Game slowing down and rallies getting longer a myth?

[Sysyphus]

It seems almost a unanimous opinion in here that the nature of the game has moved to slower play and that there is nothing but long rallies and grinding. Say, every time Rafa or Toni voices the opinion that the game has become more geared towards huge hitting, short rallies and serve-domination, it gets laughed out of the house, and people usually say their motive is just to have even more long rallies and slower game than it currently is.
It's also often commonly stated that long grinding rallies are killing the interest of the game, and people call for faster surfaces to combat this so we can have shorter points.

But just how true is this really? What do the stats say? Firstly, if we look at the dominance of the serve, it has clearly just been going continually upwards. Servers win a bigger and bigger share of points over the years. The mythical big-server 90s were on the whole clearly behind today's game. Serving is dominating more now.
What about length of rallies? Surely it's been a trend towards longer rallies and more grinding? No. The ATP Brain Game and IBM did an extensive analysis at the Australian open last year. More than 70% of points fall in the short rally category, between zero (double fault) and four shots. Close to 20% are mid-length rallies between 5-9 shots where rally-patterns first start to emerge, and no more than 10% are extended rallies over 10 shots. And these are numbers that have been going down. There were more extended rallies not too many years ago. The average rally on tour today isn't a long grinding rally, but instead ranging somewhere between a service winner and a rally with a few shots and a point-stopper. First strikes dominate the modern game.

Note, I'm not talking specifically about surface speed. They may have slowed down. But the speed of the game as a whole, it seems, has not. I don't think serve and volley has largely disappeared because the game got so slow. It's faded because the game is so fast and powerful. Players have adapted to poly etc, allowing them to hit with power/spin from pretty much any position.

So, are many of the common perceptions about the direction the game has taken misguided? Is the game more geared towards serve-dominance and quick points than, say, 10-15 years ago? I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter.

@falstaff78 @Gary Duane and @Meles know their stats so I'd love to hear your insights on the topic?

 

[Inanimate_object]

Jeff Sackmann at Tennis abstract has written about this recently. I've given him some crap in the past about some of his rather liberal extrapolations but it's at least a good place to start.

http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/...ng-another-look-at-surface-speed-convergence/

This is a problem that will be inherently difficult to answer anyways because it's one gigantic endogeneity problem.

 

[TheFifthSet]

(My TL;DR take)

I think the surfaces have gotten a little slower, although that's notoriously hard to quantify.

What's demonstrably clear, though, is that the scales are shifted further towards the server than ever before, and that's due almost entirely to the advancements in the equipment.

 

[TheFifthSet]

Great thread bee-tee-dubs

 

[reaper]

There's no way the game has universally slowed down. Was it Chang vs Wilander in the French Open final in the 1980's...60 shot defensive rallies were routine. Clay tennis generally may have been more defensive. The extremes of surface speeds have probably gone, slow and fast.

 

[HuusHould]

You look at the players that have won majors over the last few years and the only one with a big serve is Cilic. Sure, they all have very good serves, but there are players with better serves (Isner, Groth, etc) lower down. Federer has a great serve, but he hasn't won in the last few years.

I think the ability to get first serves back and attack second serves is every bit as much of an asset these days as a great serve.

I agree the difficulty getting to the net is not the court speed, but how hard, we'll disguised and sometimes spinny the players are hitting the ball.

 

[metsman]

more about playing style changing and all homogenizing than rallies getting longer. The courts are slowing and net play is basically non-existent as a result. I don't think that can be disputed

Serve has improved because of strings, that is a known fact. There is a balance between strings and courtspeed. With the modern strings and sticks courts being as fast as the 90's would make things unplayable, so I'm not saying to make things that fast again. However, I do think that things have slowed way beyond the happy medium and today there is barely any net play and almost everyone is a baseline grinder it seems. Really for me, it has been like that since 05-06. At least back then there was a clear division between offensive and defensive baseliners. However the last 5 or so years even that gap has gotten smaller and smaller. 03-04 I thought the courts were fast enough to support a wide range of styles and in led to some really interesting tennis. But after that things have gotten worse and worse and the brilliance of the big 4 have masked the blandness of the rest of the field for many years. Now that the big 4 is halved, and we are seeing some ugliness...

 

[Meles]

It seems almost a unanimous opinion in here that the nature of the game has moved to slower play and that there is nothing but long rallies and grinding. Say, every time Rafa or Toni voices the opinion that the game has become more geared towards huge hitting, short rallies and serve-domination, it gets laughed out of the house, and people usually say their motive is just to have even more long rallies and slower game than it currently is.
It's also often commonly stated that long grinding rallies are killing the interest of the game, and people call for faster surfaces to combat this so we can have shorter points.

But just how true is this really? What do the stats say? Firstly, if we look at the dominance of the serve, it has clearly just been going continually upwards. Servers win a bigger and bigger share of points over the years. The mythical big-server 90s were on the whole clearly behind today's game. Serving is dominating more now.
What about length of rallies? Surely it's been a trend towards longer rallies and more grinding? No. The ATP Brain Game and IBM did an extensive analysis at the Australian open last year. More than 70% of points fall in the short rally category, between zero (double fault) and four shots. Close to 20% are mid-length rallies between 5-9 shots where rally-patterns first start to emerge, and no more than 10% are extended rallies over 10 shots. And these are numbers that have been going down. There were more extended rallies not too many years ago. The average rally on tour today isn't a long grinding rally, but instead ranging somewhere between a service winner and a rally with a few shots and a point-stopper. First strikes dominate the modern game.

Note, I'm not talking specifically about surface speed. They may have slowed down. But the speed of the game as a whole, it seems, has not. I don't think serve and volley has largely disappeared because the game got so slow. It's faded because the game is so fast and powerful. Players have adapted to poly etc, allowing them to hit with power/spin from pretty much any position.

So, are many of the common perceptions about the direction the game has taken misguided? Is the game more geared towards serve-dominance and quick points than, say, 10-15 years ago? I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter.

@falstaff78 @Gary Duane and @Meles know their stats so I'd love to hear your insights on the topic?

First, the surface speed changes are minor. The difference is Poly and the topspin game that it favors. The thing about topspin is that it plays about the same on all surfaces due to some counter balancing factors. The bottom line is it gets from the racket and past the opponent about the same on all surfaces. I welcome any attempts to slow the game so the likes of Raonic (who at least now has a net game that makes him interesting at Auz and Wimby) and other full servebots are kept from the top of the game. Of course topspin makes net play much more of a challenge.

Rafa is 100% correct. He is becoming outmoded because he doesn't have a serve and he really doesn't have a great return game which we see when we look at his hard court numbers. A player like Thiem is matching Rafa's first serve return career average on hard courts. Rafa is losing on all fronts these days.

The first serve numbers are a funny thing. Most of the veteran group of players are serving better in the latter years (except Rafa) and of course most see their return numbers slip (Fed has been down for many years on most surfaces. That is certainly and underlying factor in the dominance of serve and even the shortness of points.

The number 1 player in the world is definitely trying to dominate more from the baseline to shorten point length. The Djokovic 100+ UE versus Simon at Auz is prime example of this strategy getting out of hand, but the Djokovic UE trend has continued while he amasses some of the best hard court points numbers of all time, winning 56.5% of points coming into the US Open. Shortening points is working just fine for the world number one and a smart survival tactic for the number of matches he's play while winning most tournaments he enters.

