Before you draft a single shot in THE SLAM you choose a playing style, and that choice quietly decides the entire shape of your champion. Each style defines a different set of eight attribute slots you must fill, so the style is really a question: which kind of tennis do you want to build, and which players do you know well enough to draft for it?
Two builds with the same overall rating can play very differently depending on which eight slots they were made of. A style that demands volleys will reward the great net players of history; a style built on groundstrokes will reward the baseline machines. Because you can only draft cards that fit your slots, choosing a style you understand — and whose legends you can name — is one of the easiest edges in the game.
Physical · Forehand · Backhand · Serve · Return · Slice · Touch · Mental
The Pusher is the consistency build. It spreads its demands across all-court skills and leans hard on the intangibles — slice, touch, physicality and mental strength — rather than raw power. The idea mirrors the real-life pusher: never beat yourself, make the opponent play one more ball, and win the long, tight matches on nerve and craft.
Best for: players who like a margin-heavy, grinding game and who know the great retrievers, counter-punchers and cool heads of tennis history. Because it rewards mental strength — one of the higher-weighted attributes — a well-drafted Pusher is brutally hard to break down in the closing rounds.
Physical · Forehand · Backhand · Serve · Return · Power · Tactical · Touch
The Baseliner is the modern blueprint: dominate from the back of the court with heavy groundstrokes, back it with power and tactical court sense, and finish points on your own terms. It is the most familiar style for fans of the last two decades, when the baseline game came to rule even on grass.
Best for: players who know the modern greats and big hitters. The Baseliner asks you to balance offence (power, forehand) with control (tactical, touch), so it rewards drafting a complete player rather than a one-dimensional slugger.
Serve · Return · Forehand · Backhand · Volley · Power · Movement · Touch
The classic grass-court style. Serve & Volley puts a premium on the serve and the volley — both high-weight, match-swinging shots — plus the movement to close the net and the touch to finish. It is the way Wimbledon was won for decades, and on the lawns it is still deadly.
Best for: players who love the golden age of net-rushers and big servers. Because two of its slots (serve and volley) carry extra weight in the rating, a strong Serve & Volley build can punch above its average — but a weak volley or movement slot is punished hard against elite returners late in the draw.
Whichever you pick, the core strategy holds: balance your build, protect your weakest slot, and spend your champions where they count. Then send your composite player out to chase a perfect 7–0.
Build your champion →