Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
Widespread wool pants thesis: The players of today have terrible net games; someone like Federer isn't a true grass tennis great because he can't really (serve &) volley competently at all compared to those before the 2000s; and given a semi-quick court, Kramer, Gonzales, Laver, Rosewall, McEnroe and Edberg would volley today's fools into oblivion.
Reasonable antithesis: The players of today only struggle to use the net to the same effect because they are facing incoming shots and passes of a completely different caliber; whereas the players pre-poly could come in behind relatively weak shots as long as they stayed low — because players had to hit them upwards seeing as they didn't have proper topspin drives to save their life, often leading to easy put-aways — these shots would make you utterly humiliated by the receiving players of today; in fact, it might be that any player who manages a success rate of 60% or above on 20+ net forays in a match today is automatically doing higher-level net play than the wool pants players ever did.
Let the games begin.
Reasonable antithesis: The players of today only struggle to use the net to the same effect because they are facing incoming shots and passes of a completely different caliber; whereas the players pre-poly could come in behind relatively weak shots as long as they stayed low — because players had to hit them upwards seeing as they didn't have proper topspin drives to save their life, often leading to easy put-aways — these shots would make you utterly humiliated by the receiving players of today; in fact, it might be that any player who manages a success rate of 60% or above on 20+ net forays in a match today is automatically doing higher-level net play than the wool pants players ever did.
Let the games begin.

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