movement online matches

[Rusty96]

@Rob92: Yes, I watched this match already. Basically, the only thing which I see they are doing different to me is that they are able to run in the direction in which the shot goes earlier than me. They just seem to be able to anticipate it so early but I don't really believe I can see the direction as early as they do.
Beyond this I see that they simply seem to be able to run faster. They reach shots I could never reach even when I anticipate the opponents shot perfectly. I just don't know what they do different there.

[Robbin92]

@Rob92: Yes, I watched this match already. Basically, the only thing which I see they are doing different to me is that they are able to run in the direction in which the shot goes earlier than me. They just seem to be able to anticipate it so early but I don't really believe I can see the direction as early as they do.
Beyond this I see that they simply seem to be able to run faster. They reach shots I could never reach even when I anticipate the opponents shot perfectly. I just don't know what they do different there.

All the top players have thicker keyboards or controllers so that they can press the arrow buttons deeper. The deeper you press, the more speed you get.
You will have to buy a new keyboard or controller which allows you to get maximum speed.

[C4iLL]

Lol you should have not started in that way Robbin... Let's call Tdbchess, he has the record of keyboard purchased on the tour (more than 10, all sorts possible !)

[Rusty96]

So I can't win with ps4 controller because I can't move analog stick wide enough to the sides? Seriously?

[djarvik]

I admit, I bought only one Gaming keyboard. I tried Xbox controller and PS3. Tried Xbox one controller and it worked best from controllers. But I hate to resync it with Xbox every time. So I am sticking with keyboard.

I am sure there is a good percentage of TE players who have purchased a new keyboard or a controller thinking that might solve their problem......I don't think it did anything at all.

@Rob92: Yes, I watched this match already. Basically, the only thing which I see they are doing different to me is that they are able to run in the direction in which the shot goes earlier than me. They just seem to be able to anticipate it so early but I don't really believe I can see the direction as early as they do.
Beyond this I see that they simply seem to be able to run faster. They reach shots I could never reach even when I anticipate the opponents shot perfectly. I just don't know what they do different there.

I know you didn't address it to me, but I could not resist.

- they position better then you do
- they react correctly to incoming balls
- they react faster then you
- they recover for the next shot faster then you
- they position themselves better so the ball hist the strings thus...
- ...producing better, deeper shots
- they create angles (short accels) better and more often then you
- they serve better then you
- they return better then you

and so on.

You use the word "only" as if this is one little tiny detail that you don' do well. Its a harsh truth, but they do EVERYTHING better then you. If you can see it - then you know what you can strive to and how much you still need to improve. If you don't see it - then I am afraid you need more time with the game to better understand how it works. I see no other answer.

[Rob92]

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[Rusty96]

@djarvik: I don't agree that my opponents serve better than me and also not that they hit more often and vetter short accel shots. The rest is true, though the most of it is the movement.

[PO]

Hello Everybody,
Well I am certainly not a pro player of this game at the moment (maybe an average or far below I don't know ), but this topic get my interest and I wanted to share my own opinions on this one.

I also had and still have all these movement problems etc., but I think the key to progress is putting a lot time and effort on offline training. Once, I openned up a topic maybe 7 months ago (I've been playing this game since 8-9 months) asking "Am I good enough to compete online??". Thanksfully, Pidzi and C4iLL gave me some indications and their suggestion was that I should be able to at least handle master 10 comfortably to be able to have competitive challenges in world tour (at futures and challengers). At that time I was barely winning against pro 8. Master 10 seemed like a very high mountain to climb but now, I am able to beat Incredible 5 most of the time with breaks etc.

