The middle of the net is the most wasted target in tennis

The net sags in the centre by six inches, and club players spend their lives aiming at the highest part of it instead.

The net is not a flat obstacle. It is three feet six at the posts and three feet in the middle, held down by a strap, and that half foot of difference is sitting there unused in almost every match played below professional level.

Six inches does not sound like much until you translate it into what it buys. Aiming crosscourt over the low centre section, a player gets more vertical margin, a longer diagonal to land the ball in, and a shorter distance for their own recovery afterwards. Aiming down the line over the high part near the post, they get less margin, a shorter court, and a much longer run to cover the reply. The geometry is not close. Crosscourt is the percentage ball for reasons that have nothing to do with tradition.

And yet the down the line ball has enormous psychological pull, because it is the one that ends points and looks decisive. I watch club matches where somebody goes down the line off a defensive position, misses into the tape, and then does it again two points later. The tape is where those balls go. It is not bad luck, it is a target selection error repeated under the illusion of aggression.

There is a second thing the low centre gives you, and it is more interesting. Angles that pass close to the middle of the net can be hit flatter and harder because you are not spending racquet head speed on lift. Spend it on pace instead. A ball driven over the strap arrives faster than the same swing lofted over the post area, which means the opponent has less time on a shot that also happens to be safer.

Where I would push back on my own argument is in doubles. There the middle of the net has a player standing right in front of it, and the low centre invites an interception that ends the point instantly. Doubles inverts the whole calculation, which is why doubles players hit sharper angles and lob far more than singles players and why the two games look increasingly unrelated.

The single cheapest improvement available to most amateurs is to raise their average net clearance and move their targets inward. Not to the middle of the court. To the middle of the net.

Nobody wins a highlight package that way. They win sets.