Comparing Cliff Swain's Drive Serve to Kane Waselenchuk's at Racquetball
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hilario
You've been arguing that the only way to beat Kane is to drive serve effectively. Cliff demonstrated his superiority against Kane on more than one occasion. But now you're saying Kane has the better drive serve.
I don't think so!
2004 was the last time Cliff beat Swain when Kane was 22 years old and Swain was still in his 30's. Kane was still a young buck with lots to learn still. His drive serving then is not what it is now. Back then he drove serve more like Swain did, going for the glory.
He didn't reach his prime until sometime after 2008 based on his winning record so sometime after Kane was 28 years old when he really fine tuned his driving approach.
I think too much is given to Swain beating Kane early on. Kane was just 18 years old the first time they played. He did beat Swain once when he was 20 and 3 times when he was 21. Plus you have to appreciate Kane was the new blood, and Swain new that Kane was going to be great so he wanted to beat him the first few times out.
Swain was closer to peak playing age than Kane was when they played each other early on so Swain should have been winning in their first few outings against each other.
Also, Kane was going up against incredible odds being a Canadian. The best a Canadian has ever done before was Mike Green making it to the semi's 7 times only. Kane won his first pro stop just shy of 20 years of age in 2001.
I may never convince you, but in my mind by this reasoning Kane's driving approach is far superior, balanced, realistic and produces better results than Cliff's. The numbers speak for themselves. And so does common sense...
...Kane exerts less energy on his drive serve so he can drive serve throughout an entire tournament. He shorts it less often. His first serve is usually in compared to Cliff's. His lines are tighter and more accurate which is more important than blistering serves. We all know Kane can and does sometimes drive serve those blistering serves, but he chooses not to usually for more effective lines.
Correct me if I am wrong. I retrieved this data from http://www.bossconsulting.com/irt/
My own records show Kane's success rate (winning the rally) on his drive serve to his opponent's backhand is an unprecedented 62% and to his opponent's forehand is at 60% based on over 2000 drive serves.