I did not sign up to play any sim tour match till Miami ATP 1000 (it was like 2-3 weeks ago) as I think I was not ready but I really like this game and try to get the most fun out of it when I have the chance so I signed up for Miami ATP 1000. Unfortunately my opponent was Isaldor. Not a good test for a first timer. He obviously took care of me pretty comfortably (6-1 6-0). This was my first official match, and I felt like nothing was working against him. This week I signed up for another tournament (Spain F10 50+) and played just my 2nd official match and I won 6-4 6-2 against pat_ca. Was a good match against him from my side, had no BP faced, and had a lot BP chances. This was my 100-110th online match in total and it was like 250th for him. Obviously he plays online more often than I do but still, most of the time I was able to be on top of his shots through out the match and that gave me the "W".

So Rusty96, maybe (more likely) you are a better or at least should be a better player than me as you already pointed that you spent a lot of hours on this game and claiming it is getting nowhere, but I have to disagree with you on this even tough I'm a beginner. I agree with all the other guys, that there is a BIG room for improvement in this game and it will start to happen if you try to do what they suggest. Because I can tell you that I'm faster, better striker, better server than I used to be 2-3 months ago and still, I know that if I had to play against a top player today, they will most likely give me two bagels to eat without sweating but thats okay, I enjoy the level I'm at right now. I don't need to be a top player.

Just try to have fun in the first place and if you do, you will soon start to get better. Wish you good luck with all my heart.

[PO]

@djarvik: I don't agree that my opponents serve better than me and also not that they hit more often and vetter short accel shots. The rest is true, though the most of it is the movement.

Well further to my previous post, I can't help myself to not share my experience I had in our match against Rusty96 yesterday. It was a F10 50+ Round16 match. After I read all the stuff on this post, I had the idea that Rusty96 should be a better player than I do as he insisted that his only problem is movement (which all the beginners have obviously). He is clearly thinking that he generally has the better serve, better short accels etc. than his opponents but to be honest he does not. Yesterday I won against him 6-1 6-3 with no BP faced. The match was all under my control the whole time. His serves are predictable and weak in general. He is not going for the short accels when he has the time to do it. His returns are very weak. So basically he cannot put his opponents under any sort of pressure. And all in all I was drunk literally. With this type of play it is really hard to win official matches online I think.

So referring to Djarviks post,

- they position better then you do
- they react correctly to incoming balls
- they react faster then you
- they recover for the next shot faster then you
- they position themselves better so the ball hist the strings thus...
- ...producing better, deeper shots
- they create angles (short accels) better and more often then you
- they serve better then you
- they return better then you

I am the living proof of this and I know that still I'm not an average player at all but just an inspired beginner.

[Rusty96]

As you said my serves are predictable I tried to learn to have more variety on serve.
As I am playing/directing shots/moving with the analog stick of my ps4 controller I have to put it in the middle of the two things i want to do ( up is slice,down kick, left and right is clear). Well I saw slice so up left/right is working well but when I want to make a kick serve ( down, left/right) it doesn't react to my placement instruction (left/right). The kick serves just go more or less towards the middle of the serve spot.

To the thing of faster movement. I always feel like my player needs an awfully long time to switch running direction so when i am moving to the left and want to change his running direction 180° he needs almost 1 second to stop and start running in this direction after I started pressing the new direction.

What I recognized over the months as well is that good player get my drop shots but I don't get theirs even if mine are as good as theirs. Their players run very fast to the net/drop shot and my player is often running fast and should get the ball easily but is running in slow motion just before being at the ball and eventually fails to get there.

[C4iLL]

Try to play with a higher resolution in game it can help you to have more depth and run faster/make the game slower).
Maybe your screen is too small, maybe your pad has not a good reaction... Could be a lot of things. Anyway try keyboard (not in USB if possible : so the natural keyboard of a laptop, or if it's a PC, on your PS/2 port).

[Rusty96]

I don't like playing with keyboard. I always played every game with gamepad and when I tried keyboard it always felt pretty bad, is no fun.

[Sean P]

Hi Rusty,
I know exactly what you mean. I have experienced this problem too.

