vivoactive doesn't track distance on cardio mode

Hi there, I used to have a Forerunner 35, and when i would play football/soccer or tennis, I would select Cardio to track it, and it would track my distance (without producing a map of where I ran which would be nonsensical.) That was great. However, my vivoactive 4s doesn't track distance when I'm on Cardio mode, which is very frustrating when trying to record something like football or tennis. From what i can see, it has an accelerometer, so it shouldn't need GPS to be turned on to track distance (plus I don't want a nonsensical map). Can anyone help?