Match Tips
Tahl Leibovitz
8/15/2007

One thing we really have to think about is that a match takes only 10 to 15 minutes. The five or ten years that you were playing before the match mean nothing. The player you are playing against has probably never seen your style or if they have they have, they haven’t played you that many times in a pressure situation. Tournaments change everything. I don’t care if you lose to someone in practice every day ten times a day, tournaments are different. It’s a fresh start.

If you win a point, continue exploiting the weakness over and over until you lose a point. Play the same point fifteen times if you have to. Once your opponent adjusts, then do something else. Most likely they will not be able to improve a weak part of their game in fifteen minutes when it has taken them a good number of years to screw it up in the first place.

Here is a tip that will improve your tournament performances by 50%: It’s called “dictating”. The player that dictates during the match always has a better chance to win the match. Dictating means that you decide what your opponent is going to do or play. Let’s say that I smash the ball at 100 miles an hour. That would be completely insane, but my opponent has to try and block. So, I’m dictating. Of course, if you dictate with high risk, that’s actually called stupidity. You have to dictate in a match using placement, control, and tactics. Make a defensive player loop, make a looper block, make a blocker attack. Force them to play into your game and out of theirs.

If I play anyone under 2700 and I serve short heavy backspin to their forehand and the next ball I give a heavy topspin to their backhand, then I am dictating the game or forcing my game on them. If they have a weak backhand, and I keep pinning them on their backhand and playing to an area where they are uncomfortable, then I am increasing their discomfort which will lead to them trying risky shots. I see too many players playing directly into the strength of their opponent and then just trying to hit the ball harder. We have one word for this type of player: Brain dead. Well, maybe that is two words. Be smart, play smart, and play with STIGA

Tahl Leibovitz’s Equipment

[Playing Tips.]