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Quote of the decade - in tennis »

The best backhand slice.

It’s obvious that Gasquet possesses the most beautiful and reasonably effective backhand drive in tennis currently. But if there’s another shot that is more important than the drive to set up a point in a rally, it’s the slice.

The best exponent of the backhand slice is - not Federer, as commentators i.e., ass lickers, would like us to believe. It’s a relatively less known and a superb Feliciano Lopez. Why, because he cannot hit a backhand drive to save his ass - much like Federer of the early 2000’s. 

So while Federer improved his drive and perfected his slice, it is still miles away from Lopez who never bothered to improve his drive. 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “The best backhand slice.”

  1. Nav Says:
    November 27th, 2007 at 9:57 pm

    Alright, these guys’ games are aesthetically beautiful. But what’s the point if they cannot use the beauty to win games or slams as much as Fedex does. Your post seems solely intended for Fed bashing, which kinda makes me feel sad for this blog. This blog has seen many more logically persuasive entries.

  2. Gasquet Fan Says:
    November 27th, 2007 at 10:11 pm

    Where did I bash Fed here?

  3. Nilu Says:
    November 27th, 2007 at 10:25 pm

    Hi Navin, how and where have you been?

  4. Gasquet fan Says:
    November 27th, 2007 at 11:33 pm

    To clarify, people slice because they can’t drive. Eg. Steffi Graf, Gonzalez. Slice can only set up a point, never used to finish points. All I am saying is Lopez couldn’t drive so he has a superb slice and Federer learnt to drive better, but still slices very well though not as well as Lopez.

    Fed bashing though, will start soon.

  5. Ritwik Priya Says:
    November 28th, 2007 at 5:09 am

    Gasquet fan,

    If people slice because they can’t drive, shouldn’t an improvement in a drive be accompanied by a decline or at least stagnation in the slice? Why doesn’t this hapen with Federer?

  6. Gasquet fan Says:
    November 28th, 2007 at 5:36 am

    Yes. Are you saying that Federer slices better now than he did earlier? I haven’t seen any evidence of it.

    If you are basing this perceived improvement of the slice because he beat Nadal in Hamburg clay this year, I can say that I didn’t see anything special from Federer that day. Nadal was just tired of playing 4 consecutive finals.

    Anyway, with the grip on his backhand (eastern), an improved slice is the only hope Federer has to beat Nadal on clay. And when he does that, it is natural that it will only affect the rest of his game. Perhaps he will try that after he’s done with the nagging Sampras’ record.

    And there’s also a disgusting rumour that Federer uses slice to finish off points. May be, if he was playing wimbledon’s wheelchair champion.

    Let me go out on a limb and say that Federer doesn’t even slice, not atleast in the classical sense. All he gives the ball is some backspin. A slice is where the ball spins on the side and to my knowledge Lopez is the only one on tour that does it. It’s very helpful on grass courts and I am always surprised why Lopez hasn’t managed to win atleast one wimbledon, with his huge serve though rest of his game is crappy anyway.

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