Men's Tennis: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Can Help to Revive Attacking Style

As you know by now, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga made a great comeback in the Wimbledon quarterfinals 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. 

However, it was the manner of Tsonga’s comeback that was really impressive. Federer played a good match and his level didn’t actually drop much. 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 often do.

The style of play, which could be described as attacking tennis, is a rare sight in the men's game. 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, usually with 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 would include 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 big return games 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 slowing of grass at Wimbledon, hard courts becoming more medium paced, string technology, heavier balls 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 to 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.

Tsonga recently spilt with his longtime coach, Eric Winogradsky. The speculation being that Tsonga wants to play tennis a certain way, and his coach wanted him to more typical, primarily from the baseline.

It’s brave of Tsonga to be his own man and decide he wants to play the game a certain way and have the courage of his convictions to follow that up. A finals appearance at Queen's Club and a semifinals appearance at Wimbledon show that Tsonga is going in the right direction.   

Tsonga is also a crowd pleaser whose tennis really gets people excited. Even though he’s two-handed off the backhand, his big game and athleticism are reminiscent of Boris Becker. Tsonga is also not afraid to hit one-handed backhand winners when rushed.

In Rafael Nadal’s press conference, he said he felt sorry for Federer because Tsonga gave him no rhythm and was holding serve fairly comfortably, and he was holding serve so well, one break could decide the set. That’s the essence of attacking tennis, especially on grass. Matches are tight, opportunities rare and you have to be ready to take them. 

The game that’s currently played on grass more resembles clay, as there are opportunities for breaks of serve much more often than you would expect. That’s the type of game Nadal is comfortable with and likes, when his opponent gives him rhythm.

Tsonga is not the only player who prefers attacking tennis, however. Milos Raonic of Canada is another up and coming player who prefers attacking tennis as his stable strategy.

Raonic is a raw talent who’s very tall and has a great serve and likes to attack the net. Raonic needs to work on his return of serve and movement, but he definitely has potential as a Grand Slam contender in future.

If Tsonga remains inspired and beats Novak Djokovic to get into the Wimbledon finals, then it could really revive attacking tennis as a legitimate strategy.

In turn, this could inspire the more talented youngsters to look at this as a viable style of play in future.