retire "I'm better but lose"

[Ash Doyle]

Let's retire the whole "I'm than <whoever> but I always lose." This argument pops up all the time on these boards, and I say we retire this nonsense. It's usually goes along with the person complaining how ugly the other players strokes are...well, newsflash: pretty strokes don't win matches.

There's a lot that goes into winning a match, and tennis is a sport not an art. The goal is to win matches not develop the most aesthetically
pleasing strokes. Your goal should be to develop the most effective strokes, sometimes the two go together, but not always.

If someone is constantly beating you, even with their ugly strokes, it's time to just admit they ARE better than you.

If we can get this argument retired, next let's go after the "I was hitting the ball great today, all my strokes were clicking it's just that none of my shots went in" argument.

[@wright]

It's about time someone notice that. Excuses are for losers, not guys that should have won. I played a guy the other week, and he knows I drive 25 minutes to where we play and it's close to where he lives. He complained about the wind during the warm up, then the wind stopped completely. I went on to beat him 6-0 and then he left, citing "bad conditions". The conditions worked pretty DAMN well for me. I drove almost an hour to play for 45 minutes. Thanks Jackass.

[Max G.]

Well, I feel like playing devil's advocate, so...

"I'm better than <whoever> but I always lose" can be true. I'll cite an example from the pro game - Santoro and Safin.

Safin is, simply put, a better singles player than Santoro. In the course of his career, he's sure to win more Slams than Santoro, more tournaments overall, have a better career-high rank, do more of just about everything that singles players are measured by.

And yet, Santoro has his number. 7-2.

Another example - Henman-Federer. Federer is sure to have a more accomplished career than Henman; by just about any standard besides consistency of Wimbledon performaces, he will be considered "better." And yet, for now, Henman has Federer's number. Up until last year's Tennis Masters Cup, the same could be said of Nalbandian.

..................that said, most of the time it really is just a stupid excuse. But there may be situations where it isn't.