Jai actually a better example is squash - Indians have done well in that sport and Pakistanis too!jayakris wrote: ↑Tue Jul 24, 2018 12:07 amI have always felt that the uneven bounce at Newport (exactly what VReddy just mentioned) is the real reason for Indians' success there. It is low bounce as well, and that also may help Indians. If I am not mistaken, den Bosche also has somewhat uneven bounces. And VReddy is correct that Wimbledon, Stuttgart, Queens etc are on much more even and higher-bounce grass courts.
Why the uneven low bounce helps Indians is unclear to me though. One guess could be that Indians are used to playing on bad courts, but I am not sure of that either. Guys like RamK, Prakash and Rajeev Ram who had never really played on bad-bounce Indian courts have done well at Newport. So, that explanation doesn't work.
A better guess I have had is that it has something to do with the Indian genes possibly having some special characteristic that connects reflexes to wrists, along with some general flexibility of the wrists. That comes in handy when there is uneven bounce. This possible ability of Indian genes may be lesser known, as this athletic factor doesn't seem to be important or useful in most sports, except for grass hockey, grass tennis, and cricket. And we have had some of the most legendary wrists in the world in all these sports. But this characteristic usually doesn't go well with power generation, which may be why Indians haven't been that successful with it in squash, badminton and table tennis where also one would expect the wrists might be of use.
Another sport where it will really help (probably the most among all sports?) is Lacrosse, but Indians don't play it. Picking a ball up from the ground in a melee requires extreme reflexes and coordinated flexible wrists, and it is a big part of Lacrosse. I only have one data point on Lacrosse which is my own son, who is the most wristy Lacrosse player I have ever seen (he was ranked top-3 in the US national rankings in ground ball stats in his senior year in high school and was even recruited by some schools then, as I have mentioned before).
I did watch RamK's finals at Newport all the way through 1-4 in the 3rd - when it became clear that Steve Johnson would prevail. I noticed in the first set that even though RamK had 5 aces to no doubles, compared to 0-4 for Steve Johnson, still SJ was holding firm and RamK was unable to move forward. Agree his returns have improved, but he wasnt able to exert a lot of pressure with them. RamK was serving/volleying very well, but to a fixed pattern and SJ was even able to run around off the first volley to his backhand and pass consistently with inside-out forehands. These were beginning to get too predictable and sure enough all it took was for one backhand volley error at 5-5 to give the break SJ needed to close out set 1.
The second set was very promising, RamK broke early and held to completion - I was very optimistic at this stage because RamK powered ahead with some very consistent serving and it was apparent that SJ had shifted strategy to try and dominate set 3.
Set 3 started off ok - but SJ gradually began to dominate RamK's first volley return - this is the kind of pressure that RamK himself could not exert on SJ! Such is RamK's serve that he can still hang with the top 50 guys. This is very promising...I hope he can improve on the return games and exert more pressure on his opponents in those games. It can make a huge difference and catapult him into the top 50 if he improves in this area.
Prof
