Tight scorelines, squandered match points and smart shot selection: Recent pro matches show what matters most when a game hangs in the balance.
On the tennis court, victory or defeat is rarely determined by perfect shots alone. Far more often, the person who stays calm after setbacks, makes the right decisions, and adapts to the flow of the match comes out on top. Recent clashes from the WTA Finals in Indian Wells and the ATP Tour provide vivid examples of this. Whether it is world-class pros like Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff or Ben Shelton: The mechanisms behind tight sets and turning points can be applied directly to amateur matches.
A squandered match point or conceding a break completely rattles many recreational players. Coco Gauff's opening match against Jessica Pegula at the WTA Finals showed that even the absolute world elite experience such moments. According to reports from Tennis Majors and Ubitennis, Gauff failed to convert a match point at 6-5 in the second set and lost the tiebreak shortly after. In the deciding set, she nevertheless raced away to a 3-0 lead and won the match 6-4, 6-7, 6-2.
Gauff explained after the match that her mental approach made the difference: She tried to be neither too high nor too low, refocusing immediately after the lost match point. For you as an amateur player, this means: Losing a set or squandering a lead is no reason to give up. The decisive factor is the ability to completely forget the previous rally and view the next set as a fresh match.
Aryna Sabalenka also demonstrated in her match against Karolina Muchova how to deal with constant swings in momentum. As Tennis Majors reports, Muchova was up a break twice in the first set (3-2 and 5-4). Sabalenka countered both times with an immediate break back and finally clinched the set 7-2 in the tiebreak – even though Muchova had won every single tiebreak of the entire season up to that point. In the second set, Sabalenka was broken at 5-4 when serving for the match, but immediately secured the next break for a 7-5 victory.
Despite seven double faults, Sabalenka won 75 percent of her first-serve points and consistently capitalised on crucial opportunities on the return. This shows: Even if your own serve is shaky, a consistent return game keeps the pressure on your opponent. Getting annoyed about losing your own service games only wastes energy; chasing an immediate break back keeps you in the contest.
Being able to hit hard is far from enough to win a match. Top coaches on the ATP Tour also emphasise this point. Following Ben Shelton's defeat to Carlos Alcaraz in the final of the Paris Masters, Juan Carlos Ferrero spoke to the Spanish sports newspaper Marca. Ferrero, who will join Shelton's coaching team from 2027, sees shot selection above all as key, according to Tennis Majors: Shelton possesses enormous power and a big serve, but must learn to bring order to his game and choose the right weapon in every situation.
Ferrero referred to this aspect as reading the court and the invisible game. In addition, former pro Brad Gilbert pointed out on the Big T Podcast, according to Tennis365, that Shelton held a return game winning percentage of just 14.6 percent over the past 52 weeks – a figure that must improve at the top level. Karolina Muchova also announced ahead of her clash with Sabalenka, according to tennisnet.com, that she aimed to break the rhythm with slices in order to neutralise her opponent's heavy groundstrokes.
The lessons from the pros can be applied to club and tournament matches with simple adjustments:
Your takeaway: Forget squandered leads immediately and, when in doubt, rely on smart shot selection and solid returns rather than pure risk.
This article was generated automatically with AI from the sources listed above and has not been editorially reviewed.