All of the top players in the game are greatly enhancing their serve games in all sorts of manners because they are realizing that this makes them more dominant and likely to go deep in majors. Cleaning up on serve points is a big, big deal and the main area where Murray has suffered for most of his career.

A player like Thiem is blazing the way in first strike tennis with a game designed to allow the opponent to perhaps return the first serve, but Thiem quickly dominates the proceedings in only a few shots. Thiem's grass performance skyrocketed this year because he went from 75% to 91% first serve points won on grass. He served and volleyed a bit, but his hard, heavy hitting was brutal to handle on grass. This is an extreme an example of the change from the big serves of the 90's. Murray certainly is greatly improved on his first hits off both first and second serve due to a more aggressive game plan and decidely better serving. This is the new style of aggression. Federer has returned to a bit more serve and volley at times, getting there in a more traditional manner, but his resurgence has totally been driven by the best first serve performance of his career (these numbers probably slightly boosted by age of tour.)

The game is not more geared to serve and volley dominace of old, but the slice is making a comeback in the game as really the string technology favors spin of any kind. Players must finish off points and this involves moving in. Younger players like Zverev and Fritz particularly suffer because they don't close things down well at the net. Pouille just picked off Nadal with good aggression and net play. Net play is coming back as part of this new aggressive game.

The game is quickly moving more towards dominance and we can look at the arms race in the big 4 where three of the players have improved greatly in their serve games and one still is out to lunch (Nadal.) My analysis of historic and current hard court stats shows that serve dominance is extremely important. On hard courts its just winning points on serve. On clay first serve performance is becoming very dominant (a trend that started with Kuerten the breakthrough Poly player in 1997.) On hard courts and clay first return is proving very important as it is the main defence against the high percentage servers on clay and a difference maker on hard. (Grass the 2nd return is more important as usually the only chance to break is when the opponent is not getting their first serve in play.)

Despite the shortening of the length of matches, this new power Poly game takes it toll physically. Players have to be very strong to contend with higher bouncing top spin that predominates in today's game. This is the main reason we don't see a lot of success from young players on hard courts.

 

[metsman]

And I don't think the game has gotten too fast for netplay. Federer in 2014 was serve and volleying close to 25-30% of the time I think at Wimbledon and was net rushing plenty throughout the year to great success. However he then went back to the baseline bashing +big serve in 2015 because he saw in 2014 how when he played Novak he just couldn't approach net successfully because the ball sat up forever. Particularly at Wimbledon in 2014 that was very disheartening for him I think to see him chip and charge, the ball sits up to knee level ON GRASS and he's a dead duck. So he went back to the usual routine in 2015 but he mentally and physically couldn't close it against Djokovic.

 

[Bender]

I don't understand those people who think that tennis would improve if they brought back 80s / 90s surface speeds.

The game itself is so much faster than it was back then, the game would be unwatchable.

Surfaces have to become slower to compensate for the increase in speed of the ball in the air. Fast surfaces worked in the past because the balls weren't flying as fast in the air back then.

The lack of volleying isn't because the surfaces have become slower (how could it--volleys are taken out of the air, so the bounce height and speed should be irrelevant), but you could make the argument that lighter racquets and strings have caused the balls to fly back heavier and faster. But again, that's a two-way street, since lighter and more power racquets can help volleyers as well. It's mostly the reluctance of players to approach the net in genera, but Federer since 2014 has proven that net play still works very well in the modern game.

 

[Gary Duane]

Going point by point after yet another player retires to Novak...

First, the surface speed changes are minor. The difference is Poly and the topspin game that it favors. The thing about topspin is that it plays about the same on all surfaces due to some counter balancing factors. The bottom line is it gets from the racket and past the opponent about the same on all surfaces.

I don't know why other people don't get this. There is no surface impact at all on what the ball does after it is struck until it bounces. The difference for SnV is how fast is the ball coming at the guys who are moving in. Coming in today against any shot where the returner is not at a big disadvantage is suicide. The speed at which shots with topspin both move and dip is insane. People should spend some time with matches from the McEnroe days to see how little time there is now.

When Mac was playing he served much slower then today's players, on average, but unfortunately we don't have data to make that evident with stats. We only have ATP stats for JMac in his last year or so - terribly unfortunate - but we can see that "Old Mac" was winning around 80% of his service games. Bear in mind this is an incredibly fit man even now at 57, and he still has a great service action. So maybe he had shoulder problems and back problems then. But 80% today is weak. Very weak.

Lendl played longer and is a year younger. He is a tall guy. In 1991 he was pretty old. I'm not going to assert that any part of his game then was peak. But let's look at his numbers on HCs. 85% of service games (on the low side today for an all time great but 32% of return games won. What a shame we don't have those return numbers for his peak. They were probably amazing, Novak-like.

Let's take a look at Edberg. Does anyone think of Edberg as a rather defensive player much like some grinders today? But in 1991 he was also 85% on serving but 34% on returning. Again, it is reasonable that at his absolute peak he returned even better.

What about Sampras? Sampras was in many years a semi-bot for most of his career. What he was doing serving in the 90s should raise eyebrows today because he really was sub-par returning in comparison to top modern players. Basically Sampras was Roddick and Federer combined, often cruising on return, especially in later years but amazingly clutch. You would probably have to go back decades to find another like him. Shame we can't go back in time and see Lew Hoad and Pancho Gonzales, players who were utterly dominant. Especially Gonzales.

So except for Pete - who was one of a kind or at least a guy we see only every few decades, what about everyone else?

The range in the '90s was still somewhere in the mid 80s serving with a lot of numbers on the 30s on returning. Serving was less dominant. That's the first thing.

The speed of balls was less, and the spin was less. There were really hard returns (think of Agassi), but they didn't dip the way they do now. In general players could not serve as fast, so they had more time to get into the net, and they were hitting slower balls. Add to that grass that was giving less uniform bounces and you can see there was a great reason for moving in.

What balls did AFTER bouncing was a lot more important when there was less pace before they bounced. So the difference between clay and grass was huge. It was much, much harder to generate pace from balls that were sliced or from looping balls that just sat up. Players had to get a lot more power from their bodies. You can see that from going back to the days of players like Evert and comparing what women then could do in comparison to fairly skinny women today, who are starting to do a lot of what the men now do.

The rackets and strings have changed everything. They give an advantage to the best players in the world in everything. The top guys, for instance, serve faster and with more spin. They can dominate in service games like no one could do in the past, but it's harder for them to get in because a top player on the other side can hit insane returns that were not even possible before with insane angles. This makes players look like IDIOTS if they choose the wrong time to come in.

Then the top guys with their spin and angles can dominate on return as no one could in the past. Why do you think Rafa reached a peak of winning around 50% of all his games on clay in 2008? And don't forget that at his peak he was winning close to 90% of his service games on HCs.

Since these changes in technology have not been around for a terribly long time, younger players are still finding out what else they can do with the technology.

You can make HCs faster, make grass bounce lower, but unless you do something to slow down the spin and pace at which people can now hit balls - which is REALLY unlikely - tennis as it is now is here to stay. For better or worse.

And no one today is ever going to SnV with the same frequency of wood and gut days. For better or worse.

 

[Gary Duane]

More:

I welcome any attempts to slow the game so the likes of Raonic (who at least now has a net game that makes him interesting at Auz and Wimby) and other full servebots are kept from the top of the game. Of course topspin makes net play much more of a challenge.

Add to that Karlovic and Isner, especially Karlovic who is usually at the net and is playing an old school SnV game.

