did tennis change with Chang Sampras Agassi generation

[bjk]

I've heard Courier say that the players today are far better than the players of the past. If that's the case, then was the improvement gradual or did it occur at some point? The best way to study this would be to compare the record between older and younger players. If players like Connors can still beat players like Krickstein, then it's hard to say that the skill level has radically increased. But if there was a big change, then the new generation should have consistently beaten the older generation from a very young age. But if you think about it, it was the Change, Agassi, Sampras, Courier generation that started to win at a very young age. What's interesting about that generation is that they were the first to grow up with the new aluminum/graphite rackets, and therefore the first to adapt their play to the new rackets. Courier's forehand is nothing like Lendl's or Edberg's.

Change won FO at 17
Agassi world #3 at 18
Courier won FO at 20
Sampras won USO at 19


Compare this with


McEnroe won USO at 20
Connors won Wimbledon at 22
Lendl won FO at 24
Borg won FO at 18

Not a huge difference, but maybe there's something to it.

 

[bjk]

James Blake has said that even in the last few years the level of play has improved. He said that Hewitt is the same player he was when he was 1, but the game has passed him by. That might be a little extreme -- Hewitt did have hip surgery -- but it's hard to believe that McEnroe could get away with his forehand against today's players.

Having said that, volleying is not nearly as good as it was. Look at an old Wimbledon match, volleying skill was far higher. Even the top players today regularly miss volleys that the average player circa 1985 would not have missed. Djokovic misses about half of his volleys, it seems like.