Ha, ha I love reading this thread. It's a pop corn time
It always amuses me when players whine about losing to pushers. It's not tennis..blah, blah, blah. I admit, it's not always enjoyable to play them but it does show a massive holes in your game.
Recently I witnessed a game. An old guy I think 60+ vs young hope regularly coached. The old man wiped him 6:4,6:1. In the first set he was down 1:4.
It was so amusing I had to watch the whole thing. The young guy started with so much power and confidence, I thought it will be over in few minutes. Until the breakthrough. The old guy implanted a little self doubt into his much younger unexperienced opponent, when he returned couple of incredible balls of the serve.
Just to give you a bit of an insight: This old man plays tennis for a long long time. He reads the game really well but as all pushers he has no pace in his shots. He developed his own technique, which works for him. He actually loves his opponent's pace and harder you hit, better he gets. I would say his main attributes are his mental toughness, rarely makes mistake and he almost always hits the ball on the sweet spot. I don't know how he does it.
Back to the game, the young guy started hitting even harder when he lost a few points in a row. His frustration kept increasing and on top of it he started spraying balls all over the place so the UE crept up as well.
So, this is what I meant, when I said it previously, you need pushers to your game. If your game has any holes or inadequacies, playing a pusher will definitely expose them.
