What will pro tennis look like 20 years from now?

Falloutjr

Falloutjr

Banned
We have all seen how advances in technology and technique have transformed the game from S&V and attacking the net to today with long points from the baseline and overpowering people, I'm curious what you all think the game will look like 20 years from now. Will we see more Federer clones with all-court play, Nadal-clones and tenacious baseline play, will the tables continue to turn to big men and big serving, or will there be some technological advance we can't even foresee yet and transform tennis like graphite racquets and polyester strings have?
 
ollinger

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
Hopefully the second serve will be gone. The idea that you have two chances to put the ball in play makes little sense to me. It's no coincidence that a set at Wimbledon was decided this year by a 70-68 score, as taller and better conditionned players with better equipment have made the first serve too big a weapon. That trend may continue and render the game unwatchable, at which point consideration will need to be given to eliminating the second serve. It will make for more rallying, and create some real strategic interest with respect to how big a serve to go for in various situations.
 
r2473

r2473

G.O.A.T.
^^Why not just watch women's tennis. For most of the players, the serve isn't really much of a weapon. Serves are broken more often than held. Should suit you.

Likewise, if the men had to live on their 2nd serve only, they would get broken about every other time (statistically, most men win about 50% or less of second serve points).
 
T

tennisdad65

Hall of Fame
ollinger said:
Hopefully the second serve will be gone. The idea that you have two chances to put the ball in play makes little sense to me. .....
Click to expand...

Imagine club level tennis.. a 3rd of the points will be service faults.

maybe if you increase the service box size (JMac suggestion few years back).. but millions of courts worldwide would need to be repainted.
 
veroniquem

veroniquem

Bionic Poster
ollinger said:
Hopefully the second serve will be gone. The idea that you have two chances to put the ball in play makes little sense to me. It's no coincidence that a set at Wimbledon was decided this year by a 70-68 score, as taller and better conditionned players with better equipment have made the first serve too big a weapon. That trend may continue and render the game unwatchable, at which point consideration will need to be given to eliminating the second serve. It will make for more rallying, and create some real strategic interest with respect to how big a serve to go for in various situations.
Click to expand...
It would also make tennis faster paced. Right now, there is a lot of wait time between every point.
From a spectator's point of view, it's a little tedious: with the lets on top, a player sometimes serves 3 or 4 times. It slows the match down a lot.
 
pyrokid

pyrokid

Hall of Fame
I kind of want someone to figure out how to hit flat, but with the same consistency as with topspin.
And then someone else to make a new string or something that spins the ball like crazy. So everyone would be either crazy versions of JB with shots that always went in or crazy versions of nadal that never missed.
 
r2473

r2473

G.O.A.T.
Pro Tennis in the year 2030:

Women: After a severe downturn in interest, the WTA will revitalize itself by stocking the tour with models and having them play nearly naked. They will also salt in a few "big bruisers". There will be plenty of juicy stories flying around to hold interest as well. It will look something like roller derby with a lot of loud grunting.

Men: Won't be able to tell the guys apart. They will all be tall, athletic, and serve out of a tree. They will also be able to rally for hours and run down every ball.

The top players will be down to playing about 4 tournaments per year. They will either skip or tank the rest.
 
Devilito

Devilito

Legend
Yeah athletic level isn’t parabolic. You can’t say that if you just wait, tennis players will be hitting 1,000,000,000 mph serves and winners off every shot, be 300lbs of muscle, able to run the 100M in under 5 seconds and jump 100’. People look at athletes like they’re a never ending source of progression and evolution. The only reason it looks this way is that the high performance athlete is still a relatively new concept. Athletes getting paid millions and training 7 days / 365 is something that’s only about 30 years old. Athletes will eventually peak. If they cap technology, players won’t be playing that much better in 20 years. The only thing that might change is the metagame were players are using different and potentially better tactics. Maybe back to serve and volley, who knows.
 
Satch

Satch

Hall of Fame
Tennis always can be saved from disaster.

Look just at Formula 1 and limits that they have put there.

Limits like materials that can be used and what type of strings ball ect.
 
Grass_for_cows

Grass_for_cows

Semi-Pro
Double racquets connected like a nunchuck.

