Court Speeds.

[NamRanger]

Originally Posted by Blinkism

There's a good reason S&V is gone, but i'm not convinced that reason is court speed.

S&V tennis, as an absolute, is obsolete in today's tennis.

I agree, President of S&V, that it would be nice to see some faster courts (getting rid of tournaments on carpet for the ATP was a mistake, IMO), but I don't think that speeding up courts across the board is a good idea.

S&V still exists on the top of men's tennis, integrated in the games of players, most commonly called "all-court players"- like Haas (recently), Zverev, Stepanek (to an extent), Tsonga, Djokovic (not often), and others. It's also a strategy pulled out by many players looking to "mix it up".

I can't think of any players who play pure S&V anymore, and do it successfully, though.

It's the surfaces. Graphite racquets were fine and dandy, and no one was really blasting Pete or Goran's serve back. The problem is today the strings combined with the slower surfaces. That's the biggest issue. You speed up the courts, and the strings become a non-factor.