I have been watching Agnieszka Radwanska play for the last seven years. The first time that I saw her was when she was playing an ITF tournament in Minsk when she was 16. I remember really well how surprised I was that she was so creative and smart on the court. When I discussed my opinion with some coaches, I was told “No way, Radwanska will never reach top 50 because she is not strong enough and does not have the physical ability to hit the ball like the top players do”. Less than one year later, she broke into the top 100 at 17 years of age, and in just two more years, she reached the top 10. But skeptics continued to say “She has zero chance of becoming a star, she is just lucky. She does not have a strong 110 mph serve and her ground strokes are not very powerful. She will phase away soon”.
Yes, for some tennis coaches and players, it is impossible to understand that a tennis player can be in the top 10 without all that stuff. Maybe it’s because they do not want or cannot understand that there are naturally gifted players who cannot be created with 30+ hours a week of tennis, fitness and millions of dollars of investment. To play like Agnieszka Radwanska or Martina Hingis, you have to have been kissed by a tennis god when you were born.
Today we saw a great match, a showcase of powerful tennis vs. smart tennis. Serena Williams, a great tennis player of the open era won her fifth Wimbledon championship title. Congratulations to Serena.
But I want to give a special thanks to Agnieszka Radwanska for her smart and creative play. She saves the beauty in tennis. Her play is a good reason for some coaches and players to think that Boom-Boom tennis won’t completely dominate in the future. Smart tennis is still alive and the #2 in the world, Agnieszka Radwanska, proved it.
I hopes she continues surprising the tennis world and keeps showing us intelligent and creative play, also without any yelling or bad acting on the tennis court.
Very good observations. One must wonder if she will develop a little more power. I do think that her success is because someone was smart enough to share the bio-mechanics of the strokes and the technique of the game.
I also believe, that is the proper progression in teaching tennis. easier to have a strategy for an opponent,if you have more than just power.
I was really impressed by Radwanskas resilience. I can’t help but feel a strategy to challenge Serena is to absorb her pace and use it against her. It’s what I admire about Martial Arts. The idea that you always have an advantage against a stronger opponent. You just need to know how to use it.
I think Aggie managed to do a little of that in the second set. We forget that the mens tour if full of big power houses like Soderling, Del potro, Raonic and the like but Federer, Nadal and Djokovic know how to neutralising their power and use it against them.
I always say a smarter player is a better player. But the match between Agnieszka Radwanska & Serena Williams was a mismatch.
I seriously believe most players on the tour are better than Serena but Serena has a got “a” lethal weapon: her serve.
If you don’t loose your serve then you cannot loose the match. It is this simple.
The 2 most important shot in tennis are the serve and the return of serve. If you do them well the rest becomes easier.