Karlovic gets away with it because his insane serve neutralizes what modern strings can do with spin. He still has to deal with some nasty returns, but a lot of returns are weak, as in the old days - for different reasons.

Karlovic, by the way, could easily have been top 5 and close to #1 at some point if he had had the kind of return numbers Raonic now has. Anyone who gets to winning 20% of return games and who is a lights out server is dangerous as hell.

People should spend some time here:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/stats/return-games-won/all/all/all/

Go to the bottom. Anyone who did not break more than 22% of games is not on this list, and there are a surprising number of big servers who aren't there.

You won't find Raonic there. You also won't find Ivanisevic. Roddick is not there.

Sampras with 24% is 91st on the list, but as usual the ATP is misleading us. Guys who are at 24% go all the way down to #124, with Rudeski next at 23%. The ATP sorts by number of matches, not by %, which is phenomenally stupid.

Safin is way down. Remember, everyone at 22% is listed by matches, not by %.

What this means is that anywhere around 22% is probably enough to get you to the top of the world if you serve well enough. Win one return game out of 4 or LESS. You get to the top of the world if you serve aces and unreturnable serves.

That means that Isner and Raonic just need to pass that threshold and suddenly they go from top 10 or 20 to top five or better.

But there are big guys who move incredibly well but who for one reason or another never get into the rare place that Pete was, serving almost like these bots but also returning to win close to 25% of his games.

You don't believe it? Then check out Pete in 2002, only winning 19% of his return games on HCs. and down to (for him) only 88% of service games. It was good enough to win one last slam.

Guess where Raonic is this year? Also currently at 19% of return games on HCs. If Raonic ever gets to 25% on that stat, the likelihood of his winning a HC slam goes from still rather slim to probable.

All we need is ONE guy, ONE guy who has some of the mobility of Monfils who also serves like Pete, Roddic and Raonic- remember Monfils only an inch shorter than Raonic - and tennis could change again. We need one only great mover at the top of the game who is around 6" 4' or maybe even 6" 3' and who has a super aggressive mindset and everything will be different. This guy isn't going to volley as they did decades ago - rackets and strings make that impossible - but you're going to see someone coming in like Isner, Karlovic and Raonic, and the rest of the tennis world isn't going to be ready for it!

 

[VexlanderPrime]

more about playing style changing and all homogenizing than rallies getting longer.

This.

 

[Gary Duane]

The lack of volleying isn't because the surfaces have become slower (how could it--volleys are taken out of the air, so the bounce height and speed should be irrelevant), but you could make the argument that lighter racquets and strings have caused the balls to fly back heavier and faster. But again, that's a two-way street, since lighter and more power racquets can help volleyers as well. It's mostly the reluctance of players to approach the net in genera, but Federer since 2014 has proven that net play still works very well in the modern game.

That's just not quite right. If you compare the number of times Fed came to the net at his peak ability to do so, it was never with the regularity of true SnV days.

I hate the term "heavier" for speed combined with spin, but it's true that it feels that way when you have to hit these balls.

Again, "reluctance" is the wrong word to use for what it feels like to come in against 100 mph groundstrokes. I think DelPo hit two of those back to back. Trying to approach against missiles like that is more like suicide than reluctance.

 

[metsman]

More:

Add to that Karlovic and Isner, especially Karlovic who is usually at the net and is playing an old school SnV game.

Karlovic gets away with it because his insane serve neutralizes what modern strings can do with spin. He still has to deal with some nasty returns, but a lot of returns are weak, as in the old days - for different reasons.

Karlovic, by the way, could easily have been top 5 and close to #1 at some point if he had had the kind of return numbers Raonic now has. Anyone who gets to winning 20% of return games and who is a lights out server is dangerous as hell.

People should spend some time here:

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/stats/return-games-won/all/all/all/

Go to the bottom. Anyone who did not break more than 22% of games is not on this list, and there are a surprising number of big servers who aren't there.

You won't find Raonic there. You also won't find Ivanisevic. Roddick is not there.

Sampras with 24% is 91st on the list, but as usual the ATP is misleading us. Guys who are at 24% go all the way down to #124, with Rudeski next at 23%. The ATP sorts by number of matches, not by %, which is phenomenally stupid.

Safin is way down. Remember, everyone at 22% is listed by matches, not by %.

What this means is that anywhere around 22% is probably enough to get you to the top of the world if you serve well enough. Win one return game out of 4 or LESS. You get to the top of the world if you serve aces and unreturnable serves.

That means that Isner and Raonic just need to pass that threshold and suddenly they go from top 10 or 20 to top five or better.

But there are big guys who move incredibly well but who for one reason or another never get into the rare place that Pete was, serving almost like these bots but also returning to win close to 25% of his games.

You don't believe it? Then check out Pete in 2002, only winning 19% of his return games on HCs. and down to (for him) only 88% of service games. It was good enough to win one last slam.

Guess where Raonic is this year? Also currently at 19% of return games on HCs. If Raonic ever gets to 25% on that stat, the likelihood of his winning a HC slam goes from still rather slim to probable.

All we need is ONE guy, ONE guy who has some of the mobility of Monfils who also serves like Pete, Roddic and Raonic- remember Monfils only an inch shorter than Raonic - and tennis could change again. We need one only great mover at the top of the game who is around 6" 4' or maybe even 6" 3' and who has a super aggressive mindset and everything will be different. This guy isn't going to volley as they did decades ago - rackets and strings make that impossible - but you're going to see someone coming in like Isner, Karlovic and Raonic, and the rest of the tennis world isn't going to be ready for it!

I agree with your last para. While things will never go back to the way there were, it's still possible to play attacking tennis, but the current field is devoid of such players and talents. Kyrgios could be one if he tried, he has good hands and obviously has the weapons. But yeah we just need 1 old school type player who doesn't get sucked into the defensive grinding vortex, serves big, approaches net and hopefully that changes things. Maybe Shapovalov or Fritz?

 

[Gary Duane]

This.

No, not "this". Surfaces playing more the same makes it easier to switch from surface to surface and win on all of them with much the same style, but nothing that has been done to surfaces is keeping people from coming in more often. It's the rackets and strings.

 

[metsman]

I don't understand those people who think that tennis would improve if they brought back 80s / 90s surface speeds.

The game itself is so much faster than it was back then, the game would be unwatchable.

Surfaces have to become slower to compensate for the increase in speed of the ball in the air. Fast surfaces worked in the past because the balls weren't flying as fast in the air back then.

The lack of volleying isn't because the surfaces have become slower (how could it--volleys are taken out of the air, so the bounce height and speed should be irrelevant), but you could make the argument that lighter racquets and strings have caused the balls to fly back heavier and faster. But again, that's a two-way street, since lighter and more power racquets can help volleyers as well. It's mostly the reluctance of players to approach the net in genera, but Federer since 2014 has proven that net play still works very well in the modern game.

Slower courts make approaches and volleys sit up more and make passes easier. It's as simple as that. Poly strings will always make passes and dipping shots easier for the baseliner vs the net player but if the courts were sped up and slicked net players would still stand a chance. Poly was around in 03-04 but net play was still rewarded quite a bit because courts were faster. Like I and you said, Fed's 2014 shows net play is still possible, but the Wimbledon final in 2014 also showed that it wasn't enough because the court was way too slow and high bouncing.

