Pushers

Tennis folks love giving advice. But they tend to give advice on the same situations over and over again.

For example, someone always writes an article "How to deal with pushers".

A pusher is a derogatory term (this is tennis, of course, so it's not terribly derogatory) for a person who hits with little pace, and whose goal is to make you miss. They don't plan to hit the ball very hard, probably because they are afraid of hitting the ball hard.

There's an implicit assumption in this kind of article.

You aren't a pusher

How come there's never an article like "Win more tennis by pushing the ball"? Is it because we favor aggressive tennis so much that we imagine everyone must play this way? The advice invariably suggests not getting frustrated, realizing your opponent will not put the ball away, and setting up shots so you can put the ball away.

But, what if you are the pusher?

What if you know you can't set up the ball to put it away?

Maybe it's my software background that makes me think of these "what if" questions. Maybe it's the sheer laziness of tennis writers who pen the same article over and over, without really thinking of anything new to write about.

Indeed, for people giving advice, it's strange that they have a set of assumptions they are making about your game, but they never state it. They blindly and blandly assume you fit a certain stereotyped player.

And who really fits that description?