What is percentage play in tennis? I put it very simple, it is to play the right ball to the right place at the right moment.  To understand and execute percentage tennis you have to have a greater understanding of the game that involves:

-  Mastery of strokes (good clean technique),  experience (match and tournament play), fitness (tournament level), confidence (mental stability), tactical & strategic implementation plus other elements.

Why all of these? Because to use percentage play you must be able to execute the strokes that lead to the situations and capitalize on the opportunities they offer. It takes time to develop all of these and like anything built to last (a solid foundation), it takes time to build but, the rewards are endless!

Often Teachers can be miss undertood and players follow litteraly certain patterns that are supposed to be "percentage shots". For example:

- "Johnny, hit your returns cross court all the time - the net is lower in the mid section of the court, you can hit the ball harder because the court is longer and if you hit a good shot 95% of the times your opponent will hit cross court back to you and you will not have to run"

"Johnny" does just that and his opponent wether he stays back or goes to the net is ready and waiting for the "cross-court percentage-shot".

What should "Johnny" really do to stack up the odds in his favour? If the opponent is a baseliner or an agressive baseliner:

In spite of having two very worthy opponents in the semis, once again both Nadal and Federer proved to be the strongest.

Young Novak Djokovic, proved that he is a solid performer capable of tactical genious, backed by excellent stroke making but,  the legs are not up to par with the physical requests,  which Nadal fully exploited.

On the other hand Nikolai Davidenko with exceptional movement and stamina, showed us his mental fragility under winning pressure against a Roger Federer that knows it.

---

For parents and "wannabe" professional players it is hard to understand that this highly competitive sport of tennis seeks the boundaries of the maximum capacity of human efficiency. Neither do they realize that the decision for a career in top sports performance, especially in tennis, represents a persistent incision into a youngster's way of  life.

Next, they lack the global vision to assess the future restrictions in the young person's development as well as in occupation education or job situations.

In many cases they do not either foresee the considerable financial expenses, demands on their own assets (parents) or that finding sponsor and tennis association funds is very difficult or extremely restricted. Therefore, at the training formation and talent selection, not only from the sporting point of view, but  especially for ethical reasons, high requests on all areas should be placed on players by coaches and teachers.

---

 This question is posed every time I watch a tennis match on TV involving Roger Federer and some pundits are willing to award this title of best player of all time to Federer.

We can all understand that the press will have to be positive and cater to the ATP to get their passes and satisfy their employers, but with this kind of comments and write ups they do a great disservice to their audiences and the sport of tennis, because they are not taking into account past past performances from players such as; Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Björn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras and totally ignoring history.

---