Thank you so much for your thoughts! I really appreciate the time you put into that post, great stuff.

-Ian

Thanks for a good site and some pretty incisive tennis tips.

There is also pressure on coaches (at most levels of teaching) to churn out competitive players at younger ages, and as many (including Sampras in his book) have noted, it’s easier and quicker to get a baseline strategy in place than a s/v one. (For whatever my teaching was worth, I noticed this myself when I gave lessons. Too many students were happier just going with the serve-and-big-groundstroke tactics and didn’t want to get into net-play.)

Apart from Henry’s fairly intriguing numerical exercise, I also believe (and hope) that style goes through cycles (as opposed to only fads)

Tilden, Budge — big serves, strong baseline game (bet you heard the one of Tilden holding 5 balls in his hand, serving 4 aces in a row and tossing the fifth to a ball-boy)

Kramer — the big “California game” of serve and volley, which he popularized of course

Gonzales, Laver, Hoad and possibly, Vines — all-court

Rosewell, Connors, Borg — baseline tough… make that baseline super-tough for the Swede!

McEnroe, Cash, Becker, Edberg, Sampras, Rafter, Henman — s/v

Federer — all-court, and then some! (though he has termed himself as an “aggressive baseliner” in some interviews)

Nadal, Djokovic — baseline tough + heavy ball (with hybrid strings, and Popeye arms!)

what next???

Raonic — huge serve, and more importantly, a liking for the “big game” … Bodo explains it best:

“But here’s something else: what do these three men under discussion have in common? The obvious answer is size, the not so obvious answer is identical size. Delpo and Cilic are 6’6″, Raonic is a shade under at an official 6’5″. What Raonic does, though, more than either Cilic or even del Potro, is play big—that’s the by-product of embracing Pete Sampras as your childhood idol and role model. Efficient, bold, always ready to give it the gas, Raonic is four inches taller than Sampras. The very idea of what those extra five inches can do for a player who harbors a Sampras-like vision of the game is scary. Like Sampras, Raonic eschews frills and flourishes. He’s all business, always looking to end a point.”

[Berdych and Soderling are two other examples who combine a big serve and groundies with a 'small game'... that sounds contradictory, I know, but Bodo does have a point]

Others?

Tomic (a bit of Santoro in him, and he can turn on the power when he wants… and they’re saying he’s getting the attitude thing right)

Dogolpolov (about as funky as hard-hitting tennis can get, and fun to watch!)

Dimitrov (yeah, that Fed-cloned game, but he does have it to a greater degree than anyone else… it’s a matter of when he can shed all the comparo talk and start using the all-court game to potentially devastating effect)

Del Potro has returned strong

One guy whose game is cookie-cutter, of the Djokovic mold, is the American Harrison. But from all accounts he is genial, realistic and eager to learn so he could surprise us. Nothing like flying under the radar while the above named newcomers face all the pressure…

Fed claims he’ll play beyond 2012 (most of us will want to watch him even when he’s playing at half-speed!) . Nadal keeps beating back predictions of his body breaking down.

Good times therefore for the pro game for the next few years, I’d say, and while we might not see a pure s/v player, I think we’ll see some volleying. And many variation of the ground-game.

Cheers!

“My post was only about pros, but I’d be happy to write another one about the rec players and serve and volley.”

I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone in appreciating it greatly if you did!

A couple thoughts: First, your comment at the end about Sampras can be misleading. Though it is obviously true that Sampras couldn’t return from retirement and dominate the field (he couldn’t even do so the year before he retired if I remember correctly) it doesn’t follow that the serve and vollying Sampras of HIS PRIME couldn’t dominate the current field the way he did the field of his own time. Unfortunately questions like the latter, such as who would win between a prime fed and a prime Sampras, or Nadal, etc. etc. just can’t be answered with any real degree of certainty. Personally I hate these stupid matches between “legends” like they occasionally put on between an old Sampras and prime Federer. It’s demeaning for Fed who has to curb his game and take it down a few notches to play a man he likely greatly respected coming up, and equally demeaning for Sampras who has to fight hard just to save a tiny bit of face. (I know that both choose to partake but why? friendship, curiosity, competitiveness, money?) I mean, am I the only one who remembers how drastically Sampras’s competitive level declined during the final years of his career? And this wasn’t due to new and better players because he was suddenly getting beat by players Pete had spent a decade trouncing (e,g, Agassi) Second, a possible answer to the other question you posed, something like “if serve and volleying is so superior how come not even ONE player using the style has recently even gotten to the round of 16 at Wimbledon?” Here’s a POSSIBLE alternate answer: It really could be due to the increasing unpopularity of the serve and volley game. Say the percentage of decent players who practice that style of tennis game have decreased from 50% to 17% (arbitrarily made up numbers by me) well there are only so many truly GREAT tennis players out there that have the the potential to get past the round of 16 at Wimbledon. I mean if we counted all the players that have done so in the last ten years how many would there be? 100-200? I have no idea, but I know it’s not a lot compared to the total amount of players of tennis worldwide. In other words, the numbers of players could have fallen into that 90% group that doesn’t play serve and volley style, by chance and other factors having nothing to do with the quality of the style relative to other styles.

Third, if the dissapearance of the serve and volley game is in part due to the change in grass and dirt at Wimbledon, then that is no reason to conclude the style is inferior. Maybe they should change the surface back to how it used to be. If that created more of a mix of style in todays modern game (at least at Wimbledon) then I think it would be good for tennis at large.

Finally, I agree with you, modern players deserve our respect, just as much as players from the past. But I believe the inverse is also true. We can’t judge players on the style of game they have grown up playing, but we also can’t judge a style of game SOLELY based on whether professional players grow up using that style or not. There are fads in tennis as there are in anything else. Basically my point is this. While it seems obvious serve and volleying isn’t clearly superior to other styles of play, we shouldn’t conclude that it is then inferior. I for one, would love to to see more pros utilizing its strengths.

p.s. – I’m 29 and was always a bigger fan of Agassi’s game then Sampras’s. Or maybe I just like him more because he was the underdog. But even though I’m a huge fan of the modern game and love watching it, I’ve often wondered if Mac’s comments on TV (is he one of those people that wines?) about players’ strategy choices were correct. Either way, I”m not sure your argument proves it either way.

Whether I should stop whining: I find/found serve-and-volley more entertaining to watch; but that’s more a matter of taste I think.

AP

Maybe a podcast on how to use net play more generally rather than just serve and volley if you have not already covered it – I haven’t got through all podcasts yet .

I am new to your website and I think it is great. Tennis has always been a third or fourth priority sport for me as I focused on others but now, at 45, I have decided to make my priority sport so I am trying to absorb as much as possible and you are a big help.

Cheers
Vernon
Sydney, Australia