Ground Shots Continued ...

If the opponent has a lesser miss rate than yours than youjr options are as follows and the net charging is still not the answer:

If the opponemnt has a lower miss rate than yours you may think that a net approach may be fruitful. Perhaps. But then how good is your net game? Also again you will be spending more energy than them. The fact is if your mis rate is hnitionigher, you are probably not going to have a chance to win even if you use the net approach. You do have other options to win againast a player that has a lower miss rate than yours but the net approach is is not one of them. Why? Because the net approach requires strong/wel-placed shots and consistent play to work, and in this case we asumed you do not have that and we also assumed we are in the middle of a rally. So the net approach is not going to work by definition. The opponent by assumption is able to return your approach shot or shots. Let me cite some examples to set the matters straight.

Example 1.

Let us say we are talking about Tomas Berdych and JM del Pottro. Neither is serving. A rally is progress. Let me ask, who do you think has the smnaller miss rate ( see the article about that). I would need to be on court and run a number of small tests to determine for sure. But I will guess here to make the point. I think JM has a smaller miss rate but the pace of the shots is probably the same for both. So what is going to happen? It is no accident that they go to 5 sets most of the time. Both are basically base line players but Berdych uses more net approaches. does he win most of the time. I do not know but I can say this if these guys played once a week for 4 weeks against each other JM will win most of the time even if Berdych uses a net approach. So a net approach fails again and is not a substiture for the ground shots. Incidentally that is why Berdych is not a champion (yet!) inspite of his net game (and he is quite comfortable there. Because he neither has the required smaller miss rate or the tools to compensate for that.). Basically, a player with better or rather smaller miss rate than yours will be able to blunt your net approach. Net approach is not the answer again.

 

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