Re: Lendl vs other greats....(head to heads)

"Steve Jaros" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message

> > It's not "semantic". "Overpowered" is a fairly clear concept and I'm
> simply
> > pointing out that Lendl did NOT "overpower" people.
>
> Of course he did. Everyone who watched tennis during that time knows it.
By
> insisting otherwise, you're just revealing yourself as someone who only
> knows Lendl's career from the History Channel.

What people "see" and "know" are manifestations of "theory", even if this
theory is only implicit. The notion that people have some sort of "pure"
vision of reality is one of those fond notions that doesn't stand up to the
slightest scrutiny. Popper (remember him?) refers to it as the "bucket
theory of knowledge". BTW this doesn't mean all theory is necessarily
invalid but it does caution us to be sceptical of anybody claiming direct
apprehension of the truth.
    You say you (and everybody else who watched his matches) saw Lendl
"overpower" his opponents but I think a moment's reflection will indicate
that you "saw" nothing of the sort. In fact, you INTERPRETED the pattern of
play where Lendl moved his opponents around until they either made an error
or he hit a winner in this light but it hardly accords with the fact that
the rallies were often long (in the '87 FO Final often fifty shots or so)
and that Lendl's groundies (if measured) were around the pace of a modest
hacker's serve.
    Certainly the harder you hit the ball the better everything else being
equal because it's one of the factors behind reducing the time your opponent
has to play the ball (which IS a crucial aspect of the game). However the
"everything else being equal" is the rub; have you ever wondered why players
rarely hit the ball remotely as hard as they're capable of doing?. Any
decent club-player (and probably you as well) can hit his groundies as hard
as Lendl generally did. If tennis success is simply a matter of "who hits
the ball hardest" why then don't they follow this simple principle?