A let cord winner is not luck in the way you think

The net eats a certain number of shots per match, and who it punishes is largely a matter of choice.

The ball clips the tape, sits up, drops dead on the other side, and everybody performs the ritual. The apologetic hand. The wry shake of the head from the loser. Bad luck, terrible luck, nothing you can do. And then it happens again three games later to somebody else and we call that luck as well.

It is worth asking why some players seem to get more of them. The tempting answer is that they do not, and we only notice when it matters. But there is a duller explanation that I think does more work, which is that the net is a fixed obstacle and how often you hit it is a direct consequence of how much clearance you choose to play with.

A player who hits flat and low over the tape is buying speed with margin. That is a perfectly reasonable trade and at the top of the game it often wins. It also means the net is in play on a much higher proportion of his shots, so he will produce more net cords, both the ones that trickle over and the ones that do not. The player who hits with heavy spin and two feet of clearance almost never touches it.

So the frequency is a strategy, not a curse. What is genuinely random is only the direction of the deflection once contact has been made, and even that is not evenly distributed. A ball arriving fast and flat tends to be deflected upwards and forwards, which is exactly the outcome that produces the unplayable dying bounce. A slower, loopier ball catching the tape mostly just falls back.

I would go so far as to say the flat hitter is manufacturing his own share of these, and quietly accepting a lot of netted balls as the cost. He is not lucky. He has bought a lottery ticket on every rally and occasionally it pays.

Which does not make it any less annoying to be on the wrong end of it. It just makes the apology slightly less sincere than it looks.