Ball placement in pro tennis

[florian80]

hey guys,

does anybody know of any studies that have looked in depth at where actually pro players hit most of their shots ? i am interested to find out how close they hit to the sidelines with their groundstrokes.

some coaches i know believe in the so-called safety line about 3 feet from the sideline. with this concept you only hit closer to the sidelines than those 3 feet when you are in an offensive position. in neutral or defensive positions you try to avoid hitting closer to the sidelines.

simply from watching on TV it seems like the guys very rarely try to hit close to the sidelines. maybe 1 out of 10 shots or so.
when you hear pros like nadal in interviews though a lot of times they will say that they play well when they manage to hit the ball close to the lines. maybe they are referring to depth ? doesnt sound like it though. do they not know what they are actually doing ?

any thoughts would be appreciated.

thanks,

florian meier

[stotty]

There is some of that kind of stuff in the Patterns Archive. I've seen stuff elsewhere on the website too. It's a question of surfing around TP...often the answer is out there on one of the pages...

[stotty]

Look in the strategy section, too....

[johnyandell]

Agreed. Would love someone to count this for one or more players in the Patterns Archives.

[gzhpcu]

Since the usage of electronic devices like Hawkeye, you get a lot of interesting match statistics when you watch a tennis match.

I have always been surprised at the statistics showing where the ball impacted the court. On serves, rarely close to the lines, on groundstrokes even less so.

Found this old Tilden video (his first match as a pro). They weren't hitting close to the lines either...
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=4676

Maybe just another myth?

[uspta990770809]

Fascinating

Since the usage of electronic devices like Hawkeye, you get a lot of interesting match statistics when you watch a tennis match.

I have always been surprised at the statistics showing where the ball impacted the court. On serves, rarely close to the lines, on groundstrokes even less so.

Found this old Tilden video (his first match as a pro). They weren't hitting close to the lines either...
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=4676

Maybe just another myth?

The style is almost cartoonlike compared to today's play, ...except where Tilden makes the move to approach the net and then finish with the overhead...then you can see some real speed and athleticism. It just doesn't look like they could compare to the speed of today's game. It would be interesting to see someone take today's players and put a film through some kind of a process that makes the video look like the kind of choppy films we have from that era and see how they would look. Must have been much less frames per second or something. Anybody know how to do that?

don

[stotty]

The style is almost cartoonlike compared to today's play, ...except where Tilden makes the move to approach the net and then finish with the overhead...then you can see some real speed and athleticism. It just doesn't look like they could compare to the speed of today's game. It would be interesting to see someone take today's players and put a film through some kind of a process that makes the video look like the kind of choppy films we have from that era and see how they would look.

don

Best thing in my view would be to give all today's players a wooden racket at the 2011 Grand Slam events, then we can all sit back and see just what the modern game looks like and make a true comparison.

Have you ever tried player-hopping thru generations? It works like this: Kramer beat Gonzales who beat Hoad -who beat Laver - who beat Tom Okker - who beat Connors - who beat Edberg - who beat Sampras and Becker.

You can player-hop throughout the history of tennis like this and find numerous examples of where players' careers intersect. Pancho Gonzales doesn't look much in comparison to today's players but when in his 40s he beat a 20 year-old Connors as well as John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, etc. Connors (in his 30s) went 5 sets with Agassi on one occasion.

Some of the old films are poor. I watched Borg and Mac live at Wimbledon and I swear to God the ball wasn't moving that slow. I have been to Wimbledon every year for 35 years and the players then seemed every bit as good as they are now. I try not to be a prisoner of my own generation on this subject...but...does film slow down over years?..or am I seeing the truth?

[llll]

Best thing in my view would be to give all today's players a wooden racket at the 2011 Grand Slam events, then we can all sit back and see just what the modern game looks like and make a true comparison.

Have you ever tried player-hopping thru generations? It works like this: Kramer beat Gonzales who beat Hoad -who beat Laver - who beat Tom Okker - who beat Connors - who beat Edberg - who beat Sampras and Becker.

You can player-hop throughout the history of tennis like this and find numerous examples of where players' careers intersect. Pancho Gonzales doesn't look much in comparison to today's players but when in his 40s he beat a 20 year-old Connors as well as John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, etc. Connors (in his 30s) went 5 sets with Agassi on one occasion.

Some of the old films are poor. I watched Borg and Mac live at Wimbledon and I swear to God the ball wasn't moving that slow. I have been to Wimbledon every year for 35 years and the players then seemed every bit as good as they are now. I try not to be a prisoner of my own generation on this subject...but...does film slow down over years?..or am I seeing the truth?

no YOU slow down with age.
no offence .sorry mate

[florian80]

hitting close to the lines

do you have any thoughts on this john ? (i am still referring to the subject of hitting close to the lines). working with high performance players i have had a lot of arguments with players/parents and other coaches about this.

have you ever come across some kind of study like that ? (how close to the sidelines pros hit what percentage of the time for example) i am sure someone must have done studies in this direction ?

thanks,

florian

[stotty]

no YOU slow down with age.
no offence .sorry mate

Ha...ha...you're probably right...no offence taken