There's NOTHING I hate more than this kind of prejudice in tennis. I'm a fan of ALL styles. I'm sick of posters calling some of the world's greatest ball strikers "pushers." To "push" at the level of Nadal, to do that to win freaking MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of dollars, requires UNBELIEVABLE skill. Yes, SKILL. Ask Robert Lansdorp what he thinks of this. He says that the very best western grippers need to actually be even MORE talented to make it on tour, because they need to differentiate themselves from so many other juniors who play the same style. He says that someone trained to hit a pure flat ball will actually find it easier to make their mark on tour, simply because there isn't as much "competition" in their style anymore. He says that the power of the pro level makes it very difficult to play with a western grip on anything but clay. You need INSANE timing to do what Nadal does with those HUGE swings and FLYING racket head speed and "push." He certainly does NOT resemble any pusher I know. I don't know any pushers who can put ANYWHERE close to that kind of bite on the ball. It's so beyond ludicrous to call ANBODY who can reach the top ten in the whole entire freaking world a pusher, it's just absolutely beyond comprehension to me.
Someone less talented than Nadal taking those kind of ridiculously long and frenetic cuts at the ball would be shanking balls to the moon left and right, if not outright WHIFFING, most of the time against pro level pace, spin, and placement.
This said, I actually do miss the faster courts myself. But NOT for the same reason you do. In the old days, the three segments of the year I looked forward to the absolute most was never hard courts, but rather clay, grass (however short lived), and the indoor carpet season. Why? Because, I've always been a fan of EXTREMES. I like to see the EXTREMES of anything, I have a natural craving to always see only the most extreme ends of the spectrum and style. So to me, ridiculously fast court conditions and ridiculously slow court conditions are EQUALLY exciting to watch. To me, they DON'T compete with each other, no, in my world, they COMPLIMENT one another. To me, the switch from the French to Wimbledon was always BY FAR the most exciting time of the tennis year to me, because here you saw the two extremes back to back. Literally JUMPING from one pole to the other pole in such a short turnaround is what made me appreciate the many different dimensions of the game and the various different techniques that can be employed to great effect that much more.
It was the IMMEDIATE and STARK contrast that made both INFINITELY more exciting to me...than the draaaab hard court season.
What I kind stand about the current world tour is that rather than making everything clay court slow or indoor carpet fast, they've just decided to try and make everything HOMOGENOUS...neutered, in other words. I don't want to watch hermaphrodite tennis. I don't want to see perfectly neutral, level playing fields and surfaces all the time, I want to see EXTREME surfaces. I remember reading a Tennis Magazine article about a quirky little amateur tournament played on ICE in Alaska or something. I thought oh my gosh, I would KILL to see that! Just the shear novelty gave me boose bumps. Viva la difference, dude! That's what makes me excited. It is in the pole extremes where we come to grips with the possibilities and majesty of man kind. Hard courts to me always just represented the rut in tennis...booooring.
This said, in terms of what is fair, I believe that ALL styles are EQUALLY beautiful. I love watching both the extreme funky grips of the clay courters and the elan swings of the traditionalists. I can't stand it when people say oh, MY favorite style to watch CLEARLY requires more skill than YOUR favorite style to watch or play. It's tennis elitism at its finest. It's bigotry, it's tennis racism, it to me is an EGGREGIOUS offense to the human tennis playing race taken as a whole.
For me, in the 90s, the marjoity of stuff was too far slanted to favor guys like Pete Sampras. Imo, now, it's either too neutral and "fair" and "level", or it's too slow.
Imo, it's only FAIR to give these truly talented beings who give sooo much of themselves to turn pro each a FAIR chance at achieving tennis "greatness."
In a perfect world, that to me, would mean, making the early hard court season har-tru/green clay, which would favor slow-courters, yet still give faster-courters a reasonable chance to succeed on a good day. Red clay would remain the same. Grass would remain the same (albeit 90s grass). The hard court season would begin after Wimbledon, and would be approximately just slightly slower than US Open court speed fast, which again, I feel like green clay would give fast courters the clear edge, yet not so much of an edge where it would take a miracle for a slower courter to win on the stuff. The indoor season would be SHORTENED, *but* played on carpet like the old days for extreme speed. This would give players a much needed longer off-season, and also make up for the very fast court players getting such a short grass court season to suit their game (i.e. the clay court season is very long by comparsion, in regards to the two "extreme" far end surfaces in tennis).
I think all in all, this would give all styles a more equitable chance at achieving tennis greatness. I also think the longer off-season and significant reduction in hard court tennis would extend careers. As a whole, I think injuries and burnout would go down quite noticeably and we would no longer see so many stars fade away or break down so prematurely.
I think ultimately this would increase interest world wide, as people would become fascinated by the parrot-like infusion of different styles and shades and colors of play. I also think the sport suffers from the "revolving door" of recognizable names that come and go through the infirmary of any given generation. Tennis needs more stability among its recognizable names in order to build consistent fan interest. You can't alwyas just rely on thet one or two BIG marketable star imo, if you truly want to take off. You need a cadre to draw from that tournament organizers and sponsors and paying fans can COUNT on showing up in one piece.
