Thanks, consider this...
Interesting and well worded.
...it may be a little harsh to call the list of items we've been discussing as out and out fallacies. I prefer to think that a lot of these items have a grain of truth, or are true some of the time, in some situations.
So let's examine a little further the "7th game" dictum. Is there anything to recommend the 7th game of the set as the swing game? I think there's a case for it. My former coach Dave Hodge, was, successively, Men's Assistant at CU Boulder and Men's Assistant at Stanford, and is now one of the coaches for Tennis Australia. He also played on the ATP for about 2 years. Dave once told me that at the Futures and above level, it's not usually the case that both players come to a match primed to go out and play Miracle Tennis and win every point. They both know that they're pretty evenly matched, and that, early in the first set, it's critical to start off well by holding serve and trying to deduce a stategy for breaking your opponent's serve. The idea is to play percentage tennis, lots of first serves in, lots of returns back, accept the fact that it's probably going to be 3 all before you figure out what you need to do to win serve most easily...and, more important, break serve.
Thus, the criticality of the 7th game. Does this have any application at a less-than-ATP level? It certainly should, if you believe in NTRP. I know...there are different levels of 4.0s, especially if sandbagging is a factor, but I'd say that lots of 4.0 matches are, well, pretty evenly matched, to start off. So let's say I'm coaching two 4.0s in a practice match. Here's what I'd say:
"Okay, guys, here's the drill. First game, on your serve, first serve goes heavy right down the middle of the box, right at your opponent. I don't want to see
any second serves on the first two points. If you get up 30 love, good on ya. Now I want you to try something different on your serve...maybe out wide to the forehand. If that works and you're up 40 love, do two things: (1) File that information away for later, but don't go back to the well right away. (2) Try something adventurous in the ad court.
What happens if you're not up 30 love? First, ask yourself why. Did you get both first serves in? No? Did they go right down the middle of the box? Double no? Okay, you are now in the penalty box, and until you can show me that you can walk, you ain't gonna run. First serves in, right down the middle of the box, until you start winning points.
Okay, returner, your job is to get returns in play.
Make the other guy play. If you hand him stupid errors on the return, he'll love you forever and start serving better, probably. I don't mean push the ball, it's essential that you find your stroke and your depth on the return. Deep down the middle is just fine. Short down the middle isn't great...but it's a hell of a lot better than into the net. Try to make the guy run, try to make him hit lots of balls, if you break serve, fine. If you don't as long as you're holding serve, you're just finding your stroke and figuring out what you need to pull out of your bag of tricks when you
do get an opportunity to break serve.
Players ready?
Play."
[A decent interval occurs, ending in a 3-3 score].
"Okay, guys, it's now 3-3, well done! Yeah, I know, neither one of you is going to bagel the other guy, but on the other hand, you're not going to get turfed, either. You've both hit a bunch of balls, and you've got your movement and timing going. I still want you to play smart tennis, but when you see your opportunities, especially to break, I want you to step up and come up with the kind of bold moves I told you to try out, sparingly, while you were getting into the match...remember
that part?"