Extraordinary Tennis For The Ordinary Player

Farm by EUGENE LSCOTT EXTRAORDLNAR TEMWS Y FOR THE R ORDIZVAR Y PLA YE Revised Edition by Simmz Rama, PhD. TT FOREWORD BY EUGENE L. SCO CROWN PUBLISHERS, INC. NEW YORK Contents Foreword Preface 1. Two Different Games, One Name . © 1977 by Simon Ramo . fiieEEEFuifiiiiéef‘a 33.3 ffii‘ififiififigfi 3333?; or mechanical, including photocopying; recording, or by 2. The Triple Fault 28 3 The Myth of the Backhand Grip 34 4 Cannonballs, Micro~Cannonballs, and Bloopers 42 5. Zip Codes for Special Delivery of Serve 49 6. Socking It to Tim in Return of Serve 7. Net Nonsense and Non-Stance 60 8: 8' N“ NF‘di‘E 1‘“ 9 Lob leemes w. Halfway Measures I I. Batches and Sons of Batches any information storage and retrieval system, without per- mission in writing from thp Publisher. Inquiries should be fiygkfggfigglgubhshers, Ina, One Park Avenue, . x09 12: :31 . (2. Divorce, Tennis Style I 3. It’s All Relative 141 152 Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneousty» in Canada by General Publishing Company Limited Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rama, Simon. Extraordinary tennis for the ordinary player. 1., Tcnnis. 7 9 [3 I. Title. GV995.R28. 1977 796,34’22 76-30349 ISBN 0517630326 ISBN 0-517-52987-4 pbk. ngfima‘ %. GQWBADE A W V “3 HEEQA‘EX iE‘W " “ ) “ Foreword er could have Extraordinary Tennis for the Ordz'nary Play so precisely been written by Rod Lever or Jimmy Connors, it was written by is the gut of the game dissected. Instead, “No gentleman should be too good at a sport”-—-old English saying. world. Simon Rama who is virtually unknown in the tennis of the ents But Dr. Ramo has identified the essential elem he stresses, sport that 99.9% of the tennis world play. And, as 1% (the it shouldn’t be confused with what the other .000 play. 400 touring professionals out of 40 million participants) Few athletes recognize that the most crucial difference be. tween golf: and tennis is that if you hit a great six iron next to the pin your opponent can’t: take the shot away from you. Yet in tennis, you can smack an ace down the center service line only to see your tormentor make a futile stab at the hall which suddenly changes direction in the wind and plops fairly on the baseline. Dealing with the frustration that comes when an opponent robs a point because of good anticipation or luckmor both-is an emotion that a golfer does not have to face. A good shot in golf. is forever secure. Ramo exposes the ugly statistic in tennis that most points are iost by errors rather than won on power or elegance. In other words, if you examine an imaginary scorecard of any two hack players, less than 20% of the points played are won. Games are won on opponents’ mistakes, not on placements. The author harps on this theme a good deal of the time. It’s as if the significance of errors is a leitmotif recurring throughout the book. He pounds away relentlessly at the importance of reducing mistakes. This is Rama’s greatest. contribution and he couldn’t spend too much time on the subject to suit me. In no other sport is it possible for an athlete to hit the greatest shot of his life and have it not count because of his foe’s counterattack. If you throw a perfect pass in football it will result in a touchdown. If you hit a baseball flawlessly you’ll produce a home run or, at worst, a single. But tennis does not often reward: one excel- to hit