How Rocky Carson Can Beat Kane (If Only Rocky Could Heed Advice)

In the 2017 US Open Final for the IRT (International Racquetball Tour), Rocky took a game off Kane, but what is most noticeable after all these years Rocky keeps making the same mistakes over and over. He never learns. Let me give you an example to bring home the point.

There was a study done of 18,000 people on weight loss, and the only people that were over 300 pounds who managed to permanently stay under 200 pounds were those who kept an excel spreadsheet of their calories they took in each day.

What I am proposing is Rocky Carson lives in his emotions from day to day, and not in actual reality which the numbers convey. If you look at this table attached it shows there are only two serves a person should ever serve against Kane, the drive to Kane's backhand (43%) and the drive to his forehand (44%).

In fact, Rocky did not drive serve in proper proportion either, because he drove 37 times to Kane's backhand and only 10 times to his forehand. Rocky should have drove more to Kane's forehand than his backhand according to the success ratio for everyone.

In the US Open Final Rocky tried a plethora of serves: DB, GB, DBZ, HFN, HBN, DF, GF, HBL, MBL, MBZ, DFZ. He should have only used the DB and DF.

Of course, I want Kane to always win because he is from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, but I would like to see better competition for him which makes things more interesting.

Attachment 517

Rocky should at least be able to attain 43% for the DB and 44% for the DF.

What this next table shows is Rocky has not explored the full gambit of serves, because these serves show potential: HFL, HFZ, HBZ, HFN. However, pulling these serves from the above table for the average opponent against Kane (results from quarters and above), they do not perform as hoped except for possibly the HFZ.

The tried and true are the DB and DF. The DB and the DF are the only serves Rocky should ever serve against Kane.

Rocky has to bear down and perfect the DB (42%) and DF (39%), and get his DB up to 43% and DF up to 44% (the average for players against Kane in the above table) and higher. Rocky has to do what Alejandro Landa and Ben Croft do which is to drive these two serves exclusively on the first serve and the second serve.

This approach reconciles these two tables so that Rocky should not be tempted to DBZ even though this serve is at 40% for Rocky's personal stats and 40% for the average in above table for serves against Kane. Relatively, the DB and DF served exclusively is still the best approach.

Attachment 518

I haven't recorded all Rocky's matches against Kane, but I think the same conclusion would be reached.

Let's picture what the HFZ would look like served against Kane. This is the High Forehand Z serve, that is, to his forehand.

Kane will of course try to short hop it, but it is an awkward position to try to smash it overhead which might cause Kane to take it in the back. If it has good length Kane will have to kill it from shoulder high at 39 feet which could prove difficult even for Kane.

One thing is for sure. Kane has not been tested with this serve over the course of the past 10 years.

It's worth it to at least explore this serve and give it a chance on the 2nd serve.

If and when Rocky finally heeds this advice (DB, DF exclusively) and experiments with the HFZ, I will report it here.