Shot Tolerance

What is Shot Tolerance and how does it decide matches?

When I was playing professional tennis, I developed a concept that helped me understand the games of others players, and how I might be able to beat them. That concept is Shot Tolerance.

This was in the days before you had coaches, and nutritionists, and trainers, and agents, and you had to do some things for yourself. So I would go out and watch matches and I would just count. What I found was that all players have a limit beyond which they don’t want to play the point anymore. That point is their Shot Tolerance.

I would watch matches, and I would count and I would see that this guy’s shot tolerance is between these numbers. I found there was some real consistency to it. It was kind of amazing actually.

Relative Tolerance

What I found was that certain players had a higher shot tolerance than I did. So against them I knew I was going to have to find a way to do something. There were other players I studied that I found had a lower shot tolerance than I did. So I knew, as long as I…