grip indicates your opponent may be looking to block or chip the return back in play. Identify your opponent’s grip, take back and stance with the groundstrokes. How your opponent prepares for each shot provides cues for ball direction, spin, pace, trajectory, etc. Recognize basic patterns of play and playing styles of your opponents. Does your opponent have a high shot threshold? Under what situations does your opponent look to pull the trigger and go for something more offensive? Recognize how quickly your opponent gets to the ball and how this impacts his/her ability to control the location and depth of his/her shot. For example, a player getting to a short ball late is more likely to pop the ball up and/or drop it short. There are more things to look for (some of which become instinctive) but the key takeaway is to be engaged and observant.
9. Work on your ability to recover between points and during changeovers to sustain your level of intensity and foot speed, balance and agility through an entire match. Use the 20 or 25 seconds afforded between points to take slow, deep controlled breaths through your nose. Focus on a long exhale. The process helps regulate your heart rate, resupplies oxygen to your lungs and serves to calm the mind in preparation for the next point.
10. Improve your court coverage with repeated success of specific shot sequences and patterns. Make an effort to get to every ball. Establish a work effort and intensity in all practice situations. Demonstrate speed and agility in practice with execution of progressively more difficult and complex shot requirements and patterns. Play point situations with defined movement patterns and shot requirements. Develop skill by playing matches versus opponents with different styles, strengths and weaknesses. Test ability to cover the court with efficiency and skill under the pressure of competition.