What a difference rackets make! The serves in the video are like my serves on a good day, and my strokes have more top spin and power. I think as I am today, I could have given both these guys a hard time (if I could have used my modern racket).
You probably could play 3 sets against either of these guys and never succeed at actually hitting the ball in the center of the strings.
I don't think the racket would help you return the clean aces, the amount and variation of the spin on the ball would confuse you (Borg groundies, Vijay's serve), you would have little time to even swing at the ball with the ball coming at you so quickly from close to the net, the placement deep near the lines or short drop volleys would have you not knowing which way to run - which you couldn't do well anyway on the slick grass, and a very big factor is that if you tried to take your normal full swing on that chewed up grass, you would probably whiff a lot of balls and be lucky to hit the frame.
Remember, for good serve and volley play you only serve at 3/4 pace with a lot of spin so you can get closer to the net.
Guys played that way because it was optimal for the conditions. They moved gradually to graphite rackets since it did help their games, but changing rackets didn't make anyone leap over the other pros in the rankings.
