From what pros are saying after matches, especially in classical chess, it's almost always preparation and metagaming the opponent vs finding good moves.
It's a lot of mind games involved, going for specific openings, repeating same moves as last match, doing a poor by surprising, move etc.
Many GMs said that to win a match you have to play non-ideal moves many times, otherwise it will likely end in a draw.
Well people will still pay to watch a human player play tennis even if a robot could play infinitely better than that human. Try something like that with an employer and software engineer combo (and no, you don't even have to imagine that).
Well look, the wall is already losing every point by volleying your serve so I feel like I'm on pretty strong ground here already. But give me an exact specification for your curved wall and I'll tell you how I'd beat it.