Progressing or Regressing?

Probably it's that time of the year - making new resolutions, reviewing old ones and comparing notes...

Looking back at the past year, I thought I made decent progress, and even won two chaps I always lost to! 

Then dropped back down to earth when I got walloped by an elder man using a beat up WOOD racket!!!

With him leading at 3-2, I ran through my mental checklist, but everything was covered:
- Has my strings lost tension and control?
- Was my grip wet or slipping?
- Were the balls too hard or flat?
- Was I moving my feet?
- Was I hitting the ball deep enough?
- Did I attack his backhand?
- Did I open up the angles?
- Did I vary my game plan and strokes?

It ended 6-3. Not entirely a trashing. And he didn't look that old. 

But still, what bothered me was the woodie! How did he wield it like that? That thing was at least 50 grams heavier than my modern graphite 98 square inch! And the headsize was ⅓ smaller!

I am grateful he was quick to soothe my embarrassment. Back in his country, he was a competitive player for many years. He learnt and trained with wood sticks but could not get used to modern rackets however he tried.

Eventually, he decided to just play his classic game, and let his competitors play theirs. Just like what Adam Smith advocated in the Theory of Comparative Advantage - "Do what you do best".

Without a doubt, his mastery of flat shots, slices, volleys and placement was superior to whatever topspin I could muster.

His flat shots were extremely power efficient. That gave him time to place those low skidders. Which in turn, gave me very little time to react and hit, and restricted the amount of topspin I could use. I became a toothless tiger!

Really makes me wonder, that if women, and even kids could handle traditional 400+ grams woodies in the past, have we regressed? The more popular rackets today all weigh only 300+ grams or so.

Is today's parabolic-curving topspin really much faster than the flat shots of yester-years? 

I have my doubts. Time to polish up my footwork and review my stringing setup against wood wielders...