 

[VexlanderPrime]

No, not "this". Surfaces playing more the same makes it easier to switch from surface to surface and win on all of them with much the same style, but nothing that has been done to surfaces is keeping people from coming in more often. It's the rackets and strings.

I'm not disagreeing. The homogenization has allowed guys to really dial in a balanced (Djoker/Rafa) or defensive/counterpunch (andy) style across all surfaces. It hasn't helped Fed much. Its really impressive that Fed's continued to succeed despite the homogenization actually.

 

[Gary Duane]

I agree with your last para. While things will never go back to the way there were, it's still possible to play attacking tennis, but the current field is devoid of such players and talents. Kyrgios could be one if he tried, he has good hands and obviously has the weapons. But yeah we just need 1 old school type player who doesn't get sucked into the defensive grinding vortex, serves big, approaches net and hopefully that changes things. Maybe Shapovalov or Fritz?

It's only takes one. During the Edberg days everyone wanted to SnV, but he was not a totally dominant player. There were others who challenged him.

Guys who changed everything:

Connors: everyone wanted to play like Jimmy. Today Connors would be mostly on the baseline.

Borg: today he would be as much of a back-courter as Borg, most likely.

JMac: you had a guy who was #1 one year in both singles and doubles.

Lendl: back to baseliners.

Pete: who wouldn't want to play like Pete?

Fed: who wouldn't want to play like Fed?

Rafa and Murray and Novak, back to Agassi.

You can see the 2HBH go in and out of favor according to who is on top and who stays there the longest. Same with style of play.

It only took a couple players to "invent" the modern backhand, usually all two hands for driving and top, but one hand for slice, and that is now dominant.

Now we need one tall, fast player to bring back more aggressive tennis.

It only takes one!

 

[metsman]

No, not "this". Surfaces playing more the same makes it easier to switch from surface to surface and win on all of them with much the same style, but nothing that has been done to surfaces is keeping people from coming in more often. It's the rackets and strings.

But look at Wimbledon from 03-04 vs Wimbledon in 14-15. All players used poly. You're really going to tell me the court made no difference and that shots were not sitting up more in the latter making it tougher to volley? I see no meaningful difference in the speed of groundstrokes and serves, it's the courts that are the variable here.

Racquets and strings keep things from going back to the 90's style net rushing...that era is behind us for good but courts have stunted the attacking game even further, because the attacking game was still relevant in the early 2000's with poly because courts were faster. And by attacking game I don't mean a return to wood or S&V and chip charge routinely, that's foolish and impossible with the technology. But I mean more aggression off the baseline and more net approaches. Players standing on the baseline looking to come in instead of standing 5 feet back and waiting for a miss or an extremely short ball. And some occasional serve volley mixed in by those who have the serves. That's what I want in the game again, and that is what was present around 03-04 even with poly.

 

[Gary Duane]

Slower courts make approaches and volleys sit up more and make passes easier. It's as simple as that. Poly strings will always make passes and dipping shots easier for the baseliner vs the net player but if the courts were sped up and slicked net players would still stand a chance.

Faster courts and lower bounce definitely favor net playing more. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that.

I'd like to see that for other reasons. The super high bouncing HCs we have now not only favor grinding but also the 2HBH. It also favors taller players.

There is a reason why we almost never see shorter players winning now. Being shorter used to be an advantage on grass especially, and old grass was known for being horrible on the knees. Players had to really bend down. Some commentator said that even today's players get sore adjusting. I don't know if that is hype. Sounds reasonable.

If you spend half your time trying to dig balls out of the turf, where they hardly bounce and don't bounce in a predictable manner, often the easiest way to get to those balls is with a slice. There is also a reason why truly old school players would chip off the forehand side. It used to be a winning tactic to rush the net.

I was watching Vinci earlier, and I have to think she would have fared much better a couple decades ago. She is totally old school.

But I believe that the real elephant in the room is a combination of light rackets and the strings. It's like Nastase starting to use the spaghetti racket, then having the establishment make it legal for everyone. Back then it was considered cheating, and it was banned.

What do we have now? Something a lot more extreme, whether you love it or hate it!

 

[Gary Duane]

But look at Wimbledon from 03-04 vs Wimbledon in 14-15. All players used poly. You're really going to tell me the court made no difference and that shots were not sitting up more in the latter making it tougher to volley? I see no meaningful difference in the speed of groundstrokes and serves, it's the courts that are the variable here.

You're not going back far enough.

This just didn't suddenly happen.

Rackets and strings have been hitting the ball faster and faster for a very long time.

Go back and read about Pancho Gonzales's amazing serve, then look at descriptions of that serve in mph. Look at guys playing with wood and gut. Do you think all of them were weak and just hit slower balls because they couldn't play?

Compare wood with the change to graphite. Go from decade to decade. It's not just a one shot deal.

Each time there is a change in technology there is also a lag. The change in rackets and strings has not been a one-step deal. Players are still tweaking which strings they use, and technology is growing all the time.

Then there is the lag between when something first comes out and when people learn to fully take advantage of it.

Something monumental has taken place between 1991 and right now. It didn't just happen in a year. It comes in bursts, but in between people are still exploiting what has changed.

2003/2004 was not like 2013/2014, and you might be very surprised what we see in 2023 and 2024.

For those who are not old enough to remember growing up with wood and gut (and usually nylon) it is just not possible to fully understand how different things have become, and things continue to change.

 

[metsman]

You're not going back far enough.

This just didn't suddenly happen.

Rackets and strings have been hitting the ball faster and faster for a very long time.

Go back and read about Pancho Gonzales's amazing serve, then look at descriptions of that serve in mph. Look at guys playing with wood and gut. Do you think all of them were weak and just hit slower balls because they couldn't play?

Compare wood with the change to graphite. Go from decade to decade. It's not just a one shot deal.

Each time there is a change in technology there is also a lag. The change in rackets and strings has not been a one-step deal. Players are still tweaking which strings they use, and technology is growing all the time.

Then there is the lag between when something first comes out and when people learn to fully take advantage of it.

Something monumental has taken place between 1991 and right now. It didn't just happen in a year. It comes in bursts, but in between people are still exploiting what has changed.

2003/2004 was not like 2013/2014, and you might be very surprised what we see in 2023 and 2024.

For those who are not old enough to remember growing up with wood and gut (and usually nylon) it is just not possible to fully understand how different things have become, and things continue to change.

I'm still not sure that courts have had no effect. Look at Fed/Roddick in Wimby 03 vs 05. Look at Fed/Phillipousis in 03, look at Ancic/Roddick in 04, and then look at Fed/Ancic in 06. These are the same players, 2-3 years apart, playing with the same racquets on the same court, and yet there is a clear shift to the back of the court. Sure I agree players need time to adjust to the strings, but Federer and most other players had clearly figured out how to play with poly by 04...his learning phase took about a year and a half and most players had been on it for about 2 years at that point which is plenty of time(besides Hewitt who switched later). But why then did he completely retreat to the baseline on grass following the 04 Wimbledon final? Same with Roddick. Compare the last 2 sets of the 04 final to the 05 final and there is such a huge difference. I can attribute the change in 03 to 04 as getting adapted to strings but there was still a good amount of net play in 04. 03, serve and volley still ruled, 04 serve and volley was halved, and things were more all court, but that is still good. All 4 semifinalists were coming in a fair bit and were using it as a tactic in 04 and ancic was still holding the S&V flag. 05 was a complete baseline show. What happened?

I understand your point, but I think the change from 03/04 to subsequent years is mostly on the courts. The change from the 80's to the 90's were the racquets, the change from the 90's to the early 00's were the strings.

