I’m down with preferring extended volleys to the “smash serve after smash serve” game. I have no idea why people like to watch such matches. I much prefer longer volleys involving strategic shot placement and varied kinds of shots. Men’s tennis right now is tremendously boring. Granted, there’s a wider field of topnotch smash servers, but they’re ALL dull as dishwater to watch.
What’s with these silly rants about the men’s game being “smash serve smash serve smash serve”? Do you guys even watch men’s tennis? If you’re not watching one of the really big servers (like Sampras, Phillopoussis, etc), it’s only a small fraction of points being decided by the serve outright (aces and unreturned serves). Then anoter small fraction being decided by a good serve + weak/short return. I don’t think this combined total exceeds 30% on average for average servers.
I think this is made up for by the higher competitiveness of the field. I mean, let’s face it, the first week of the women’s play is boring as hell. Sure, you’ll get a couple of decent matches, but most of the top seeds completely annihilate their opponents. Contrast that to the men’s side, where top seeds are often given a very good run for their money, and are often knocked out by low seeds or even unseeded players (hello Lleyton Hewitt). I know Serena will kick the living crap out of some random kid named IDontBelongHerova from Belarus. I can’t say the same for Agassi even on day 2.
Also, I think there’s just a higher excitement level (for me anyway) during men’s rallies (probably due to faster ground strokes lowering reaction times and increasing the number of clean winners). The difference in strategy is that a little positioning mistake between two hard hitters can make or break the point, while that same positioning mistake can be overcome more easily between softer hitters due to more time to react.
Of course, I theoretically should like an all Williams final, but it seems that the Sisters’ matches have been fairly sloppy, due to that whole family thang.
Oh, in response to the OP, that cutting off of the match was ridiculous. They never pull that shit with baseball and basketball games, and I don’t know why they think they should be able to get away with it in tennis.
Men tennis is not smash-volley, it’s smash-fault!
Even when the points aren’t decided on the serve or the response to a weak service return, the rallies tend to be very short affairs – not more than six shots total in most point, I would bet. I much prefer longer rallies, the longer the better. You don’t get a lot of those in men’s tennis.
If the men’s game keeps progressing as it has, maybe they should change the rules a little. Say, give the server three tries. If the receiver can’t get a racket on the ball in those three tries, he’s “out” and the server gets the point. If the receiver can get a racket on the ball and put it in play, he runs around the court and high fives the line judge and gets the point.
I think there might just be an interesting game in there somewhere.
Oh no, French Open’s the devil! I can still remember the matches between Ivan Lendl and Mats Wilander. They keep hitting back and forth like robots until someone makes an error by hitting the ball a tad bit long or into the net.
I prefer watching short rallies with volleys and passing shots. It was delightful to watch the likes of Boris Becker, John McEnroe and Pete Sampras on grass. Though I agree with the notion that there has been a shift towards power-serving than serve-volleying-passing shots, I still prefer watching grass to clay.
Check out Roger Federer’s game.