Mana Games

[CC]

I played Nadal in the French Open, and on clay, the slice worked very well, or so it seemed, to reduce the top spin of his return shots. I just played him on grass, and the effect was much less; on grass, even though I use the slice, his return shots are pretty high (a lot of top spin). Why is this? Is there another tactic for minimizing the top spin effect of the opponent?

[manutoo]

Hello,

on grass, the topspin effect isn't much annoying, coz the ball doesn't bounce too high, so you don't really need to counter it...

[CC]

OK, but I encounter just the opposite, in a way.

When I played Nadal in the French Open, his top spin was 100%, as it is now on grass. In the French Open, I used the slice a lot, and almost always, his return did not have much loop to it when I had used slice.

Now on grass, I am using slice, but his return shots have very much more top spin than they did on clay (where I also used slice). So, for me, it is just the opposite as you say, at least in terms of the effect that the slice is having on his top spin.

If I did not use slice on either clay or grass, I suppose then that his shots, as you say, would be more in a loop on clay than on grass, but that is not what I am seeing, because I am using slice. I am not using slice on grass just because I want to, but I am using it to try to minimize his top spin, which for me is still a problem on grass, but it is not working as it did on clay. So...why is that? Also, if slice worked well on clay for this but does not work well on grass, what else can I do, because the top spin is still bad on grass, at least for me.

[manutoo]

ouch
I just checked the code, and actually, I inverted the topspin strike choice between fast & slow surfaces. So what u experiment now on grass should actually happen on clay, and what u saw on clay should have happened on grass...
It'll be fixed with next update...

[CC]

That explains a lot! I had the hardest time playing Nadal on grass, whereas clay wasn't that bad. At least it wasn't my imagination. Yeah, his top spin was much worse on grass for me; I finally beat him by using the drop shot to bring him in and then try to pass him. Also, I had to hit the ball as hard as possible many times, and if I had to normally step in about halfway between the baseline and the service line to have any chance of hitting a winner.

I'll say again, the AI is great. Nadal, even on grass, hit some amazing tactical drop shots and slices just when needed, and just when he was in tight spots. It was very challenging, and he was only on mid-Junior level. I wouldn't stand a chance against Pro, at least not with my skills are they are. I guess that the game doesn't allow for young, talented players who actually may have incredible skill. Apparently, I have to play for a long time before I can have sufficiently high skills. I can't get the forehand, backhand, etc., to say above 65% or so. They are always lower when I have the chance to change them than I had last set them to due to the degradation that lack of training or whatever has. It must take quite a while to overcome this and actually reach a Pro level.

[btaylor]

CC...I read about your using the slice to successfully counter the high topspin shots (there's nothing wrong with your tennis IQ) and have since been having a lot of success using this tactic as well (it's something that I should have known anyway from real tennis ) but when playing against the CPU in in-game mode I never had the opponent's topspin set so high (over 65%) However the slice proved very useful when playing in the world tour mode (especially against the South Americans, Spaniards and Italians on red clay.) A word of caution: Many times when I'm trying to use the slice to probe for errors/weak shots or to change the pace during rallies (ala Federer) the CPU opponent frequently turns the tables on me and stikes either an overwhelmingly aggressive (fast) shot or a clean winner off of it. Ideally he shouldn't so often be able to strike such shots off of lower, harder-struck slices as it's an extremely low percentage shot to try (at least in real tennis.) In real tennis it's much easier to attack a SLOW slice that SITS UP after the bounce than it is to do the same with an aggressive HARD slice that STAYS LOW and skids. It's almost impossible to attack the hard low slice with a hard flat reply because of the topspin that is needed to clear the net and bring the ball down into the court. At best, the usual reply is to hit a neutralizing or defensive reply to stay in the point, NOT go for an outright winner...yet the CPU seems to FEAST on the hard skidding slice....

[CC]

btaylor:

Thank you for the information and comments. I'll watch out for the hard return. I've encountered many times, and it could have been after I had used a slice, where the CPU player returns with an extreme, fast slice that is greatly diagonal; it looks like about a 45% angle (or maybe a little less). The shot is angled so that it goes from the player's side to the opposite side, and it is short so that it hits inside my service line. Sometimes, it hits the net cord and rolls off. It's very hard to return.

[btaylor]

CC...Yeah, that shot which you described is virtually impossible to hit off of a slice in real life. The closest thing I've seen is the "squash" shot that many players, most notably Federer, jankovic, and Kim Cliisters used to great effect (usually to stay in the point when they have been pulled way wide of the court) One of the reasons that Fed was so dominant in the game is his ability to hit the short biting slice crosscourt to bring the topspinning baseliners away from their comfort zone into the frontcourt (net) where they are more vulnerable because of their poor volley skills. In TE09 that sequence is very hard to pull off (particularly against the CPU) because he simply swoops in effortlessly it seems and smacks the ball aggressively. In world tour qualifying tourneys against lower level (club) opponents I can sometimes win points by hitting a kind of dropshot/slice that brings them in to the net. These guys don't often get good pace on their reply which enables me to pass them. I doubt that I could get away with this tactic much against the higher levels because of the afore-mentioned reason.