Tennis Clash Guide: Tips, Cheats & Tricks to Become a Grand Slam Champion

Tennis Clash is an iOS and Android title from Wildlife Studios, the same folks who gave us the stunning Zooba: Zoo Battle Arena, which promises the definitive tennis experience on mobile for players of all ages. The game boasts simple swipe and tap controls and the ability to play the game with just one hand, as well as a variety of game modes and the opportunity to play mobile tennis against friends or opponents from all over the world in real-time. As you progress in Tennis Clash, you can also unlock new arenas and new user characters, and new game modes that involve more than just earning enough Trophies to move on to a new Tour.

Although the controls in Tennis Clash are easy to learn, but hard to master, this is not to be confused with a casual game. There aren’t any real-life players or real-life courts, but once again, this is not the bare-bones title you want if you’re looking for something simple. That’s why we’re going to start out with the easy stuff in this guide. This Tennis Clash guide is designed mainly for players who are in the first two Tours, so read on if you’re looking for ways to win more matches, unlock more cards to improve your character and eventually become a Grand Slam champion!

1. The Basics Of Tennis Clash

Just as the game promises, Tennis Clash is very simple in terms of its controls. All you need to do to serve the ball is to swipe on the screen, moving left or right depending on where you want the ball to go. You can tap on the screen to move your character around, but other than that and the swiping controls, there are no special buttons to hit if you want to perform certain actions. Longer swipes mean you’re serving with more power, while shorter ones make the ball travel a shorter distance.

Basically, you want to keep hitting the ball back and forth and avoid hitting the ball out of bounds or into the net — doing so would score a point for your opponent, and vice versa. You also want to return the ball every time into the opposing court, because if you don’t, that also would allow your opponent to score; conversely, you get the point if your opponent cannot return the ball after you serve it.

The game will start out with a tutorial stage, where you will be taught the basics of serving and given a few easy challenges, including scoring a certain number of points with your serves (see the next tip). You will start out the game with the default character, Jonah (a male character), though as you progress through the different tours and unlock new characters, there are others whom you will be able to choose, all of which have their own distinct play styles and base/maximum stats. After you’re done with the Coach, you will then be placed against an AI opponent for the next few matches until you’ve picked up a win — you don’t have to get the victory right away, and you can simply use this part of the tutorial to get your feet wet and get a feel for the game’s physics and mechanics.

Once you’ve defeated the generic AI opponent, you will then move on to the “real players” Tennis Clash promises — that would mean actual human-controlled opponents, and not the likes of Venus Williams or Roger Federer. (That said, all the unlockable characters are fictional, one-name male or female characters with distinct skill sets.) Each tour, starting from the first (New York), comes with a specific number of Trophies you can earn for a victory, or lose if you’re defeated — in here, it’s +5 for a win, -3 for a loss.

Earn a specific number of Trophies (25 for New York) and you move on to the next tour (in this example, it’s Sydney), where the opponents will generally be tougher and the stakes likewise higher, with more Trophies to earn for a win, and more Trophies to lose for a defeat. New tours are unlocked permanently, which means you don’t need to worry about getting demoted if your Trophies total falls below the threshold for promotion. (Example: if you drop to 22 Trophies from 25, you can still play the Sydney tour.)

Each time you win a match, you will be rewarded with a loot bag that contains several cards, as well as coins (common currency) or gems (premium currency). These cards represent different types of equipment — rackets, grips, shoes, bands, strings, and even diet and workout regimens — as well as new characters. Certain characters, however, are only available at specific tours, so if you’re still in Tour 1 (NY), you’ll only be able to unlock Hope, and if you’re in Tour 2 (Sydney), Florence will be the only other new unlockable character.

2. Take Note Of The Points In The Tutorial Stage

Earlier, we mentioned the part in the tutorial where you will be asked to score a total of 1,000 points by making the ball land at certain points on the opponent’s half of the court. We decided to discuss this separately because it is here where the true fundamentals of Tennis Clash come into play. The areas that have the highest point totals, which may vary as this part of the tutorial continues, will be consistent across the board — these include the points nearest to the net and nearest to the perimeter. Those that are closer to the middle of the opponent’s side are assigned the lowest point totals.

As you may surmise, the areas that have high point totals are the ones that are traditionally hardest to hit, while the ones that have the lowest are the easiest. That means you may want to direct your serves as close to the net or to the perimeter as possible without hitting the net or going out of bounds — and consequently surrendering a point to your opponent.

Now this won’t normally be the easiest way to go — when you’re facing up against other human players, you’ll notice that everyone has their own distinct strategy and you’ll find that you may need to switch things up after reviewing their stats and comparing them to yours. However, there is a fairly reliable way to win many of those early matches against weaker players — meaning those that will likely have the same or similar rating.

3. Playing Close To The Net Against Weaker Players (And Other Early Tips For Winning)

That strategy we were referring to in the aforementioned tip is to play close to the net and go for shorter, less powerful serves. We mentioned that some of the higher point totals in the tutorial can be found near the net, and that’s not without good reason — typically, less experienced players find it difficult to play close to the net and get out of this bind by hitting harder, so it’s best to keep things simple and keep things short while you’re still trying to improve your stats with better cards and facing other presumable newbies in a similar situation.

Although employing this strategy is a pretty reliable way to win a lot of matches and unlock the Sydney tour sooner rather than later, you wouldn’t want to use it all the time, especially once you’ve gotten quite far in Sydney and are facing more experienced opponents. It’s fairly safe to use in New York (except, of course, when the matchmaking system pits you against an opponent with superior stats), but as you move on, you’ll want to pay attention throughout the game and see whether they prefer to stay at the back or move closer to the net, whether they prefer powerful serves or more calculated, measured ones, and so on and so forth.