 

[Bender]

Slower courts make approaches and volleys sit up more and make passes easier. It's as simple as that. Poly strings will always make passes and dipping shots easier for the baseliner vs the net player but if the courts were sped up and slicked net players would still stand a chance. Poly was around in 03-04 but net play was still rewarded quite a bit because courts were faster. Like I and you said, Fed's 2014 shows net play is still possible, but the Wimbledon final in 2014 also showed that it wasn't enough because the court was way too slow and high bouncing.

Yes, but again, this is a two-way street.

Approach shots are harder to deal with because of newer strings and racquets. Slices benefit from the enhanced spin potential of polys, meaning that unless an approach short is hit short, the opponent has less time to get in position to hit a passing shot.

 

[Bender]

That's just not quite right. If you compare the number of times Fed came to the net at his peak ability to do so, it was never with the regularity of true SnV days.

I hate the term "heavier" for speed combined with spin, but it's true that it feels that way when you have to hit these balls.

Again, "reluctance" is the wrong word to use for what it feels like to come in against 100 mph groundstrokes. I think DelPo hit two of those back to back. Trying to approach against missiles like that is more like suicide than reluctance.

I'm not sure it's worth comparing peak Neterer to Neterer of now tbh. I am having difficulty distinguishing between whether pros until recently were avoiding the net as a stylistic choice, or because of necessity, hence the word "reluctance".

Agree that "heavy" is merely a description of the way it feels to hit such balls

Re: 100 mph groundstrokes, those are not new to tennis. While we have powerful racquets now, we've moved to low-powered strings. Twenty years back, we had low-powered racquets (which is not true, since heavy racquets have a far higher potential for power as anyone with a PS85, 88, or 90 will tell you), and powerful strings (natural gut, by far one of the most powerful strings ever made, even now). Nothing was done in the 80s / 90s to compensate for graphite racquets over wood, which is why the 90s became serve fests, and why IMO the balls became heavier and the courts slower over the last decade. So in a way, the sport has returned to its roots, albeit in new packaging. Watching old old matches made me realise how much fast surfaces were necessary back then, and watching 80s / 90s tennis made me realise that the sport hadn't yet adjusted for technological innovations in the sport.

Fast surfaces helped speed up low ball speeds produced by wood racquets back then, while slow surfaces slow down high ball speeds produced by the lightweight raquets of today. The real anomaly lies in the era inbetween, where fast surfaces with powerful racquets and powerful strings made the sport super fast.

 

[Gary Duane]

I'm still not sure that courts have had no effect. Look at Fed/Roddick in Wimby 03 vs 05. Look at Fed/Phillipousis in 03, look at Ancic/Roddick in 04, and then look at Fed/Ancic in 06. These are the same players, 2-3 years apart, playing with the same racquets on the same court, and yet there is a clear shift to the back of the court. Sure I agree players need time to adjust to the strings, but Federer and most other players had clearly figured out how to play with poly by 04...his learning phase took about a year and a half and most players had been on it for about 2 years at that point which is plenty of time(besides Hewitt who switched later). But why then did he completely retreat to the baseline on grass following the 04 Wimbledon final? Same with Roddick. Compare the last 2 sets of the 04 final to the 05 final and there is such a huge difference. I can attribute the change in 03 to 04 as getting adapted to strings but there was still a good amount of net play in 04. 03, serve and volley still ruled, 04 serve and volley was halved, and things were more all court, but that is still good. All 4 semifinalists were coming in a fair bit and were using it as a tactic in 04 and ancic was still holding the S&V flag. 05 was a complete baseline show. What happened?

I understand your point, but I think the change from 03/04 to subsequent years is mostly on the courts. The change from the 80's to the 90's were the racquets, the change from the 90's to the early 00's were the strings.

I don't think the main factor was the courts. I can't say that you are wrong. There is no proof either way. But I think it is more the "Nadal" effect. He wasn't the only guy who was coming up who was obviously trying to win from the baseline, and more and more you had guys use the Nadal strategy - bomb the backhand with a ton of spin going up to the shoulder.

But maybe you have a point in a different way. Suddenly you had players with a clay style adapting that style to HCs and even grass. I don't think Nadal would have won W at all in the 90s. I can't see Murray as a dominant grass player in the 90s either. Or Novak, for that matter.

Play on HCs determines ranking most years. No one gets to #1 and stays there by winning W or RG, and we know that winning both is a rare thing. So a guy winning W or RG also has to adapt a bit to HCs to get the ranking, and I think that's what we are mostly seeing today.

I may be agreeing with you, but for a different reason. When you go back to the 90s you have a whole group of clay specialists, and a lot of them didn't win much off clay and totally skipped the grass season. Then you have a guy like Sampras who I still think was far better on grass than anything else, as opposed to Fed, who I also think was best on grass but not by such a huge margin.

It's a bit of a chicken/egg thing. How much did the courts change play, and how much did the players change play? If the rackets and strings themselves start giving players on one surface a better chance on other surfaces, their success will ultimately change the way everyone else plays.

I still say that when balls start flying over the net faster and with more spin, on every surface, that in and of itself is a game changer.

I absolutely do not believe that the speed of the average shot in tennis in the 90s was as fast as it is today. Maybe there were peak shots like that, but I've never seen anyone hit two forehands back to back as hard as DelPo did this week and then be able to mostly repeat it match after match.

Did you see Isner hitting serves so hard and with so much top that the bounced over a wall many feet back? Yes, he is incredibly tall, but Raonic is only 6" 5' and he's doing a lot of the same thing.

 

[Gary Duane]

Re: 100 mph groundstrokes, those are not new to tennis. While we have powerful racquets now, we've moved to low-powered strings. Twenty years back, we had low-powered racquets (which is not true, since heavy racquets have a far higher potential for power as anyone with a PS85, 88, or 90 will tell you), and powerful strings (natural gut, by far one of the most powerful strings ever made, even now). Nothing was done in the 80s / 90s to compensate for graphite racquets over wood, which is why the 90s became serve fests, and why IMO the balls became heavier and the courts slower over the last decade. So in a way, the sport has returned to its roots, albeit in new packaging. Watching old old matches made me realise how much fast surfaces were necessary back then, and watching 80s / 90s tennis made me realise that the sport hadn't yet adjusted for technological innovations in the sport.

When I watch old matches it looks to me eyes as if most of the time things are in slow motion. It's shocking to me because I watched these matches when they took place.

I'm not saying that hitting a groundstroke over 100 mph is new. But I do think the women are hitting harder now than ever before, on average, and I think that in the past anyone who tried to hit that hard/fast couldn't have much success with it. It was good for shock value.

I remember when you could use a sandpaper paddle or one with some kind of rubber for ping pong. The surface made all the different in the world about how much spin you could play, but the paddle with the rubber also took more spin, so if someone was using a ton of spin at you, it was harder to control the return. But I think the best players want maximum spin.

It's the spin factor to me that makes the game different. I don't play with these rackets. I have no idea how it feels to use them. My playing days are long over. But what I see is that these guys can hit the ball so much faster because the spin brings the balls down, and that also gives them crazy angles that used to be impossible. The top pros from the past say that you can't hit angles like that with wood and gut. They say that you can't get the kind of spin guys like Rafa and Sock play with, and that certainly seems true to me eyes.

