Editing Lew Hoad (section)

==Playing style==

Strength of arm and wrist played an important part in Hoad's game, as he often drove for winners rather than rallying and waiting for the "right" opportunity, though he also had the skill to win the [[French Open|French Championships]] on the slower clay court. Hoad played right-handed and had a powerful serve and groundstrokes.  Hoad's game was reported to lack consistency in some accounts.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58103747 |title=How Vic Seixas rates our men. |work=[[The Mail (Adelaide)|The Mail]]  |date=21 August 1954 |page=44 |via=Trove}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130984229 |title=Hoad "too erratic to be great". |work=[[The News (Adelaide)|The News]]  |date=2 September 1954 |page=48 |via=Trove}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71647677 |title=It's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hoad! |work=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]]  |date=23 July 1956 |page=16 |via=Trove}}</ref> At times Hoad had difficulty maintaining concentration.{{sfnp|Hoad|Pollard|2002|p=10}}<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18447077 |title=Hoad's main problem now himself. |work=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=1 December 1954 |page=17 |via=Trove}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71805343 |title=Lew's biggest rival is Hoad |work=[[The Argus (Melbourne)|The Argus]] |date=26 May 1956 |page=5 (The Argus Weekender) |via=Trove}}</ref> According to Kramer, "Hoad had the loosest game of any good kid I ever saw. There was absolutely no pattern to his game.... He was the only player I ever saw who could stand six or seven feet behind the baseline and snap the ball back hard, crosscourt. He'd try for winners off everything, off great serves, off tricky short balls, off low volleys. He hit hard overspin drives, and there was no way you could ever get him to temporise on important points."<ref name=sahof>{{cite web|title=Lew Hoad |url=https://sahof.org.au/hall-of-fame-member/lew-hoad/|publisher=Sport Australia Hall of Fame}}</ref>

Hoad was runner-up for the Australian junior table tennis championship in 1951, and developed strong wrists and arms through heavy weight-lifting regimes.<ref name="archive.10sballs.com">10sballs, 10 August 2016. https://archive.10sballs.com/2016/08/10/ten-fittest-male-players-by-richard-evans/</ref>  Hoad would use wrist strength in his strokes to make last split-second changes in racquet direction. He would saw off about an inch from the ends of his racquet handles, which were short to begin with, and move the grip higher to wield his racquets as if they were ping-pong bats.{{sfnp|Hodgson|Jones|2001|p=234}} Hoad would use wrist action to give heavy topspin to his groundstrokes.<ref>TIME magazine, 6 July 1959. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,825754,00.html. "Flatfooted, he can hit a backhand with a flick of his powerful wrist with so much top spin that the ball seems to zoom off the turf like a maddened hornet."</ref>