At the start of the
2001 year in
tennis, it is obvious that the men's
circuit
ATP is dominated by the
baseline players - e.g.
Lleyton Hewitt,
Marat
Safin. This may seem strange, since only a couple of years ago, it was players
with killer serves that
dominated - e.g.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov*.
How come ?
The thing is this: There are three different styles, and they correspond to
each other like rock, paper, scissors.
- Baseline players with good returns and ball placement can withstand
a Killer Server, but have difficulties against the offensive variation of...
- Serve and volley players, who will beat Baseline players, but does
not have the the skills needed to manage a...
- Killer serve player, whose hard serves pay off against Serve and
volley players, but not against...
etc etc
This is evident when studying the evolution of the dominant players of the
last 20 years or so:
Base liners Björn Borg, Jimmy Connors dominated until offensive player
John McEnroe came around. After McEnroe came Boris Becker and Pat Cash,
had killer serves. Those were followed by base line players like Ivan Lendl
and Mats Wilander, who in turn stood no chance against Stefan Edberg, who in
turn couldn't handle Goran Ivanisevic and Michael Stich. Goran was taken
care of by Andre Agassi, who were neutralized by Pete Sampras serve and
volley play...and after that came the killer serves again.
This does not seem to apply to the women's circuit, where baseline players have
ruled for 20 years now. But with the Williams sisters, power has become a very important factor.
Anyhow, keep your eyes open for a skilled young player with a good serve and
volley game...
*
2001.10.09@11:20 Jennifer says kafelnikov has not a killer serve-- he is a baseline guy too, judging form dominance at Roland Garros that started his career. he's nearly a clay specialist!
Inspired by an article in the newspaper DN.