So if a guy can hit harder with control from both wings, and the harder returns have more spin (which I think is simply true), then tracking those balls with a volley is going to be way WAY harder. That's already bad. But then they dip to the feet, which is impossible to volley. The longer young players start off with these strings and master them, the more this is going to be the norm, and probably all the possibilities are not completely explored yet. It's only been about 10 years.

The lack of stats even before 1991 is infuriating. You can't see how things compare from 1981 and 1971 because there is no had data. How many points did Connors and Borg win on return and serving, 1st and 2nd? What was the balance of games won on serve against games won on return? I can tell you for a fact that this balance has changed since 1991, but before then I can only go on my eyes and instinct. I don't trust either, since eyes and instinct can be horrible wrong and terribly biased.

But putting it all together it's pretty obvious that there are huge changes in the game from 1969 through to today. It's easier to see over 50 years or so, harder over 25, and way harder over just a decade.

Once again, we haven't seen someone like Pete in this era. Roddick was close. Ivanisevic still holds the record for career % on 1st serve on grass, and I think he is 2nd behind Karlovic on all surfaces. We need just one guy around 6" 4' with these new strings who can serve rockets like Raonic who also move very well and has net skills.

Then everything changes again. And it's going to happen. The question is: when?

 

[skip1969]

I don't think the main factor was the courts. I can't say that you are wrong. There is no proof either way. But I think it is more the "Nadal" effect. He wasn't the only guy who was coming up who was obviously trying to win from the baseline, and more and more you had guys use the Nadal strategy - bomb the backhand with a ton of spin going up to the shoulder.

But maybe you have a point in a different way. Suddenly you had players with a clay style adapting that style to HCs and even grass. I don't think Nadal would have won W at all in the 90s. I can't see Murray as a dominant grass player in the 90s either. Or Novak, for that matter.

Play on HCs determines ranking most years. No one gets to #1 and stays there by winning W or RG, and we know that winning both is a rare thing. So a guy winning W or RG also has to adapt a bit to HCs to get the ranking, and I think that's what we are mostly seeing today.

I may be agreeing with you, but for a different reason. When you go back to the 90s you have a whole group of clay specialists, and a lot of them didn't win much off clay and totally skipped the grass season. Then you have a guy like Sampras who I still think was far better on grass than anything else, as opposed to Fed, who I also think was best on grass but not by such a huge margin.

It's a bit of a chicken/egg thing. How much did the courts change play, and how much did the players change play? If the rackets and strings themselves start giving players on one surface a better chance on other surfaces, their success will ultimately change the way everyone else plays.

I still say that when balls start flying over the net faster and with more spin, on every surface, that in and of itself is a game changer.

I absolutely do not believe that the speed of the average shot in tennis in the 90s was as fast as it is today. Maybe there were peak shots like that, but I've never seen anyone hit two forehands back to back as hard as DelPo did this week and then be able to mostly repeat it match after match.

Did you see Isner hitting serves so hard and with so much top that the bounced over a wall many feet back? Yes, he is incredibly tall, but Raonic is only 6" 5' and he's doing a lot of the same thing.

i guess i'm one of those people who you're talking about . . . who is adamant that surface homogenization has plopped us where we are today. i don't usually spout off about it like i have this week. i don't know how that came about. but i've read this thread and i can't say i disagree with a lot that has been said.

thing is, surface variety (for me, at least) is the foundation of everything. when the tour had variety of surface (and surface speed) it had variety of playing styles. it's a chicken-and-egg thing, to be sure. but the fact that some surfaces gave advantage to the attacking style, while others favored the defensive style meant that a player could choose a winning style for his/her given skill set. tampering with that variety tipped the scales (even if it was nominal) in favor of one style. in tennis' case, in favor of the more defensive style. and as i said in the other thread, sports in this century have done what they could to tip the balance towards offense.

i think the technology component is HUGE in this formula. i don't mention it because surface variety actually existed for a very long time and was tampered with fairly recently. so i think it's an "easier" fix than trying to reign in a technology juggernaut that has been allowed carte blanche for 10+ years. how can the sport backtrack on tech now? it seems a way more complex problem than bringing back some quicker courts and some low bounces on grass.

if the slowing down of courts coincided with a big technological component (poly strings) that gave an unfair advantage to one style of play, then it's a complicated fix, no doubt. perhaps it means that our governing body dropped the ball in terms of researching and policing tennis technology and now the sport is suffering for it. it's a serious thing. major league baseball has strict rules about bats, the national hockey league has rules for sticks. maybe tennis needs stricter rules governing racquets and strings?

 

[GabeT]

Great thread and great comments. The kind of thread that makes me want to come back to TTW.

Besides surface and racket/string technology the other big change has been training itself. Although not specific to tennis I recommend the book "Peak" to anyone interested on how elite training (sports, music, chess, etcc..) has improved over the years. It makes sense since a coach today can not only draw on what was learned in the past but will have the numbers to back it up. The "numbers revolution" in sports is just beginning. Players before never had access to any of that.

And the physical training is so much better today. Players run more, and do so more consistently. As an extreme example watch Laver playing the 1969 USO. They barely reach balls compared to today. Players like Murray and Nole routinely return balls that would have bee winners in the past. And that's despite the ball flying faster.

 

[Meles]

...Sampras with 24% is 91st on the list, but as usual the ATP is misleading us. Guys who are at 24% go all the way down to #124, with Rudeski next at 23%. The ATP sorts by number of matches, not by %, which is phenomenally stupid.

......All we need is ONE guy, ONE guy who has some of the mobility of Monfils who also serves like Pete, Roddic and Raonic- remember Monfils only an inch shorter than Raonic - and tennis could change again. We need one only great mover at the top of the game who is around 6" 4' or maybe even 6" 3' and who has a super aggressive mindset and everything will be different. This guy isn't going to volley as they did decades ago - rackets and strings make that impossible - but you're going to see someone coming in like Isner, Karlovic and Raonic, and the rest of the tennis world isn't going to be ready for it!

You should coach the Guru! He is getting there.

