A Pattern Is Not a Plan

A player I work with told me recently that he felt he did not have a plan when he played. He wanted to practise more patterns: two balls cross-court and one down the line, fixed combinations he could repeat in matches to feel less lost.

I knew exactly what he meant. When tennis feels chaotic, a pattern offers something solid to hold. But I spent a while sitting with the question, because something about the obvious answer did not quite sit right with me. Not because patterns are wrong by nature, but because I am not sure the kind of pattern he had in mind is the same thing as a plan.

I was playing myself not long after that conversation, and something became clearer to me. Having a plan, to me, means having clarity about what I am trying to create in the point. Not what sequence I am going to execute, but what situation I am trying to find, and what I want my opponent to feel.

What a Pattern Is Actually Saying

A pattern like “two cross-court balls, one down the line” sounds like a plan. It has structure, sequence, and a tactical flavour. But it tends to skip the more important question: what are those shots supposed to do?

Because “two cross-court balls” can mean very different things:

Heavy balls that push the opponent back and take time away
Wide balls that pull them off the court and open space
Deep balls that stop them from attacking
Weak balls that sit in the middle and invite pressure

Whether I played two cross-courts before going down the line matters much less than whether those balls actually did anything. And what if the first cross-court already does the damage? What if the opponent is already stretched, already off balance, already giving me the ball I was looking for? Should I play the second cross-court anyway, because the pattern says so?

“A pattern without a purpose is just choreography.”

The opponent is not a cone. They are someone who is solving their own problems, reading the situation, adapting, and sometimes refusing to cooperate with the script I had in mind.

What a Plan Actually Is

The alternative is not to play without structure. It is to play with a different kind of structure, one built around intention rather than sequence.

A plan is knowing what you want to create. What situations do I want to find? What situations do I want to avoid? What kind of tennis makes sense for me, with this opponent, on this day?

In my own game, I know I like to get short balls and finish points at the net. So my plan is not a sequence. My plan is a question: how can I make this opponent give me a shorter ball? Against one player, maybe I get it by playing heavy cross-court. Against another, by using slice, or by serving and volleying, or by bringing them forward first so they cannot retreat.

The intention stays relatively stable. The way there changes, because the game is constantly giving me new information.

A pattern tells you what to do before the point starts. A plan helps you understand what to look for while the point is happening.

When a Pattern Is Real

I do not want to leave the impression that patterns have no value, because some of the things I do regularly could reasonably be called patterns. Serve and volley is a pattern. Moonball to the backhand and come to the net is a pattern. But there is a why behind each of them, and that why is everything.

When I play a moonball to a particular player’s backhand, it is not because “moonball, then go forward” is a sequence I rehearsed. It is because I noticed that ball causes them trouble in a specific way: they retreat, they lose position, they cannot lob well from there, and the net becomes available. The ball creates conditions that make coming forward sensible, because of what it does to them. Then I watch what happens:

Does it hurt them?
Does it create space or time?
Does it allow me to move forward?
Or does it actually help them settle into the point?

If the same player handles the moonball easily, lobs comfortably, or steps forward to take control, then the same shot creates nothing useful. It is no longer a pattern worth using with this person.

The most useful patterns tend to emerge from understanding rather than from rehearsal. They come from recognising what kinds of shots cause what kinds of trouble, and what that trouble then makes available.

What Coaches Can Help Players Find

When a player asks for more patterns, what they are often really asking for is some certainty in a game that feels uncertain. The problem is that a memorised sequence can give the feeling of certainty without the understanding that would make it useful against a real person who is not cooperating with the script.

When a player says they do not have a plan, it might be more useful to help them build clarity in a different direction. Some questions worth exploring together:

What situations make you feel most comfortable on a tennis court?
What kind of ball usually creates those situations for you?
Where do you feel strong, and where do you feel exposed?
What does this particular opponent struggle with?
When does something stop working, and what usually tells you that?

These questions do not produce a fixed sequence. They produce a direction. And a direction can adapt as the match changes, because the match always changes.

“A plan is not a script. It is a direction, constantly updated by information.”

When a player develops that kind of clarity, patterns do appear. But the player is no longer using them because they are the pattern. They are using them because they have noticed something: this ball, to this player, in this situation, tends to open up what I am looking for. That kind of pattern is worth a great deal. Not because the sequence is correct, but because the understanding underneath it is real.

You might also enjoy: Why We Applaud Survival More Than Initiative and Practice Should Prepare You for the Game You Actually Play

References and Further Reading

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin.
Pinder, R. A., Davids, K., Renshaw, I., & Araújo, D. (2011). Representative learning design and functionality of research and practice in sport. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(1), 146–155.
Chow, J. Y., Davids, K., Button, C., & Renshaw, I. (2016). Nonlinear Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Renshaw, I., Davids, K., Newcombe, D., & Roberts, W. (2019). The Constraints-Led Approach: Principles for Sports Coaching and Practice Design. Routledge.