Gilles Simon - Playing Style

Playing Style

Simon is known for his endurance, agility, mental strength and tennis brain. His backhand is considered his best shot as he is capable of expertly creating angles and varying his shots in addition to taking the ball earlier and unleashing flat and penetrating backhand drives. He is also very capable on the forehand side, and his forehand is the wing with which he is able to attack opponents. His technique is seamless, and this enables him to absorb and redirect powerful shots. As mentioned before, he is also a tactical player who can vary his hit point on both sides, keeping the ball on his strings until the very last moment, and then suddenly taking the ball early with random injections of pace. This keeps his opponents off-guard; hence, although he is widely classed as a counter-puncher, it is often he who controls the points.

As his career kicked off in 2008, Simon began to work tirelessly on his volleys and net-game, and this has since come to form a prominent part of his game. Nowadays, he looks to sneak in and finish points off at the net whenever he can, and he often enjoys rushing to the net off the return to break up his opponent's rhythm on break points and important points in general.

While his return is one of the best parts of his game, his serve has also become a pivotal part of his game, and he often manages to find his best serves on the biggest points. In general, Simon is often overlooked in an era filled with powerful players and big servers. However, he is a very unique player with countless layers to his game.

Read more about this topic:  Gilles Simon

Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or style:

    Someday our grandchildren will look up at us and say, “Where were you, Grandma, and what were you doing when you first realized that President Reagan was, er, not playing with a full deck?”
    Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)

    On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.
    Marcel Proust (1871–1922)