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The Break Back

The most common setback for the tennis professional is the dreaded break of serve. Fernando Alonso had figuratively broken Kimi Raikkonen's serve at the European Grand Prix, but the Renault driver threw all that away with a driving error in Canada, allowing his McLaren rival to get right back in the match. Richard Barnes analyses the Championship situation after the eighth round of the 2005 season

In Championship tennis, the most common setback for the world's top professional players is the dreaded break of serve. They will also attest that the best possible counter to a break of serve is to return the favour immediately - by breaking back in the very next service game.

The corollary also holds good: if a player breaks his opponent, he should take extra care to hold his next service game and secure a potentially set-winning two game advantage. That means playing the percentages, throttling back slightly on the first serve and giving the opponent no gifts by way of unforced errors or double faults. It's a very simple philosophy - when you have the edge, force the opponent to resort to low-percentage heroics. As often as not, they'll push too hard and self-destruct.

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