I think so, I know he tried the infamous SABR thing (sneak attack by Roger) later in his career, which was returning and then rushing the net or taking a 2nd serve as a half volley, if I’m remembering correctly. But I don’t think he ever serve and volleyed every point like Stich did. Trying to remember the others, Edberg maybe. It made for some boring tennis if the serve volleyer was on top of their game and ending each service point in 3-5 strokes.
Looking it up in 2003 Wimbledon Federer served and volleyed 50% of the time
Higher than I would have guessed from memory, what are Sampras and Edberg at if you can look it up, I’m curious.
Sampras at Wimbledon
Interesting couple of charts from the same article, serve and volley percentage for everyone:
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Like Edberg didn’t even have a powerful serve, he just cut it or sliced it and went to the net anyway, I remember rooting against him a lot. I mean I was a kid, but still.
So he was just very good at volleying around the net?
Wasn’t part of serve and volleying that the surfaces were more inconsistent so the longer the point went on the more likely it was that the ball would take a weird bounce? Also the balls would stay livelier for more points (assuming they were changed as often), wonder if that was a factor in preferring shorter points.
Just exceptionally good at volleying and ending points at the net. I don’t know if surface inconsistency and such was why they did it, I think it was just a very effective way to win if you had the right skill set. But he also never won the French, so that tracks with clay being rough on that style of play I guess.
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A lot of those points are pretty graceful and beautiful imo. I mean they’re the highlights, sure but it doesn’t seem like it’s intrinsically a playstyle to be discouraged.
It’s definitely graceful, but it gets repetitive as a viewer, especially if he is just suffocating an opponent you’re rooting for. Federer had a perfect mix where he could dip into this style of play, but also play different kinds of points too.
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This is accurate, although to his credit Edberg was so good that he did make a finals at the French in both singles and doubles. Dude could play.
I think casual fans like long rallies for some reason. Especially inelegant oafs from a certain North American country that is not Canada.
And it seems like making the Slams all winnable by a single type of player improves the marketability of those players to casual fans. And then the marketability of the sport as a whole.
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Yeah these older guys who could win the French but then change it up and play true S&V to compete at Wimbledon were impressive is what I’m saying. That is true mastery of the sport. Nadal winning Wimbledon from 15 feet behind the baseline with 5,000 RPM topspin forehands isn’t that. Don’t get me wrong, I like Nadal, but his game is entirely based on exploiting technology that should probably be banned or at least rolled back.
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I loved how mad Nadal got when Nick threw in that underhand serve. Bro you’re receiving 30 feet behind the baseline, it’s a totally legit tactic. Sucks that Nick is injured this Wimbledon. Hopefully Bublik does well, he’s a big underhand serve fan.
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It’s much harder than it looks though. Which is why I assume more don’t do it.
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Here’s Bublik making it look…hard
The amount of hand work that goes into making a tennis racquet is somewhat surprising. I figured this is what it looked like with molding prepreg CF except I would have guessed it was slightly more automated and not as dependent on a shop master having the magic touch.
That’s not to say there isn’t any automation. You can see more of it happening in the Yonex factory. My point is that the actual layups are still very much a hands-on process requiring skilled humans and formed one at a time, so there’s certainly a fair amount of labor involved. Spraying paint isn’t amateur work either. These people are skilled although the quality of labor probably isn’t classified that way. Six months of training just to place the decals at Yonex!
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Re style of play. It’s best when both the base liners and the net rushers have a chance to win. If one style doesn’t completely dominant.
See Borg v McEnroe and Sampras v Agassi.
But as technology, the balls, the courts, physical training etc battle it’s not surprising that the style swings around as to which is primary.
The current style is interesting imo. Not bang bang but not all exclusively baseline. I think more variety of approach in tbe women’s game.
*i like to play all court so that’s what I appreciate
My friend got this trivia question right without cheating on his first guess: who is the highest ranked player on tour who hasn’t won a tournament in the last year. I was impressed.
I would go with stephanos