This is a big, steaming pile of horse manure, a statement that reflects nostalgia rather than reality.
Get your own arse in front of a computer and watch some of the old matches before maybe 1982. They are astonishingly slow and casual and lacking in athleticism on 80-90% of the points, even Grand Slam quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals, which should be the most competitive, hotly contested matches. EVERY HOF player from the 60's and 70's mailed it in on most of his shots or strokes, even Connors. This "it's all modern technology" argument is a very narrow perspective. Today's game of tennis is vastly more competitive than that of 30-40 years ago for the following reasons:
1) Yes, it is true, graphite racquets are lighter, more aerodynamic, and more powerful than the old wooden racquets;
2) Yes, again, modern strings are stronger and more powerful than the old gut strings (but obviously not outrageously so nor to the exclusion of the importance of feel and precision - many pros still use a gut string in a hybrid arrangement).
3) BUT modern players' fitness levels are vastly better, from a combination of both exercise and nutrition. Today's tennis pros are probably spending nearly as much time in their average day working just on fitness as the typical pro from 40 years ago spent practicing tennis. In the 1970s, Vitas Gerulaitis probably burned more calories on disco dance floors in an average week than most of his contemporaries did on fitness-related exercises.
4) Players are putting more time and effort into practicing today than they ever did before, so the average level of skill is higher. Today we have scientific analysis of swings and serves involving high speed cameras and computer simulations that are helping players get extra efficiency and power.
5) (to some extent) Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). They're a factor in nearly every sport that involves strength or aerobic exertion, despite testing, and their use by tennis pros has to be more widespread than the public is aware, but it's a mystery as to how widespread. There are some extremely convincing arguments in a recent PED thread here that Nadal uses PEDs (sudden bulking up as a teen, his alleged injuries do not conform to how injuries of that sort behave, his "injury" breaks from the game coincide perfectly into a PED use schedule, etc... - sorry rabid, mindless fanbois/fangurrls there is one hell of a lot of evidence that he's juicing and we know he cheats, with his uncle coaching him during matches). Even if there is no widespread use of PEDs for the purpose of making one stronger and faster, there has to be plenty of players using them to help recover faster from injuries. Remember, the drugs and those using them are typically staying a few years ahead of testing - Lance Armstrong never tested positive in a single test administered contemporaneously, despite the fact that he was a veritable Frankenstein of artificial biology.
Unquestionably the greats of byegone eras were tremendously skilled tennis players, but they were playing a much slower sport than is played today. I think McEnroe has the finest touch at the net of any player in history, but stick 20-something Mac in a game with today's players and he's not getting to the net as often, he's getting passed more, he's unsuccessfully fending off harder hit shots to the body more frequently, and players are running down and returning a lot more of his shots. A lot of those great shots that the top players made 30-40 years ago were possible because the shot from their opponent that set it up was an easier shot made by a player getting to the ball a quarter or half second slower than the player of today would. A lot of shots made decades ago that were winners are getting returned by today's faster, more fit pros. A lot of those "superb skills" and "wonderful touch" shots that your heroes of yesteryear made were only possible because they had time to get into position for them - they aren't getting to some of those shots if their opponent was a fit, modern player or if they do get to them, they don't have the time to hit as good of a shot.
I'll spell this out again because there are people on this forum who are quite obtuse and will ignore something if someone only acknowledges it once: I do not deny that improvements in racquets and strings have had a very, very big difference in how fast today's game is compared to the game of the wooden racquet era. But it's not as gigantic of a difference as you imagine - Roscoe Tanner was hitting serves in the 130-140mph range with those slow, heavy, ungainly wooden racquets. But if one actually watches matches played in that older era and pays attention, the pros of yesteryear were typically only going at 2/3, 3/4, maybe 7/8 speed compared to how the pros of today play the game, and that's not just the difference in racquets. Absent a tremendously lucky, injury-plagued draw, I don't think David Ferrer will ever win a Slam - he just doesn't have the weapons needed in today's game. But if we had a time machine and he practiced sufficiently with wood racquets, I'd put a fair chunk of money on him winning the calendar year Grand Slam against Borg, McEnroe, Connors, et al.
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