abmk
Bionic Poster
Jack Kramer was one of the people who believed in this but he put it in a different way.
Thing is that I believe the key words are PERCENTAGE TENNIS. A good example of this was Rod Laver as an amateur as opposed to Rod Laver as a Pro. Laver was destroyed by Rosewall and Hoad in the beginning. Laver according to I believe himself and others learned not to play as many risky shots and I believe improved his second serve.
Pancho Gonzalez was beaten badly by Jack Kramer on tour but he learned from Kramer how to play percentage tennis.
So yes there are factors that are negative in too much versatility but I believe that if a person learns the percentages on which shots to use that versatility cannot hurt. Sometimes the shot which may be low percentage for some may be high percentage for that particular player. Very few in the history of tennis could drop shot the way John McEnroe could. For most players, even the great ones, the drop shot, if used so much is not a great percentage play but John McEnroe combined it with his other great skills to make it a percentage play in his favor. Many of Laver's shots were perhaps not the highest percentage plays like his full swing backhand topspin drive after a person lobbed him into Laver's backhand corner. However Laver did it so well that often players would try use shots so they could avoid that particular shot of Laver's. Bill Tilden come out of the hospital for one Wimbledon final and was down two sets to none so he resorted to drop shots and eventually won the match. Edberg used to hit the most ridiculous angles on some of his volleys but for him it was a very good percentage play.
yeah, that's a good point .... I agree with this ...