There could be another Rafter going around at Challenger level. You wouldn't know because the only way to win is grinding. Even Federer, who can volley very well, played the last Wimbledon final from the back of the court. At least for the first two sets, because that's all I could be bothered to watch.
Deep down the lovers of baseline botting know that the success of their heroes is built on equipment more than talent, otherwise the idea of variety wouldn't send them into such a frenzy.
But Rafter had both the serve
and the volleys. The most "high profile" S&Ver we've seen in the past five years is M Zverev, and both his net game and serve are pretty pedestrian. If there truly is a new Pat Rafter playing, surely we would've known about him by now.
And I don't buy this idea that a baseline attrition game is somehow inherently conducive to success. If that were the case, then why are we even trying to push for a comeback of a strategy that is quite clearly inferior? What is this, some kind of affirmative action for tennis styles except we're starting on the premise that some game styles actually are inferior?
At any rate, Federer has shown that S&V
is viable
if, and only if, you actually have the two elements required to execute S&V, ie the serve and the volleys, failing which you at least need a return and the volleys. That was the case back then, and it still is the case now (probably more now than ever). As I said before, as far as I can tell, there are three possibilities:
- the volleys are decent but the serve and/or return sucks (eg Dimitrov);
- both the volleys and the serve/return aren't that good to begin with (just that the groundstrokes are even worse) (eg M Zverev); or
- both the serve and the volleys are good but the groundstrokes are even better (eg Federer).
And I can't get behind this notion that baseliners inherently have no talent--unless of course your definition of talent is the ability to execute net play, in which case then yeah, sure, by that definition baseliners with poor net skills have no talent.
As for variety, variety is just a matter of being able to use different shots within your game. It's just a matter of execution. If modern racquets and strings make everything easy, then surely these young guys would be able to execute literally everything better than previous generations did, and that's clearly not the case.
The biggest "what if" in my view, is what we would have if players were trained differently, to let players express themselves more individually and build their coaching around that, than to mass produce inferior clones of a more successful player. As I'm not a coach I wouldn't know the first thing about how one would go about it, or the less obvious practicalities that hold back high-end coaches from doing so. But from what I have seen and read, it does seem like these academies are trying put a square peg into a round hole, shoehorning juniors to play a type of game almost purely on the basis that it worked for someone else.
