How much has tennis actually evolved in the last 15-20 years?

[Deleted member 775640]

The athleticism of current players > 90s idols. It's sort of hard to tell b/c of changes in court speeds, but not really.

 

[BGod]

Older players being phased out due to changing tech and styles is very much true. This is why guys like Connors and Agassi deserved a ton of credit for adjusting in their later years.

Big 3 haven't had to adjust near as much and frankly able to get by their guile and mental fortitude. Really only Fed switched to a bigger frame netting 3 Slams in 7 Finals.

 

[BGod]

The athleticism of current players > 90s idols. It's sort of hard to tell b/c of changes in court speeds, but not really.

Right but not really. In fact skinny dorks like Daniil & Sinner are clearly inferior to guys such as Rafter, Chang or Safin in pretty well everything. Oh ya but modern racquets bro.

 

[The Green Mile]

The defense from out of the corners, the ability to aggressively defend well, might be the biggest change I see as a whole across the tour of players.

 

[Red Rick]

Right but not really. In fact skinny dorks like Daniil & Sinner are clearly inferior to guys such as Rafter, Chang or Safin in pretty well everything. Oh ya but modern racquets bro.

Someone should have invented time travel just so that Medvedev could murder Rafter returning from 5 decades behind the baseline

 

[RS]

Someone should have invented time travel just so that Medvedev could murder Rafter returning from 5 decades behind the baseline

Med vs Roddick in the 2 HC slams 2003 vs 2021?

 

[RS]

The defense from out of the corners, the ability to aggressively defend well, might be the biggest change I see as a whole across the tour of players.

I think from 2007 onwards tennis movement is massively perked up with a some big exceptions earlier than that like Nadal and Fed

 

[Deleted member 775640]

Right but not really. In fact skinny dorks like Daniil & Sinner are clearly inferior to guys such as Rafter, Chang or Safin in pretty well everything. Oh ya but modern racquets bro.

Daniil and Sinner are infinitely better movers than Safin. Safin is my favorite tennis player. He is not nearly as good on defense.

The modern tennis player has evolved to carry less weight and play more defensively. It’s the meta. The talent level is higher bc development is more democratic and the pool is resultantly bigger.

 

[BGod]

Daniil and Sinner are infinitely better movers than Safin. Safin is my favorite tennis player. He is not nearly as good on defense.

The modern tennis player has evolved to carry less weight and play more defensively. It’s the meta. The talent level is higher bc development is more democratic and the pool is resultantly bigger.

Tennis has decreased by attendance and investment, partly due to cost and partly due to the fact being a pro tennis player is nowhere near as profitable in comparison to sports like freaking baseball. This has been the case for like 20 years btw. The talent level is absolutely not higher.

 

[onehandbh]

Two words.

Slower courts.

I think around 2000 Wimbledon slowed down their graas.

US Open also slowed down their courts at some point also.

Combined with poly, this encourages long baseline rallies.

 

[TheFifthSet]

Ah I see what you mean. Thanks for clarifying. I’m not sure I really agree – I certainly don’t think Djokovic failed to realize, in 2013, that Nadal was good at passing shots lol. And that same position, the short ball to the backhand, flummoxed him throughout his career against Nadal on clay. I remember a lot of rallies early on (08, 09) where Novak went for a hard cross-court shot there, prepared to retreat to the baseline, and got burned up the line by Nadal – either a clean forehand winner from Nadal or a scrambling, back-foot shot from Novak to cede control of the rally.

Was he better at handling that situation in recent years? Maybe. Though surely some of that is down to Nadal’s reduced foot speed. Rafa wasn’t as good at defending, so Novak had more options at his disposal. He didn’t have to be as perfect. And incidentally, he still hit plenty of bad droppers. Consider this from Waspsting’s analysis of their 2021 match:

“Serving at 5-6, Djoko’s down break and set point. A rally develops and Djoko pulls out his BH drop shot. You can count on one hand the number of matches where Djoko wins more points than he loses drop shotting Nadal on clay and this match is no different. When Djoko plays the shot, he’d won 1/10 points in the match going for BH drop shot. All that matters is on this point, he makes it for a winner. He misses another one early in tiebreak from well inside court shortly after, and finishes match winning 4/15 points won when going for it (also 1/1 with FH drop shot).”

15 different points in four sets, Djokovic hit a backhand dropper. And that’s a match he won! And he blew his break lead in the fourth set in 2022 with some poor shot selection in that short-ball-to-the-backhand position, including a drop shot Nadal returned for a winner. According to Tennis Abstract, he hit 15 backhand droppers (winning 40%) in 2022 as well, compared to just 11 (winning 55%) across five sets in 2013. Maybe on average he’s better now at dealing with that situation than he was in 2013, but it’s not, like, night and day. He still goes for dumb droppers – more now, actually, than 10 years ago. And obviously that’s just one facet of baseline play and strategy.

I remember this great post. As a man of the gambling cloth I told myself at the time "I would feel very safe betting my life savings that Rick won't respond to it," LOL.