An analysis of the new Wimbledon surface.

CONQUEST_OR

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It seems that everywhere you look you notice comments like grass has become FO 2, grass no longer favours S&V, etc. In this article/post (whatever), I’ll try to persuade you otherwise. DISCLAIMER: Actual physics may vary – I’m not a physicist.

Let’s start with some basics. You’re on a beach and throw a tennis ball horizontally. Doesn’t go very far, does it? Now throw that same ball horizontally onto a harder dirt surface. It bounces much higher and has a much faster OVERALL speed. Now imagine that grass has suddenly grown out of both surfaces. You throw the ball again. The ball bounces lower and seemingly faster on the sand-grass surface (let’s call this the old Wimbledon surface) than it does on the dirt-grass surface (and let’s call this the new Wimbledon surface). What’s going on here? Well, for a start the ball bounces higher on the new Wimbledon surface, because it has a greater friction coefficient (Are you following this? Click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction_coefficient if you’re not.) The higher friction coefficient means two things: firstly, more of the ball’s horizontal velocity will be converted into vertical velocity and secondly, the ball will slow down more. But – what the friction coefficient doesn’t show us is that the old Wimbledon grass, being a softer surface overall, dampens the overall velocity of the ball more than the new surface, more than compensating for the new grass’s higher friction coefficient. Result? The OVERALL velocity of a ball (after it bounces) on the new Wimbledon surface is slightly faster than on the old surface, but it does bounce significantly higher and has a slightly lower horizontal velocity as compared with the old surface.

But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Read on. The plot thickens. As the surface wears, its friction coefficient increases, the overall speed of the ball decreases and the horizontal speed decreases even more. Baseline rallies all of a sudden start to favour the use of heavy topspin and everyone starts chanting RG 2. Why are there so many aces then? If you look carefully at the wear of the court, you’ll see that the area around the baseline is worn out more than around the service boxes (some might say duh, but it’s easy to miss). What’s more is that the right-handed backhand areas are the most worn out areas (again that’s easy to see why). Essentially, we have three different, but not necessarily distinct zones: the backhand corner, the forehand corner and the forecourt. So if we apply all of this to a typical Federer-Nadal Wimbledon match, we can see that S&V tactics actually should work on the new grass almost as well as on the old grass (if either player was more willing to do so) – however, the effectiveness of conventional approaches is diminished. Service winners and aces are still plentiful and Nadal continues to abuse Federer’s backhand (aided by the added wear on the backhand side of the court). In retrospect, S&V is probably less effective now due to improved racket and string technologies and the fact that there are two absolute baseline monsters in Fed and Rafa on either side of the net. However, an analysis of the racket/string point will have to wait for another day.
 
Or you can read this article about the grass change. =D

http://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1815724,00.html

"In 2001, Wimbledon tore out all its courts and planted a new variety of groundcover. The new grass was 100% perennial rye; the old courts had been a mix of 70% rye and 30% creeping red fescue. The new lawn was more durable, and allowed Wimbledon's groundsmen to keep the soil underneath drier and firmer. A firmer surface causes the ball to bounce higher. A high bounce is anathema to the serve-and-volley player, who relies on approach shots skidding low through the court. What's more, rye, unlike fescue, grows in tufts that stand straight up; these tufts slow a tennis ball down as it lands."
 
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