My opponents always seem to have more time than me and when I do get on the ball my shots are too often flat or soft lacking both power and depth while their shots are the complete opposite this happens even though I have time to hold/charge the button. This isn’t a positional problem, for when I pounce on a lazy short ball with nice height and step in to hold for a cross court short accel or accel I find a clear difference in power from when my opponent is in the same position, or not! Another example is when I hit power serves on the edge of the corner only to see them come back, with interest, across the court and I can barely flinch. When I try to return a serve I press auto-pos I look for the reaction of my player using my peripheral vision and when the serve is released I look for the little hint in movement and move that but in a flash the ball is almost beyond me and if I can get something on it its usually a soft ball straight to the middle of the court. So in essence I barely have enough time to reach the ball never-mind get in front then hold the button and select a direction (which I am under the impression this is what my opponents are doing, when I am serving it looks as though my opponent has a clear 1 second+ more time to react than me not only are they getting onto my serves (200mph+) but they are SMASHING them across court either flat and hard (a B1+2 return) or push me long to the far corner with curved depth (with a Normal or Topspin shot) so it is really confusing, I am trying over and over in practice (AI on very hard) and online but the same thing is happening I cannot find those extra milliseconds from anywhere so this is not something that I can learn for each day there is no improvement.
This led me to start asking around and reading whatever information I can pick up and the same answers keep popping up, that my opponents are more experienced and that I need to play more. Well, I did take that advice on board and I am trying all sorts of things to improve my speed and timing but in the end it doesn't really matter as my opponents seem to be able to do more with less time which leaves me really confused.

So again I come back looking for advice and have listened to some of the advice the great players on here have had to offer but it has not helped me and although they tell me I need more practice (some stating years!) I feel it really shouldn't take that long for a smart person to grasp the finer things when explained in detail. I am testing for hours on end with different players and checking which shots have which effect under given conditions and I still arrive at the same conclusion so this made me think that is was something else. For I know my angles and I know my shot positioning (I used Dev On and checked sweet spot and can hit 0.00 for nearly all my shots and still they come up short in terms of power and depth). So I looked elsewhere for answers and here’s what I came up with…

Firstly, I use an analogue stick (Playstation2) and after each defeat I would ask whether my opponent used keys or controller and ALL responded that they used Keys (I have yet to meet another control user online) so this made me question whether using the controller could be slower than keys so I tested this. I measured my shots with analogue and then using keys, I would mark my position on screen for each shot and after about 30 mins of testing different shots and measuring screen speed it was clear that using keys gave me a clear edge in terms of player reaction speed, shot distance, angle and timing. Now this was for me personally, I hear other great players like Richie use a controller but I have no idea which setup he uses. Personally I am using a PS2 controller with a converter in a USB port connected to my monitor so I'm sure there are some small interference issues regarding signal speed and also direct input speed. I would love to ask Richie about his setup to find out more because I simply cannot use keys.

Anyway, I thought to myself that if I could just get my controller to mimic the keyboard then perhaps I could harness its speed. This led me to look around for programs that could do this and one such program was Xpadder. So after some quick configuration I set up my PS2 pad to emulate my keyboard and guess what? There is a gain in speed; however sadly, there is also a downside. Having the extra speed = less control on the analogue so now the margins of error are even greater and very often you find there is no middle ground with certain shots, that being you either hit too short or too long and this applies heavily for serving. It also applies to buttons too it would seem, before I used Xpadder I was hitting around 180-190 KMPH serves with Federer, after its 200+. So there is a trade-off. However, even with the extra gain I still feel my shots don’t perform anywhere near as well as most of my opponents online. I still can’t return, I simply don’t know where I will gain the extra milliseconds needed to do anything with a fast accurate serve and this is something that I cannot learn, I am at the wall here I would need someone to actually sit down and show me what they are doing – at the end of the day it shouldn’t need to be scientific, I don’t want to turn this game into having to learn directional combos that don’t make sense. I love playing naturally and when I play someone who doesn’t hit the line like a robot every time, even when running backwards at impossible angles, then it’s a great enjoyable game but those matches are few and far between and if I am to compete then I have to also play like a robot but then it becomes less about tennis and more about the game and this is not to say that I am playing the game only like I would play Tennis I don’t I’m playing a tennis game but I feel that learning the scientific aspects would be fine if I saw an improvement in my game but at the moment I don’t, I’ve most certainly hit the wall and sadly I won’t be moving to keys anytime soon for I feel that’s where most of the answers lie. You can be as precise as a robot with keys down to tapping out combos like it’s a fighting game but that’s not the way I want to play. Tennis is expressive and exhaustive, not just the latter.

