Today we’re going to teach you the shots you need to master to win a match in Matchpoint Tennis Championships. This game is a fun alternative to real-life tennis. But somehow, it isn’t terribly realistic regarding difficulty and opponent skill – no matter what your opponent’s stats say.
Before we get into the best shots to win a match in Matchpoint Tennis Championships, we need to address the types of shots you can fire and when to use them. Tennis, even in virtual form, is very much a game of looking where your opponent is and aiming somewhere else. This counts for the front and back of the court as well as the left and right sides.
Essential shot modifiers for Matchpoint Tennis Championships
If you want to win a match in virtual tennis, play Matchpoint Tennis Championships. If you want to experience the sensation of abject failure at the hands of a skilled tennis player, play tennis against Amanda de Santa in GTA V. For now, we’ll address the former and show you the top shots in Matchpoint.
Volley shot
Volley shots depend on not only your opponent’s position on the court but also your own. This shot is most effective if you’re closer to the net or at the service line. A volley shot – like in volleyball – is when you hit the ball in such a way that it moves over the net and toward your opponent without touching the ground. Basically, this is the opposite of a groundstroke.
You can also use a volley shot if your opponent is close to the net and you’d prefer the ball to reach the end of their side of the court before they do. Who said there’s no racing in digital tennis?
Drop shot
A drop shot is where you hit the ball in such a way that the ball softly moves through the air and over the net, but at a velocity that decreases the ball’s trajectory so that it hits the ground just beyond the net on the opponent’s side. This is especially useful if you like watching your opponent run and they’re at the back of the court.
The best shots in Matchpoint Tennis Championships
Topspin
If you’ve ever played a match on a real court, you’ll know the explosive power of topspin. This is likely the shot to end all shots and the most important skill in your arsenal. Even though Matchpoint Tennis Championships isn’t the epitome of virtual tennis in terms of difficulty, you can still harness the power of topspin to win a match. The reason topspin is so important is that it lets you put more power behind your ball and maintain better quality repetitions.
Topspin is the exact opposite of the slice, which we’ll cover lower down. In real tennis, you have something called the Magnus effect coming into play when you employ topspin. The Magnus effect happens when the air around your ball acts as though it has the physical properties of viscous or sticky material, the forces of which it enacts on the ball.
You also have the rotation of the ball – the actual ‘spin’ – which, coupled with enough velocity and the viscous air, creates a stream in the ball’s wake that ejects and propels the ball upward. The great thing about topspin in Matchpoint Tennis Championships is that you don’t need any real-life skill to execute it like a pro. All you need to do is mash the right buttons.
With a little practice and decent controller… um… control, you’ll make the virtual effects of topspin work in your favor and fire absolute rockets at your opponent. You can fire topspin as either a ground stroke or volley with the volley modifier.
Flat shot
This is by far one of the easiest shots to serve in Matchpoint Tennis Championships All that flat shot means is that you’re sending the ball back at your opponent at a neutral level.
This means when you hit the ball in Matchpoint Tennis Championships, you hit it in such a manner that it moves through the air at a horizontal angle. A flat shot is the best choice if you want your opponent to have as little time to react as possible. This is not an observe-and-respond type of shot.
This is a brutal cannon fire shot for a near-certain win, depending on where you fire and how quick your opponent’s reflexes are. In the game, you’ll be playing primarily against NPCs unless you enjoy the critically under-featured multiplayer game component. NPCs should be fairly easy to knock out with a flat shot.
There isn’t really any intricate physics behind a flat shot. Essentially, the ball comes toward you, and you smash it back at your opponent with the far superior speed that a flat shot provides.
Slice shot
This is a fairly simple shot to grasp and, as we surmised earlier, the opposite of topspin. With this shot, your goal is to send the ball careening toward your opponent with a tricky-to-respond-to dose of sidespin. That’s right, instead of the viscous air created by your angle of delivery resulting in a ball that spins upward, your ball will spin sideways.
The way this works in real-life tennis is that your racket brushes the side of the ball instead of hitting it head-on. This causes the ball’s spin direction to shift, as well as changes the way the ball will bounce unless skillfully delivered as a volley shot.
The Matchpoint Lob
Remember that move we discussed in the beginning where you try and get your ball to beat your opponent to the far end of the court? This is that. Essentially, your goal with a lob shot is for the ball to literally go over your opponent’s head. Ironic terminology, given how easy this shot is to perform.
The lob shot can be a little problematic, though; if you hit the ball with too little velocity and it doesn’t ‘lob’ like it’s supposed to, you’ll boost your opponent’s confidence and give them a really easy hit.
Confidence obviously isn’t a problem when faced with an NPC. I believe they’re dead inside. Fun fact: being creeped out or made to feel uncomfortable by NPCs that don’t respond like humans do is called the Uncanny Valley Effect.
