1. Tauylor Dent. Used to charge the net almost routinely but neveer was a major player. I am not sure what coach told him to charge the net again and again! Even after he clearly saw that the opponent is expecting him to follow his serve with a net charge, he still charged the net! The opponent had easy time. A lot of times they returned the ball effectively so that Taylor never even met the ball! It was exasperating for me to see this again and again yet again. I think it is important to learn about your opponents as you go. It is paramount to adjust your game and mix things up so that the opponent is never able le to guess your moves.

 

2.  Mardy Fish. He also charges the net routinely, at times only too expectedly. It appears that the net chargers are thinking of the psychological weapon of pressure to scare the opponent. That is a very wrong apprroach. This line of thought may have some application in high school or collefge or non-professional tennis but we are dealing with world class palyers. I do not think any of them is phased or is going to be phased by your anybody else's net charging. When Federer was talking about the net charging by Ivo and others and saying "... so there is always a lot of pressure" , he was only being polite. Do you really think that that was putting a pressure on him? So my advice: Charge the net when it is gamewise. Otherwise, follow the ground shots techniques and there are plenty of them, see infra.

 

Mardy is a great player and I can understnad (but not convinced) his charging the net following his strong serve. But at times he simply chips the ball and tries to go to the net! If you were playing some indiscriminate players (that might work then) but the players we are talking about can easily take care of you on the net if you are just chipping and charging. By the way, his serve is not as devastating as he might think and can easily be attacked/returned and (I have seen it attacked ) and his net charge neutralized.

 

Ivo Carlovic and John Isner are other examples of net charging players that may not make it up there and to date have not.

 

You might think of the days when John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors were playing. Charging the net was the accepted approach then. But do you remember how feeble those attempts were? Jimmmy routinely put the ball in the net as our dear John made his awkard way to the net with the racket streched out in a funny way, way back behind him, instead of a graceful swing that would give his strokes some power. He just kind of rolled the ball into the other court.  Did not really strike the ball square ( and by the way most of them still do not hit the ball sqaure to get maximmun torque. They use eithe top spin or chop it (specially on the backhand side) with the result that the opponent with less top spin or a flat hitter can put more torque and length on the ball and can pound the ball away from them so take time away from them). Neither was able to make a critical diffrence with the net game because both were just about  

the same on the net and with no clear advantagve ( and that is why the matches went longer or 5 sets). And our Johnny's half volleys on the net, since he was a little slow geting up there, and the pathetic ways he lost them and still does in champions matches, they made me cringe  and still do. Have you noticed how easily Andre beats Jonnny even now. That is because Jonny can't help charging the net and has no powerfull ground strokes. He jnust kind of slaps the ball like you would a mack a rude boy on the back of his head but barely touching his head and going more upward and not forward with it. I don't know how to describe it. Just watch John play.

 

Indeed, Federer also used to charge the net a lot and used to lose one and get one. No clear advantge and now he does not. Do you see the point? Now his main technique is.... well I do not want to go around disclosing his main technique in public but it certainly is not net charging. So basically if you think the right play was net charging as evidenced by its wide spread use back then, please watch those matches again and see for yourself how ridiculous and suicidal those net charges really were and were of course unnecessary.

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A flat player always has the advantage, if they have any consistency. It is no accident that Soderling beat Nadal in the 4th round at the French Open and Rosol beat him at Wimbledon recently. If Zheng Jie were 4 inches taller she would beat everybody today. That is also why Serena beats everybody since  plays flat and her strokes have some torque and direction. She also has a phenomenal consistency, see the concept of PNL under Net Play.