Secret ball in every batch that explodes when struck a certain number of times.

Artificial clay-grass also known as green clay.

Power-ups that fall from the stands at random intervals.

Etc.
 
tacou

tacou

G.O.A.T.
veroniquem said:
It would also make tennis faster paced. Right now, there is a lot of wait time between every point.
From a spectator's point of view, it's a little tedious: with the lets on top, a player sometimes serves 3 or 4 times. It slows the match down a lot.
Click to expand...

enforcing time rules that are already in place will make the game move faster opposed to such a huge change as eliminating first serve
 
ollinger

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
If men win about 50% of second serve points currently, that's just fine, as it would reduce the importance of serving and make playing out the point the crucial issue, a more interesting game to watch. But I think you'd see the server win somewhat more than half his serve points if the second serve were eliminated because while servers wouldn't hit as hard as they do now on first serve, they'd likely hit somewhat harder than they do on second serve now to try to gain at least some advantage in the point. So if the server won for example 55-60% of points, the serve would still have some value but not dominate the game.
 
MixieP

MixieP

Hall of Fame
Here's a future tennis hero taking a nap during a rain break.

body_builder_1sfw_Steroids_are_good-s468x519-14365-580.gif
 
Kaz00

Kaz00

Semi-Pro
I see a bunch of guys who should be playing NBA serving 180 bombs with two handed backhands just rallying for hours and hours having 169-167 tiebreakers.
 
WilsonWest

WilsonWest

New User
I really hope serve and volley makes a come back. It is so fun to watch, especially players like Michael Llodra and Taylor Dent. I want to see less players like John Isner and Sam Querrey. They just serve bombs and ball bash :(
 
ollinger

ollinger

G.O.A.T.
If there are more and more players with huge serves, there's no reason why serve and volley couldn't be an effective strategy, though I think with the ever increasing speed of male players the volleys you'd see would mostly be swinging volleys unless the receiver is able to knife a return. Guys coming in behing huge serves to hit huge swinging volleys would truly be smashmouth tennis.
 
B

Bjorn99

Hall of Fame
Some major newspaper or magazine predicted that up to a hundred of the athletes competing at the LAST Olympics would be part robot. Seriously.

So better factor that into the equation.
 
B

Bjorn99

Hall of Fame
Some major newspaper or magazine predicted that up to a hundred of the athletes competing at the LAST Olympics would be part robot. Seriously.

So better factor that into the equation.
 
A

abraxas21

Professional
ollinger said:
Hopefully the second serve will be gone. The idea that you have two chances to put the ball in play makes little sense to me. It's no coincidence that a set at Wimbledon was decided this year by a 70-68 score, as taller and better conditionned players with better equipment have made the first serve too big a weapon. That trend may continue and render the game unwatchable, at which point consideration will need to be given to eliminating the second serve. It will make for more rallying, and create some real strategic interest with respect to how big a serve to go for in various situations.
Click to expand...

thats imo a terrible suggestion. two serves allow for drama and for a decision making that depends on the situation.

with taller and taller players every day, i wouldn't mind if they height of the net by a few centimeters.
 
A

abraxas21

Professional
veroniquem said:
It would also make tennis faster paced. Right now, there is a lot of wait time between every point.
From a spectator's point of view, it's a little tedious: with the lets on top, a player sometimes serves 3 or 4 times. It slows the match down a lot.
Click to expand...

ironic to hear that from a nadal fan.
 
ttwarrior1

ttwarrior1

Hall of Fame
well if this board was around 20 years ago, would you really be impressed that i would say there would be a guy doing nothing really different that what agassi or sampras did.
It will be about the same
 
nfor304

nfor304

Banned
2 balls in play every point. That would be awesome.

Seriously though, maybe players will have surgical enhancements or robotic parts? Simona haleps breast reduction was to improve her tennis, she could be the start of something big
 
Last edited:
Satch

Satch

Hall of Fame
nfor304 said:
2 balls in play every point. That would be awesome.

Seriously though, maybe players will have surgical enhancements or robotic parts? Simona haleps breast reduction was to improve her tennis, she could be the start of something big
Click to expand...

you mean that WTA becomes ATP?

Cool then we would have only one tournament for men and women, and they can compete between them...
 
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