Rusty if you are ever on Tour Chat look me up I would love to know how you’ve got on. For me, I’ll just keep hitting my head off a wall until something gives!

[Luinir]

Just play and improve, don't quit when you are down 0-1 0-40. You won't improve just writing essay.

[inseedious]

Sean P, I would definitely buy a PS4/XBOX One controller if I were you. I think that PS2 controller + adapter may cause a noticeable input lag, and may also be very old (even 15+ years!). I'm a controller and analog stick user as well, and I can assure you that there's not a clear disadvantage in using it. I started as a controller dpad user, but after two years I decided to switch to the analog stick. It took months to get used to it, but it was definitely worth it, despite the losses I got from weaker guys...

I will make a simple analysis of pros and cons of the analog compared to the keyboard:
CONS --> 1) Higher response time. It's not input lag, but it's due to deadzones. All analog sticks have them, and it's impossibile to play without a minimum one – you would start running back/forward when moving widely. Imagine when you change your run direction from left to right: L|---(-o-)---|R, where "()" are the deadlines and "o" is the center. Intentionally ignoring the "wrong foot" mechanics, to change running direction you have to move your stick from L|---(-o-)---|R to L|---(-o-)---|R. This lowers a bit the speed of char movement and aiming, but it's not something you cannot overcome by improvement - look at the PROS for further explaining;
2) Difficult to master. There's a clear explanation for your slower serves: you simply unintentionally put slice/top spin into your serves because you're not yet accurate enough to hit left/right without some up/down pressure. So, it's difficult to hit a perfectly flat serve. To overcome this difficulty, much time and practice is needed.
PROS --> More precision and capability of efficient diagonal movement. This is how you can counter your higher response time as an analog user. You can move diagonally like no keyboard user can do. This lets you take apparently impossible balls and also take some short balls earlier. You can also slightly adjust your positioning even in a few moment thanks to your more precise movement. These pros are the way you can reach the perfect positioning in less time than a keyboard user, so overcoming your higher response handicap.

A few tips:
1) There is no tip. I mean, playing TE and, moreover, playing with the analog stick, is too personal to be the subject of a specific advice. I can tell you to exploit the diagonal movement as much as you can, but I can't tell you exactly how to do that, since tennis is a game made of automatism and not 100% conscious choices, and there are so many variables to take into account – and even one of them can make the advice a nonsense;
2) You don't have to play many hours per day. This can also lead to frustration and worsen your problems. Playing more or less everyday is more important. Even 30 mins per day may well be enough to improve, because our brain needs time and sleep to assimilate new information – this includes every kind of skill. This also means you have to be patient. When playing too much, remember that, if you're doing something wrong, you will keep up doing it, and it will be more difficult to correct your error. Players like Richie, Vramvrim, Pidzi and VMoe hardly play very much.
3) Do not undervalue the game. We almost all are smart here. At least in top 20, all players are smart, despite some cheesy plays. Yet, everyone needed at least one year of constant play to reach a top 20 level. The learning curve, after the beginning, becomes very slow. No one can dramatically improve in a month or two;
4) If you can tweak your stick sensitivity – i.e. setting deadzones – do some tests and set the lowest one that keeps you away from unintentional inputs - i.e. moving diagonally instead of widely. With the practice, you will be able to lower deadzones and so lower response time;
5) Among the top 10, Richie, Vramvrim, inseedious (me) and pigrosofo use a controller. Look at our dmos to learn how we move and hit the ball.