Then you’ve got those players who tend to mix things up quite a lot — in this case, you’ll also want to do the same, generally alternating between hard shots and shorter ones but playing two types of shot in a row from time to time to break their rhythm. Once the competition gets serious, you’ll need to do the same and adapt to your opponent’s strategy.

Also, we did briefly bring up opponent stats — it’s important that you review them before every match! Each player (and character) is rated based on Agility, Stamina, Serve, Volley, Forehand, and Backhand, and if you see that the opponent’s stats are vastly superior, it may be best to move to the back and prepare for those hard shots, which is the opposite of playing it close against weaker rivals.

Keep an eye on your opponent’s Stamina and yours, hard as it may be at times while you’ve got your eyes on the ball and are trying to balance your serves and position yourself at just the right spot on the court. Low Stamina (yellow to red) means a greater chance of making a mistake — may it be an out-of-bounds shot or an inability to return a serve — and both you and your opponent could take advantage of this if either of you aren’t careful! If you’ve got the edge in Stamina, you can usually throw off a gassed opponent by hitting harder and in the opposite direction from where they’re positioned. (As a bonus tip, unlocking new Nutrition cards — the aforementioned diet regimens we were referring to — is a great way to improve your Stamina!)

Last, but not the least, it’s not advisable to focus on a new Tour right after unlocking one. Although it may sound great to be able to play in a new-look court, unlock new cards, or compete against more formidable opponents after dominating your past competition, it’s still best to mix things up across Tours instead of focusing solely on the new one and getting overwhelmed right off the bat because your stats aren’t up to snuff. It’s also a good idea to go back down to the previous Tour after a bad losing streak in the current one, as this could help you regain your momentum and hopefully score some easy Trophies instead of getting too distracted and letting frustration get the better of you.

4. Make Sure To Upgrade Your Equipment

As you win more matches and get more cards, you’ll move on from the “Starter” equipment you begin with — this is stock equipment that does not improve your character’s stats, and you’ll want to replace each piece of Starter gear sooner rather than later! So once you’ve opened a loot bag, make sure to head to the Lineup screen whenever you notice that you can upgrade an existing piece of equipment or have a newer, rarer item than the ones you already have.

You will only be able to upgrade pieces of equipment once you’ve accumulated enough cards — for example, you’ll need three cards in order to upgrade Common equipment from level 1 to level 2, six to move them up from level 2 to level 3. Upgrading equipment cards will also cost you some coins, so once you’ve gotten better cards than the ones you currently have, you’ll want to shift your focus to the newer, better ones instead of continuing to level up the older cards even if you’ve got more than enough copies to do so. Upgrading an equipment card, of course, will result in improved stat boosts — you can tap on the “See attributes at max level” button underneath the stats in order to see how they’ll look like once they’re fully leveled up.

Take note as well that certain types of equipment are locked until you reach a certain Tour, which makes it imperative to spend a decent amount of time in the new one if you want rarer, more impactful equipment cards and a chance to unlock new players as well.

5. Get Your Free Loot Bags Every 4 Hours

The loot bags you can earn as a reward for winning a match are not the only goodies you can get by playing Tennis Clash on a regular basis. And you also may want to limit the number of times you play, unless you’re willing to pay some Gems to speed up the unlocking process — you are only allowed to hold a maximum of four loot bags and unlock one at the same time! And we haven’t even mentioned how long it takes for bags to unlock — a common, or Classic Bag, takes three hours, while the next in the rarity tier, the Grand Bag, takes eight hours. However, you don’t necessarily need to be playing nonstop in order to get more cards, which is where the Free Bags come in.

Free Bags, as the game will specify, can only be unlocked every four hours, which means if you get the recommended eight hours of sleep a day, you can open up to four while you’re awake. It is also possible, however, to have up to two Free Bags waiting to be unlocked, in case you’re away from the game for more than four hours. In any case, these bags come loaded as usual with equipment/character cards, coins, and gems, though you shouldn’t expect too many rare cards when you open them. They are free, after all, but if you’re still a beginner who’s making your way through the first two tours, the contents of the Free Bags should serve you well! Make sure to keep your game notifications on so you don’t miss a chance to open them.

6. Complete More Daily Challenges To Earn More Goodies

There’s yet another way to get more free stuff in Tennis Clash, and that’s by completing the game’s Challenges, which can be accessed by tapping on the button underneath the Trophy, coin, and gem totals, right next to the Free Bag. In here, you’ll be able to view the tasks you need to accomplish in order to get yourself more goodies — you may either win some gems or a loot bag in these Challenges, which need to be completed within a span of 24 hours. Completing a Challenge will typically unlock a new one, and each of them will usually get you 10 or 15 points, which go toward the required total to open up a new Grand Bag, as seen on the upper part of the Challenges screen.

For example, completing the Jonah Master challenge (win six times in one day with Jonah as your player character) gets you 6 gems and 10 points, while Let’s Play asks you to complete 12 matches in a day, for one Classic Bag and 10 points; complete those two and you get 20 points out of the required 40 to open a Grand Bag via the Challenges screen.

The Challenges can usually be completed organically, but it always helps to go back to the screen and review just what they are, in order to give yourself an idea of what needs to be done. More Grand Bags, after all, means more freebies, and potentially more of the rare stuff you need to truly improve your stats and give yourself an edge over the opposition!

And this ends our guide for Tennis Clash. Do you know any other tips or tricks for the game? Let us know, in the comment section below!