The lesson to be learned from the career of Stan Smith is that a simple game plan with little variation or adaptability can be extremely effective if it is executed well. Having many strategic options is not always a blessing. A plan where the player makes few decisions can improve execution by allowing him to concentrate fully on forcing his simple plan home.
Stan was at his prime in the early 1970's, when he won the US championship (1971) and Wimbledon (1972). As dedicated a work-horse as Roy Emerson, Stan was not as good an athlete as Emerson but was more a disciplined technician. Where Emerson might spend hours simply running and smacking the ball, Stan would spend his time practicing his serve or working in exacting detail on the intricacies of some other stroke. The first time I ever saw Stan he was about seventeen years old and all alone on a back court at the Los Angeles Tennis Club practicing his serve and volley. He was hitting serves and following each serve with a full-speed sprint all the way to the net. For normal mortals it is boring enough to just practice serves all by oneself. It is worse running forward a few steps after each serve. But running all the way to net after every single serve is cruel and unusual punishment. Few players had the discipline to do it, but Stan was nothing if not disciplined.
Stan, of course, was working not only on his delivery, but also on the speed of his acceleration forward so he could get into the net quickly. In later years this paid him substantial dividends, because he was one of the best of all time at closing into the net so he could immediately put the ball away. Stan was extremely aggressive. He came to net often and fast after both first and second serves and at any other opportunity. He lacked finesse. His hands were strong but not supple. In fact Stan was the un-McEnroe, often mis-hitting volleys, but having managed to get in very close to the net, Stan was able to put the ball away anyway. He roared into the net at high speed and woe unto the opponent who hit slow, hanging balls. Stan was on top of the net in an instant to bury these.
Stan was able to play close to the net because of his size, ability to jump, and his great overhead. Stan was 6' 4" tall and an excellent basketball player. For his size he was quite quick and a terrific jumper. If you lobbed and Stan managed to reach the ball (which he was very likely to do) you were virtually sure to lose the point. I played Stan many times and his fearsome overhead was a particular problem to me. When I was attacked at the net and found myself too far off court or off balance to hit a reasonable passing shot, my normal response was to throw up a sky-high lob and force my opponent to hit an overhead deep in the court off the bounce. From there I was quite good at scrambling back the overhead and continuing the point. Against Smith this was hopeless. His overhead was so good that you might as well catch the ball as give him a bouncing overhead, no matter how deep or high the lob was. And you were not much better off lobbing his backhand overhead. This is a soft spot with most volleyers. The backhand overhead requires tremendous strength and few players have enough to really do you damage. If you can pitch the lob up over their backhand sides and make them hit this shot while jumping or off-balance, you can generally keep the point going and get an opportunity at a reasonable passing shot. Smith, on the other hand, was capable of bouncing backhand overheads over the fence, so lobbing this side was virtually hopeless as well. Nastase experienced some of the same problems that I did and in exasperation nicknamed Smith "Godzilla" in deference to his size and almost incredible strength.
end of Part One of "Stan Smith"
Click here to go to Roy Emerson Article
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