Strategy

Stay Consistent

Consistency is about playing within your abilities. Many players try to hit shots that are too good. Aiming at the lines, or trying to thread a winner past a doubles player at the net are two examples of trying to be too good. One of the easiest ways to dramatically improve your consistency, and decrease your error rate is to practice aiming for the "half-of-the-half". This strategy involves dividing the court into two halves:

Half of the Half

In the above image a singles court is divided in half by the first yellow line to give half a tennis court (ie: the deuce or ad side). The idea behind hitting to the "half-of-the-half" is to aim your shots down the middle of this half court (ie: the image on the right). If you "miss" the half of the half you'll have two possible results: you'll hit a great shot (ie: one that is closer to the line), or your ball will be neutral (ie: towards the middle of the court). Neither of which is a horrible outcome. However, if you aimed for the line the probability of hitting the ball out is much higher. Professionals are good enough that they can shrink the court even more by dividing it into further halves. In other words, their margin for error is much lower. For beginners and intermediates the larger the margin of error the better.

This technique is also very useful if you are playing poorly. If your strokes are missing by a lot, increase the size of the court by aiming at more realistic targets. Some days you may have to aim every ball right down the middle of the court, other days at the "half ot the half" and other days you may be in the "zone" and able to aim shots directly at the lines with very few misses.

Doubles

Poaching

Poaching is a doubles strategy that allows the net player on the serving side (ie: the "poacher" in the image below) to take advantage of weak returns. The question is when should you poach? There are several times when poaching is very advantageous and the include:

(1) The returner is hitting weak returns crosscourt.
(2) Every return is being hit crosscourt with few attempts to pass down the line.
(3) The server is missing a lot of first volleys, or is having trouble getting to net.
(4) To pressure the returner to hit a ball down the line if this is not their strength.

The mechanics of poaching are very simple. The poacher cuts in front of the server to hit a the return that is coming back crosscourt. The intention of poaching is to put the ball away. In essence, the poacher is cutting off the crosscourt return before it has time to get back to the server.

Poaching

Poaching is very useful if the returner is hitting every return crosscourt. By poaching you force the returner to at least think about returning down the line, which they may be uncomforable doing. This can lead to more errors off the return. It also takes some of the pressure off your partner's (ie: the server) first volley.

This video demonstrates a poach. Notice how the net player on the server's side cuts across the court and knocks off a weak return: