05-24-2016, 10:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-24-2016, 10:47 PM by Viking_Guy.)
Speaking as a player, I LOVED Davidson's approach on the final point - the multitude of deep slices, giving her opponent less to work with for a big top-spin shot, and basically wait for her to make a mistake. One thing I noticed about Stanford and other teams is that they tended toward impatience at points - going for a big swinging volley or some other low-probability shot when they had the advantage, and often hammering it into the tape.
One of my fondest memories of playing was a ladder match on my high school team. I was playing against a guy who was a big hitter, and he was taking it to me, up 5-1 in a one-set challenge. So I decided to hit every baseline shot as a high topspin lob, forcing him to play deep and slowly; I even did it with some short balls that I could've easily turned into approach shots. He completely fell apart, and I eventually won 6 straight games and the set 7-5. Afterward, he complained to our coach about my tactic. The coach took one look at him, and simply said, "Who won?"
VG
One of my fondest memories of playing was a ladder match on my high school team. I was playing against a guy who was a big hitter, and he was taking it to me, up 5-1 in a one-set challenge. So I decided to hit every baseline shot as a high topspin lob, forcing him to play deep and slowly; I even did it with some short balls that I could've easily turned into approach shots. He completely fell apart, and I eventually won 6 straight games and the set 7-5. Afterward, he complained to our coach about my tactic. The coach took one look at him, and simply said, "Who won?"
VG