Do we as fans have a duty to the sport?

[sureshs]

One other thing, look at Feds trip to South America a few months ago, they went WILD. They'd stand in line for hours just to get a look at him, it was NUTS, he was like a rock star in a dive bar.

Tsonga, a great player was with him, yet no one cared. They wouldn't care if any of the other players showed up either, Fed just has IT.

It's nice to see someone able to actually do ALL PARTS of Tennis, not just baseline. Baseline is important, but so is mid court, net, Tennis is much more than just killing it from the baseline, and hopefully we'll see a return to exciting all court matches.

If you think Fed's popularity in South America was due to his "variety", let me point out that Nadal's 3 country tour in the same continent to play minor tournaments was far more popular.

 

[Elite]

Why can Haas or Dimitrov or Tomic/Dolgopolov play entertaining tennis on the same slow courts? It's partly the courts, but also the players as well.

They can though? Look at Tomic vs. Dolgopolov AO 2012 or Tomic vs. Federer AO 12', 13.

 

[Benhur]

sorry but this is crazy! Errors and unforced errors more partocualry means a poor level of play there were 95! So you are basically saying mediocrity is interesting! Errors and interesting should not be in the same sentence in tennis!

Things are much more complicated. To really compare error rates properly across surfaces with different speeds, you cannot do it by measuring errors with relation to total points played. You need to measure the errors with relation to total number of shots or times the ball is struck. If you do it this way, you will see that slower courts do not necessarily have higher error rates than faster courts. They probably have lower rates most of the time.

If a particular surface makes winners very easy to hit, it's not clear to me why those winners are necessarily representative of a "higher quality" tennis than fewer winners (and longer points) on a surface where winners are more difficult to produce. Why not? Well, because if winners become a dime a dozen (due to the surface), then they are not so hot anymore. If the relation between winners and quality were always linear, then the highest quality tennis would be played on a super-slick, oily like court where maybe 90% of the points would be decided by winners after two or three strokes. This might induce bliss in winner lovers. But it would put many other people to sleep.

You are also pretending that every match on that Miami surface was like the Murray-Ferrer final, and that the style of play was all due to the surface. I did not see the Murray-Ferrer final, but I saw some other matches on that same surface where the players were ending points with winners rather frequently. And those winners were appreciated precisely to the extent that they were not very easy to produce. My favorite match was Haas-Simon. Extremely enjoyable tennis with contrasting styles, played on the very same surface that you describe as a disgrace to tennis.

 

[Benhur]

A solution to the court speed blues can be envisioned in a science fiction scenario where the speed of courts could be adjusted instantly on the spot, depending on the behavior of the players. Only for hard courts.

You estabish an ideal length to the average point on hard courts (maybe by popular vote or whatever). Then, an automated system is installed, such that if the average length of points begins to depart from the ideal length by a predetermined amount, the system automatically adjusts the court speed in the desired direction until the average length of points moves to within the desired range.

Thus, if John Grinder is playing John Wall, and they start to get into their usual routine of 50-stroke rallies, they will soon discover that winners are becoming more tempting as the court becomes slicker.

And if John Basher is playing his twin brother, and points begin to average 2-4 strokes, they will soon discover that winners are more difficult to produce as the court gets grittier by the minute.

In this manner, everyone will be happier and there will be fewer threads related to this eternal topic.

 

[cucio]

A solution to the court speed blues can be envisioned in a science fiction scenario where the speed of courts could be adjusted instantly on the spot, depending on the behavior of the players. Only for hard courts.

That's an awesome idea, and it could be feasible with today's technology using different balls.

Like you have different tires in Formula 1, each player could have cans of slow, medium and fast balls for each match and choose one of them every serve game, not being able to repeat until he has used all three.

It would introduce variety and strategy. Intriguing, isn't it?