Couldn't help myself on the phenomenal stupid ATP sorting by their Java jerk offs. Here are the best hard court returners by games one properly ordered by their real percent of games won. Murray goes ahead of Djokovic and Chang ahead of Agassi.:
ATP# PLAYER---------ATP%--Real %--Rank--Move
2 Andy Murray 33% 32.9% 1 +1
1 Novak Djokovic 33% 32.6% 2 -1
4 Michael Chang 32% 32.2% 3 +1
3 Andre Agassi 32% 32.2% 4 -1
5 Stefan Edberg 31% 31.2% 5
9 Christian Bergstrom 30% 30.4% 6 +3
10 Jimmy Connors 30% 30.3% 7 +3
6 Lleyton Hewitt 30% 30.1% 8 -2
8 Guillermo Coria 30% 30.0% 9 -1
7 David Ferrer 30% 30.0% 10 -3
11 John McEnroe 30% 29.9% 11
17 Ivan Lendl 29% 29.2% 12 +5
12 Rafael Nadal 29% 29.1% 13 -1
14 Petr Korda 29% 28.8% 14
13 Nikolay Davydenko 29% 28.7% 15 -2
15 Karol Kucera 29% 28.6% 16 -1
16 Aaron Krickstein 29% 28.5% 17 -1
22 Gilad Bloom 28% 28.4% 18 +4
21 Grant Stafford 28% 28.2% 19 +2
18 David Nalbandian 28% 28.2% 20 -2
19 Patrick McEnroe 28% 28.0% 21 -2
20 Amos Mansdorf 28% 27.5% 22 -2
25 Jonas Bjorkman 27% 27.4% 23 +2
44 Jonas Svensson 27% 27.4% 24 +20
42 Luis Herrera 27% 27.4% 25 +17
41 Steve Bryan 27% 27.3% 26 +15
35 Magnus Gustafsson 27% 27.3% 27 +8
23 Roger Federer 27% 27.3% 28 -5
29 Jiri Novak 27% 27.3% 29
40 Tomas Carbonell 27% 27.2% 30 +10
34 Marcos Ondruska 27% 27.2% 31 +3
37 Andrei Chesnokov 27% 27.1% 32 +5
28 Kei Nishikori 27% 27.0% 33 -5
33 Brad Gilbert 27% 27.0% 34 -1
36 David Goffin 27% 27.0% 35 +1
32 MaliVai Washington 27% 27.0% 36 -4
24 Thomas Enqvist 27% 26.9% 37 -13
27 Rainer Schuettler 27% 26.9% 38 -11
26 Yevgeny Kafelnikov 27% 26.8% 39 -13
39 Jaime Oncins 27% 26.8% 40 -1
30 Todd Woodbridge 27% 26.8% 41 -11
43 Flavio Cipolla 27% 26.7% 42 +1
31 Richey Reneberg 27% 26.7% 43 -12
38 Andrei Cherkasov 27% 26.6% 44 -6
51 Jim Courier 26% 26.4% 45 +6
57 Marcelo Rios 26% 26.3% 46 +11
59 Juan Monaco 26% 26.3% 47 +12
45 Fabrice Santoro 26% 26.3% 48 -3
53 Sebastien Grosjean 26% 26.3% 49 +4
50 Nicolas Kiefer 26% 26.2% 50
61 Thomas Muster 26% 26.2% 51 +10
66 Paul Goldstein 26% 26.2% 52 +14
48 Tim Henman 26% 26.1% 53 -5
54 Juan Martin del Potro 26% 26.0% 54
55 Byron Black 26% 26.0% 55
58 Francisco Clavet 26% 25.9% 56 +2
68 Slava Dosedel 26% 25.9% 57 +11
60 Alexander Volkov 26% 25.9% 58 +2
65 Andrei Medvedev 26% 25.9% 59 +6
64 Sergi Bruguera 26% 25.8% 60 +4
49 Gilles Simon 26% 25.8% 61 -12
56 Jason Stoltenberg 26% 25.8% 62 -6
67 Jaime Yzaga 26% 25.8% 63 +4
62 Arnaud Boetsch 26% 25.7% 64 -2
47 Mikhail Youzhny 26% 25.7% 65 -18
52 Dominik Hrbaty 26% 25.7% 66 -14
69 Mats Wilander 26% 25.7% 67 +2
46 James Blake 26% 25.5% 68 -22
63 Nicolas Escude 26% 25.5% 69 -6
77 Guillermo Canas 25% 25.3% 70 +7
74 Mark Woodforde 25% 25.3% 71 +3
86 Carl-Uwe Steeb 25% 25.2% 72 +14
71 Vincent Spadea 25% 25.1% 73 -2
73 Jeff Tarango 25% 25.0% 74 -1
76 Juan Ignacio Chela 25% 25.0% 75 +1
84 Alberto Berasategui 25% 24.9% 76 +8
87 Lars Jonsson 25% 24.9% 77 +10
88 Jimmy Arias 25% 24.9% 78 +10
75 Olivier Rochus 25% 24.9% 79 -4
78 Bohdan Ulihrach 25% 24.8% 80 -2
81 Mikael Tillstrom 25% 24.8% 81
80 Brett Steven 25% 24.8% 82 -2
72 Viktor Troicki 25% 24.7% 83 -11
85 Michael Joyce 25% 24.7% 84 +1
70 Wayne Ferreira 25% 24.6% 85 -15
79 Dudi Sela 25% 24.6% 86 -7
82 Tobias Kamke 25% 24.6% 87 -5
83 Michel Kratochvil 25% 24.5% 88 -5
91 Pete Sampras 24% 24.5% 89 +2
90 Tomas Berdych 24% 24.4% 90
121 Jean-Rene Lisnard 24% 24.4% 91 +30
117 Wayne Black 24% 24.4% 92 +25
94 Gael Monfils 24% 24.4% 93 +1
119 Ronald Agenor 24% 24.4% 94 +25
113 Henrik Holm 24% 24.4% 95 +18
120 Alex Antonitsch 24% 24.3% 96 +24
102 Boris Becker 24% 24.3% 97 +5
104 Roberto Bautista Agut 24% 24.3% 98 +6
124 Thierry Champion 24% 24.2% 99 +25
92 Jarkko Nieminen 24% 24.2% 100 -8

 

[Meles]

I agree with your last para. While things will never go back to the way there were, it's still possible to play attacking tennis, but the current field is devoid of such players and talents. Kyrgios could be one if he tried, he has good hands and obviously has the weapons. But yeah we just need 1 old school type player who doesn't get sucked into the defensive grinding vortex, serves big, approaches net and hopefully that changes things. Maybe Shapovalov or Fritz?

Pouille had been playing the net a surprising amount at this US Open in his final two matches. I expect the tour will take notice.

 

[Meles]

Slower courts make approaches and volleys sit up more and make passes easier. It's as simple as that. Poly strings will always make passes and dipping shots easier for the baseliner vs the net player but if the courts were sped up and slicked net players would still stand a chance. Poly was around in 03-04 but net play was still rewarded quite a bit because courts were faster. Like I and you said, Fed's 2014 shows net play is still possible, but the Wimbledon final in 2014 also showed that it wasn't enough because the court was way too slow and high bouncing.

They certainly changed Wimbledon in early 2000s and its exactly as you say. I wouldn't mind the reversion on grass, but I believe the new grass is also more durable. This results in better bounces later in the tournament which is a huge positive. Perhaps a fast durable grass will be developed. I don't think they'd take a step back towards worse bounces.

 

[metsman]

They certainly changed Wimbledon in early 2000s and its exactly as you say. I wouldn't mind the reversion on grass, but I believe the new grass is also more durable. This results in better bounces later in the tournament which is a huge positive. Perhaps a fast durable grass will be developed. I don't think they'd take a step back towards worse bounces.

to me the 04 Wimbledon final was absolutely perfect in terms of playing style. Court should have stayed that speed.

 

[LetsPlayFBI]

it would definitely be nice to see some variety in court surface speed. I think Miami and Indian Wells are slower than some clay tournaments as there is a lot of sand in the surface. Perhaps one or two more tournament that are faster to mix it up. But it does seems like points are longer and more challenging for the players.

 

[Meles]

But look at Wimbledon from 03-04 vs Wimbledon in 14-15. All players used poly. You're really going to tell me the court made no difference and that shots were not sitting up more in the latter making it tougher to volley? I see no meaningful difference in the speed of groundstrokes and serves, it's the courts that are the variable here.

Racquets and strings keep things from going back to the 90's style net rushing...that era is behind us for good but courts have stunted the attacking game even further, because the attacking game was still relevant in the early 2000's with poly because courts were faster. And by attacking game I don't mean a return to wood or S&V and chip charge routinely, that's foolish and impossible with the technology. But I mean more aggression off the baseline and more net approaches. Players standing on the baseline looking to come in instead of standing 5 feet back and waiting for a miss or an extremely short ball. And some occasional serve volley mixed in by those who have the serves. That's what I want in the game again, and that is what was present around 03-04 even with poly.

