New Player

[trulyinfemous]

Hi.

I'm entirely new to Top Spin having been a Virtua Tennis player for years.

Just ordered Top Spin 4 and it'll be coming in the post in the next few days.

I'm incredibly excited to find out about the ITST (discovered as I was googling to see how many players I could create) and I thought I'd give it a shot.

Having only played the demo I'm a complete noob and am entirely new.

Can someone please introduce me to the way things are run here?

Are there do's and don'ts with regards to the creation of a player?
on the tour are we allowed to play with pros like Federer?

If our created player is a look and play alike of a real player is that allowed?
(Say I make a Lleyton Hewitt or Pete Sampras...)

Any advice at all would be great.

I hear Top Spin is incredibly difficult to master but once it is it is by far the most rewarding Tennis experience off a real life court.

How long will it take me to get competitive?
I don't know what the shoulder buttons do for example, having only played the demo.

When I play I like to mix my shots and beat people with speed and finesse, basically having a fast runner with a great shot repertoire. How is the best way to go about this?

Thank you for all your time and I look forward to playing you all.

[lincolnshirelad]

Hi mate and welcome to ITST, im sure u'll love TS4 and this site, all the site hosts are awesome and will help you out or you can always drop me a message i'll help out where i can

[trulyinfemous]

Thanks, appreciate it!

If you can just tell me the best way to go about making myself competitive with regards to the style I outlined I'd appreciate it loads.

Just had another go with the demo and I figured R1 is basically sprint?

What does the Inside Outside shoulder button do too?

[SlicerITST]

Lots of questions . Ill answer the ITST related ones.

On this tour you have to use a created player. Look-a-likes are of course allowed. There are no limitations on stats on this tour. The only thing is that you are not allowed to use the following coaches:

Peto Chesire
Jon Samala
Pei Jinq Quah
Aja Golakov

Every week you sign up for a new tournament. A week after the sign up has opened the draw will be made and you contact your opponent to arrange a fixed time and date to play the match. After this match the winner submits the result.

Getting competitive is achieved by training. Play the best players a lot and you will get better eventually.

R1 is not sprint. Its more a reposition button. There is no additional sprint button in this game. The inside out shoulder button is to walk around your backhand or forehand. So if are in the backhand corner and press this button you will walk around and hit a forehand shot in your backhand corner.

[SIeeepy]

as far as your play-style goes since you like using finesse and speed go for the defensive baseline play-style. When you start the game and create a character you'll see there are three styles, defensive baseline, offensive baseline, and serve and volley.

here, download this program and play around with the different combination of styles and coaches to see what you like best:

http://www.intertopspintour.net/forum/v ... t=14169%22

[trulyinfemous]

Thanks!

That really helps. Sorry for all the questions, I'm really anxious for the game to be delivered and have been playing the demo too much! I've only beaten Nadal on Hard twice!

I've fiddled with that tool and have about 5 possibilities I will try out.

It's a shame I can't use Samala, as he has some great perks. I posted in another thread (not having seen the replies in this one) asking why these coaches are off limits?

In terms of the perks (such as diesel server etc.) is it worth getting the perk that improves a weakness in your game or just use one that makes a strength better (say the drop shot or slice perks)?

Is it possible to serve aces with a sub 60 serve rating?

And with regards to playing people to improve, should I enter competitions and tournaments immediately to get on the ranking and gain experience, or will losing as much as I am likely to going to negatively impact my ranking?

Thanks for the warm welcome and the advice, really appreciate it!

[trulyinfemous]

another question (sorry)

but is 80 speed etc. a bit too excessive?

I can't find a combo with 80 speed and 75+ power that is legal and I'd like to be able to hit a winner and take control of a rally.

How much power is needed to be able to hit a few winners?

I seldom come to the net (although I will to mix it up) so volley and reflexes isn't that important to me.

I've found a few combos that appeal and once I try them out I'll be able to decide but can anyone recommend a stat balance that sounds most like mine?

I'm definitely predominantly a defensive baseline player but that's only because I'm no good atm and I'd like to be able to force an error then finish of the point?

Thanks for all your advice.

[SIeeepy]

As far as using the perks to cover weaknesses, I personally like using the skills to cover for weaknesses. Two of my characters are all around players but i have the volley shots artist skill so that I can serve and volley and come to the net when i want to.

The serving stat I believe is how accurate your serve is? It's pretty difficult in my opinion to serve aces in this game no matter what your stats are, but it's possible and people can do it. A sub 60 serve though, probably not.

As far as jumping into ITST competition, I say get your footing with Career mode and the World Tour mode first because the ITST competition is fierce and the players are unbelievably good! It actually may be a good idea for you to enter some Futures tournaments to get the hang of ITST before moving on to the bigger tournaments. One interesting thing i found is that Stamina plays a larger role in ITST than in the WT. ITST is to 6 games and WT is only to 3 so the matches are MUCH longer. Just a thought.

65-80 speed is perfect i think. Personally I think stamina is more important than speed, although you do see people with 45-50 speed and 50 stamina lumbering around the court after like 3 balls.

If you get good enough you don't really need all that much power to hit winners. Just a sense of where your opponent is and where they think you're going to hit the ball. I know I've won like 90% of my matches where the person has maxed their power to 100. All you do is mix up the ball and they will eventually miss. What I do is use control shots and angles to get my opponent off balance and off the court, then I go for the power shot winner or approach the net.

A good stat thats I have seen among the top 10 players in WT without any Monster Defense skill is a (0/12/8 ) set up with Stevan Boskovic as their coach. You get power, speed, and good stats on your serve and groundies. Or somewhere along the lines of (0/14/6) with Sahy Rabari as coach. Here you sacrifice speed for power and the Instant Rocket skill. Another good one is (0/12/8 ) but with Roman Neuwirth. Shot Counter and Semi-volley king are underrated in my opinion and are very effective if used correctly.

I mean you can make more than one character in the game and use one in the WT and the other in ITST. When you get the game just test all of the characters out and see which one gets you the most wins lol.

[trulyinfemous]

thanks for the reply, incredibly helpful.

As my copy of TS4 hasn't arrived yet (will on the 4th) I have been playing the demo a fair bit and I find that with Federer I can beat Nadal on hard on both surfaces (Clay and Hard) but it is not easy. The only winners he gets on me are wrong foot shots where I've had bad timing on an extremely angled shot that's opened the court for him.

How do you get these incredibly short angled ground strokes? I've tried hitting shots too early and just jamming my stick to the side but it's never quite at the level of the cpu Nadal's?

I think I entered a competition, I don't know if I'm in yet because I'm not sure which one it was or how we are notified of our entry? but I think once I get knocked out of that I'll take your advice lol.

I definitely like stamina and speed, mainly so I don't get blown off the court. Then I can use my shot selection (which I think is varied enough to compete) to open up the court for the winner. If I have 60 power is that enough?

Thanks for the info on the serve, I guess I'll just have to work extra hard on timing and variety to make it a factor, I'm not gonna sacrifice anything for Serve and Volley stats when I can win points at the net with Roger when I really need to.

I have a shortlist of combinations and Stevan Boskovic is always there, but I don't like his traits? Although statistically he is perfect for my character.

How much of an effect does Highly Flammable have? I like reach swings expert

I like the look of Banero, Welch, Ercolani and Madr's traits. Are these popular and effective? Not having the game yet means I can't test it out yet, but on paper they sound the best to my style?

Many thanks again.

[trulyinfemous]

Heads up for you all.

Game came this morning!

Just doing Practice but I seem to know most already thanks to the advice here.

I'll then create my guy so I can compete starting monday!