Switching to grass court tennis

[firepanda]

Just a couple of comments on the switch from RG to Wimbledon. I'm always amazed by the switch between clay and grass and the associated sudden change in pace. The ball is moving at squash ball speeds and sounds like one with the popping sounds it makes when it's hit. Djokovic and Nadal will have their work cut out.

On an only vaguely related note, I'm finding the stripiness of the court seriously off-putting.

Has there been any word on the grass quality so far? The court was apparently rather slippery last year. You'd think Federer would've done well on it, given his success on the slippery blue clay...

 

[objectivity]

Just a couple of comments on the switch from RG to Wimbledon. I'm always amazed by the switch between clay and grass and the associated sudden change in pace. The ball is moving at squash ball speeds and sounds like one with the popping sounds it makes when it's hit. Djokovic and Nadal will have their work cut out.

On an only vaguely related note, I'm finding the stripiness of the court seriously off-putting.

Has there been any word on the grass quality so far? The court was apparently rather slippery last year. You'd think Federer would've done well on it, given his success on the slippery blue clay...

so is there surface homogenization or not? ;-)

 

[firepanda]

so is there surface homogenization or not? ;-)

There's actually been some reasonable data on this and almost everyone can agree the courts have slowed down to an extent. Just how much of an impact this had and whether anyone should care about it is another debate. I just posted this as a reaction to the sudden increase in speed. I prefer clay court tennis, but it is quite refreshing to have a new surface after several months of clay.

 

[coloskier]

There's actually been some reasonable data on this and almost everyone can agree the courts have slowed down to an extent. Just how much of an impact this had and whether anyone should care about it is another debate. I just posted this as a reaction to the sudden increase in speed. I prefer clay court tennis, but it is quite refreshing to have a new surface after several months of clay.

It's not so much the speed of the grass, it is how damaged the grass used to get before they changed it. In the 90's you didn't even want to let the ball bounce, because you never knew which way it was going to bounce. Thus the heavy emphasis on S&V because you never wanted to let the ball touch the court. Agassi could get away with playing baseline only because his hand-eye coordination was unbelievable and he also half volleyed most of his shots from the baseline, before a wicked bounce could take effect.

 

[Rozroz]

It's not so much the speed of the grass, it is how damaged the grass used to get before they changed it. In the 90's you didn't even want to let the ball bounce, because you never knew which way it was going to bounce. Thus the heavy emphasis on S&V because you never wanted to let the ball touch the court. Agassi could get away with playing baseline only because his hand-eye coordination was unbelievable and he also half volleyed most of his shots from the baseline, before a wicked bounce could take effect.

that's extremely interesting.
never thought about that reason.
thought they just changed it to make it slower.