Pushers have a bad rep, mainly because they make players look bad while beating them. The standard criticism of pushers, is they endlessly prod the ball with bad technique and somehow unfairly beat "better players". You sometimes see players like that but in my experience, the majority of players who are labelled as pushers are simply players who hit within themselves and safely, some even have pretty conventional technique.
For me pushing is really just a different mindset, it is about taking an honest look at your game and realising you're not Federer, Djokovic or any other top pro. That you can't crack winners from all over the court. It is about being honest about your limitations and playing within your ability.
The goal of a pusher is to not give their opponent any free points, to avoid committing any unforced errors. Pushers do this by learning which shots they can make the majority of the time and which are low percentage shots and only playing the higher percentage ones.
Now to me that doesn't sound like a deadend or limiting a player's game. That sounds like the foundations of a tennis player, foundations to which power and more aggressive play can be added to later.
So that is why I think low level players should learn how to push and I think the real deadend to development is to attempt a power game before you have the ability to play that way, in the hope that it will one day magically start working.
For me pushing is really just a different mindset, it is about taking an honest look at your game and realising you're not Federer, Djokovic or any other top pro. That you can't crack winners from all over the court. It is about being honest about your limitations and playing within your ability.
The goal of a pusher is to not give their opponent any free points, to avoid committing any unforced errors. Pushers do this by learning which shots they can make the majority of the time and which are low percentage shots and only playing the higher percentage ones.
Now to me that doesn't sound like a deadend or limiting a player's game. That sounds like the foundations of a tennis player, foundations to which power and more aggressive play can be added to later.
So that is why I think low level players should learn how to push and I think the real deadend to development is to attempt a power game before you have the ability to play that way, in the hope that it will one day magically start working.
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