Poly was new in 03-04, so it was just starting to impact the tour. Change the courts back to the way they there were then and it would be a small step back towards attacking tennis. Think about it. If we did that today, who would suddenly leap up the rankings or change their game? Maybe Federer, but those type of players from that transitional period are long gone. It would take a long time for that type of game to come back (maybe Shavopolav at first), just as its taken a while for the full impact of Poly to be felt on the game.

 

[Meles]

to me the 04 Wimbledon final was absolutely perfect in terms of playing style. Court should have stayed that speed.

Grass is the one surface where things could be changed and I think the results would be much more immiediate. Its not a common surface anymore, so few have developed their games on it. Grass may still be prevalent in Australia?

 

[tacou]

I don't think the game is necessarily slower across the board. It's been homogenized. Those numbers from the AO are fine, but how do they compare to the FO and Wimbledon? It seems Wimbledon is slower than in past decades, and the FO is faster. This translates to players all developing an identical game that is used on all surfaces.

Haven't done much research though, just speaking as a viewer.

 

[Meles]

...

But I believe that the real elephant in the room is a combination of light rackets and the strings. It's like Nastase starting to use the spaghetti racket, then having the establishment make it legal for everyone. Back then it was considered cheating, and it was banned.

What do we have now? Something a lot more extreme, whether you love it or hate it!

I wouldn't tar Poly with the same brush as the infamous Spaghetti strings. Spaghetti gave the ball a more inconsistent strike too. Poly has been allowed, so its had a big impact, but it was not as extreme as Spaghetti strings.

 

[Zebrev]

Somebody posted elsewhere that Thiem is leading the charge in shortening the points and I agree. He is deft at the net and if you watch him, each one of his forehands are very aggressive and "cause problems" for his opponent. He doesn't just hit safe shots and wait for his opponent to make a mistake. I think more players will do this in the future. Delpo is another example.

 

[skip1969]

Poly was new in 03-04, so it was just starting to impact the tour. Change the courts back to the way they there were then and it would be a small step back towards attacking tennis. Think about it. If we did that today, who would suddenly leap up the rankings or change their game? Maybe Federer, but those type of players from that transitional period are long gone. It would take a long time for that type of game to come back (maybe Shavopolav at first), just as its taken a while for the full impact of Poly to be felt on the game.

i agree with you that anything done today would take years to impact the game we see on tv. i mean, it took a generation for us to get where we are now. it will take just as long to get out of it.

in the other thread, i sound like a very harsh critic of the apt, and i suppose i am. i think it has to do with this being my favorite sport. i also think it has to do with the fact that the other sports i enjoy don't seem to have regressed like (i feel) pro tennis has. surely the atp could not have forseen the way advances in strings and racquets and tampering with surfaces would affect the game. that's why any change has to be deliberate and researched. and when you do change a variable, change one . . . then wait a while and see what results. in the other thread, people are advocating a slew of rules changes ranging from allowing let serves and changing game scoring, amounts of games in sets, eliminating best-of-five, etc. i think all that is crazy. start with something fundamental like surface. examine the impact of racquets and strings. those are core issues that we should examine, not focus on band-aid quick fixes and gimmicks.

 

[Zebrev]

Is it just me or is grinding from the baseline just as boring and one dimensional as rushing the net on every point?

 

[Gary Duane]

I wouldn't tar Poly with the same brush as the infamous Spaghetti strings. Spaghetti gave the ball a more inconsistent strike too. Poly has been allowed, so its had a big impact, but it was not as extreme as Spaghetti strings.

Poly in the end is probably more extreme because with the spaghetti strings no one knew where the ball was going, including the person who hit it.

 

[Meles]

i agree with you that anything done today would take years to impact the game we see on tv. i mean, it took a generation for us to get where we are now. it will take just as long to get out of it.

in the other thread, i sound like a very harsh critic of the apt, and i suppose i am. i think it has to do with this being my favorite sport. i also think it has to do with the fact that the other sports i enjoy don't seem to have regressed like (i feel) pro tennis has. surely the atp could not have forseen the way advances in strings and racquets and tampering with surfaces would affect the game. that's why any change has to be deliberate and researched. and when you do change a variable, change one . . . then wait a while and see what results. in the other thread, people are advocating a slew of rules changes ranging from allowing let serves and changing game scoring, amounts of games in sets, eliminating best-of-five, etc. i think all that is crazy. start with something fundamental like surface. examine the impact of racquets and strings. those are core issues that we should examine, not focus on band-aid quick fixes and gimmicks.

They could outlaw Poly strings. The genie is out of the bottle, so I think that will not happen. As we look at this I think grass is where things can be done.

We haven't really mentioned it, but the abscence of indoor carpet has been a big, big change.

 

[Gary Duane]

You should coach the Guru! He is getting there.

Couldn't help myself on the phenomenal stupid ATP sorting by their Java jerk offs. Here are the best hard court returners by games one properly ordered by their real percent of games won. Murray goes ahead of Djokovic and Chang ahead of Agassi.:

The JJJ, Java Jerkoff Joes.

 

[Meles]

The JJJ, Java Jerkoff Joes.

It is pathetic.

 

[Gary Duane]

It is pathetic.

Like it's such a big deal to tell a computer program to show a decimal!

 

[skip1969]

They could outlaw Poly strings. The genie is out of the bottle, so I think that will not happen. As we look at this I think grass is where things can be done.

We haven't really mentioned it, but the abscence of indoor carpet has been a big, big change.

i agree on the poly issue. like i said before, it's hard to regulate something after the fact. it's like being the cool dad who lets his teenager be free and independent . . . . and then suddenly decides to set a curfew and have him in bed by 10pm. it doesn't work like that.

strings are big business now. tons of money involved. you're gonna have a tough time corralling that now. but the tour is gonna have to draw the "technology" line somewhere. i mean, there is a reason major league baseball prohibits aluminium bats. it was decided long ago that they would give an unfair advantage. but once you open a door, it's very hard to backtrack.

 

[jm1980]

Is it just me or is grinding from the baseline just as boring and one dimensional as rushing the net on every point?

That's why Djokovic's all court prowess is so entertaining

 

[skip1969]

That's why Djokovic's all court prowess is so entertaining

the thing is . . . he's not an all-court player. he's the ultra-baseliner. even in a tourney like this where he's not been tested and has rarely played, he's been to net 10% of the time. that hardly qualifies him as an "entertaining" all-court player.

and if he embodies what today's all-court player is, then that goes to show how low that bar has fallen in the last 15 years.

 

[jm1980]

the thing is . . . he's not an all-court player. he's the ultra-baseliner. even in a tourney like this where he's not been tested and has rarely played, he's been to net 10% of the time. that hardly qualifies him as an "entertaining" all-court player.

and if he embodies what today's all-court player is, then that goes to show how low that bar has fallen in the last 15 years.

I don't have the stats for this year, but last year he approached the net the most among the semifinalists:

Net approaches as % of points played:

1. Djokovic: 16%
2. Federer: 15%
3. Wawrinka: 11%
4. Cilic: 9%

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/cumulative-stats-for-us-open-semi-finalists.543453/

Djokovic's baseline tendencies are extremely overstated around these parts. Specially for a player with allegedly bad net skills, he moves forward quite a bit... Unlike certain players who only move up when the point is 100% won and look like genius volleyers because they can put away easy volleys