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“Curve? Do you mean, adding a spin to my shots?” Eiichiro stood on the opposite side of the court as Coach Miura. He stood, ready and waiting for the first service to be hit in his direction.
Coach Miura picked up a ball from the bin next to him and tossed it up into the air, “You could add a spin to your shots, but the curve I’m talking about is the ranking and correlation with playstyle,” He hit the ball with average strength, not sending a shot to weak for Eiichiro to return properly, or too fast of a shot that would cause him to miss completely. “It’s called a Bell Curve.”
“A Bell Curve?” Eiichiro returned the ball, causing it bounce right down the center of the court perfectly, not favoring one direction over the other. “I think I’ve heard of the Bell Curve before, but I can’t remember going over it any.”
“I’ve noticed you constantly take notes whenever you can,” he returned the ball back Eiichiro, intending to get him warmed up before telling him where to hit a target shot. Miura’s half of the court was painted, with the number one through nine displayed in the same fashion as a phone’s number pad. “You watch a lot of the players here too, not just at tournaments.”
Eiichiro knocked the ball back across the court, but his aim was off and the return was considered a fault. He sighed, “I missed…”
“It’s just a warm-up Maruo. Don’t stress yourself out about it. Have you thought about different play styles? When I first had you start practicing your ball control and you played against Takuma, surely you noticed his play style is different from your own.” Another warm-up ball was thrown into the air and knocked Maruo’s way, “After this ball, we’ll start practice.”
After finishing practice on bettering his ball control, Eiichiro wiped sweat away from his forehead and dried his hands before grabbing a blank notebook from his tennis bag. He started scribbling down notes rather quick, as well as drawing a graph he assumed to be the Bell Curve his coach was talking about. He showed the notebook to Miura and said, “Is this what you mean?”
“Well…” Coach Miura was amazed at how quickly Eiichiro had picked up on how to draw the graph but wasn’t surprised. He smiled, and laughed a little to himself, “You’re really going to be up there someday.”