Why is everyone born after 1990 really bad on Grass ??? Any specific reason ???

[David Le]

Shapovalov has real potential on grass if he wasn't such a mental midget in tight moments.

I’d say the same for Dimitrov and the “unlucky draws”

 

[Karma Tennis]

Its strange really. But... Why is Novak so good in Australia and so average at Flushing? They're pretty much the same surfaces. Makes no sense

Plexicushion Prestige / GreenSet AO Acrylic courts play somewhat slower than DecoTurf II. The balls also tend to bounce a little higher on PP/GS.

This probably suits Novak's game a little better. He also gets a lot more support in Melbourne because there are a lot of Serbian tennis fans here. (I also believe he relaxes a lot more in Melbourne than he does in NY simply because Melbourne is a lot smaller and has a lot less people. Bit more room to "breathe" so to speak.)

Traditionally, Melbourne in summer has been probably a lot less humid than New York is. That suits some players better than others and I think Novak has benefitted from that to.

I'm not sure the AO really suits Medvedev's game as much as the USO does. But now that he has won the USO Title it will be very interesting to see how he performs at the AO over the next few years.

 

[Karma Tennis]

We need more grass tournaments for specialists to develop. Imagine RFs numbers with a proper grass court season (2 Masters 1000) Ideally:

The ITF / ATP / WTA see their biggest markets as being in Europe and North America. The "Season" will always be geared towards having two Tournament periods on both of those continents.

It also minimises the travel requirements for players.

Australia continues to be in the mix simply because of "Tradition" and the significance of the Australian Open. The ATP Cup is an attempt by Tennis Australia to maintain its significance on the world stage. It will probably work because it provides a lot of the elite players with a relatively "easy" start to the season.

China is definitely an emerging market for most sports, tennis included. It will be interesting to see whether the ATP / WTA continue to grow events in that part of the world in order to develop their markets there. (Interestingly, Emma Raducanu's mother is Chinese and Raducanu herself speaks Mandarin fluently. Na Li gave tennis a huge kick in China. Perhaps Raducanu will continue that.)

 

[Crazy Finn]

Its strange really. But... Why is Novak so good in Australia and so average at Flushing? They're pretty much the same surfaces. Makes no sense

Aside from the surface difference and weather conditions that others have mentioned there's one obvious difference:

The Australian Open is the at the beginning of the season after a decent amount of rest / downtime / recovery. The US Open is at the end of a fairly long season.

Novak may have taken some time off this year and played fewer tournaments than normal, it seems, but it's still a long season and given that he's been in every slam final, those are long tournament runs for him.

 

[gadge]

Why doesn't ATP introduce more tournaments and promote grass courts?
Not even a single masters on Grass

Looks like the ATP is being run by uneducated idiots

It’s the same case with WTA. That’s why you don’t see many new champions like we’ve been having on other slams (Osaka, Bianca, Iga, emma, kenin…)

OTOH on grass we’ve had barty, halep, kerber, garbine, Serena…. all experienced players who’ve played a number of Wimbledons and grass court tournaments prior to winning which wasn’t always the case. Maria and Petra had their breakthrough at Wimbledon.

 

[Sunny014]

It’s the same case with WTA. That’s why you don’t see many new champions like we’ve been having on other slams (Osaka, Bianca, Iga, emma, kenin…)

OTOH on grass we’ve had barty, halep, kerber, garbine, Serena…. all experienced players who’ve played a number of Wimbledons and grass court tournaments prior to winning which wasn’t always the case. Maria and Petra had their breakthrough at Wimbledon.

Right....
This is because of slowing down of courts...
That has killed grass court tennis....

 

[Chanwan]

Again, that's a completely different argument and not even one I disagree with. I am just saying those guys aren't specifically bad on grass vis a vis other surfaces. The trio otherwise vying for slams is the culprit as all three struggle on grass.

well, then the point is that out of the players that are good enough to challenge for slam titles, none of them have grass as anything close to their best surface. I agree with your listed examples btw and hope that the Canadians might one day transition over into the 'good enough to contend for slam titles' category

 

[NonP]

Their earliest tennis memories were watching PETE, which made them unmotivated to try and comPETE against grass perfection.

Also, zero net skills. Old man with now 0 knees will still make the 2nd week next year.

I dig your 1st sentence but that's not really why the Next Gens never took to grass, LOL. As I keep pointing out S&V was already dying in the '90s which means kids born in the '80s or earlier were already ditching the big game for the safe haven of baselining.

And yet the few '90s holdovers still more than held their own in the aughts. But sure, Mac, Edberg, Becker or Pete friggin' Sampras would struggle against a two-trick pony like Berrettini who has no BH and net game to speak of!

Your grousing about "zero net skills" is obvious hyperbole but quite valid for most youngsters, but it's hard to blame them when we expect immediate results in this age of helicopter parenting and social media but still insist on "the good old game" which demands a substantial investment of time and $$$. And it also doesn't help that tennis offers decreasingly competitive career prospects vs. major team sports. That's why I think it would take probably unforeseen cultural shifts to turn these trends around. I dunno when or what, and if my infallible CB can't pinpoint either anybody who tells you otherwise is lying!

Edberg and Becker grew up on clay yet were still amazing on grass. Sampras hated the grass first few years of the tour but then became a monster on it.

Modern players are mostly a bunch of 1D baseline robots without hands or shotmaking to contend on grass (someone like Nadal is head and shoulders above next-gen in that regard). "They don't play on grass much" is a cop-out, if they had skills that transition well to the surface, they would have had success on it.

Think someone said in another thread that Novak is actually a better net player than any of the Next Genners, and I think he may be right. I mean ma boy posted a stellar 75% in 190 net forays at this year's Wimbledon! Can't get much better than that.

Oh and krosero in his last update(s) had Fed at 64% and 67% in almost 1000 attempts vs. Rafa and Novak respectively. And yet the lemmings keep regurgitating this nonsense about poly somehow killing off S&V or even regular net rushing. Evolution, my ass.

It’s simple. The younger players ARE TOO TALL to play well on grass, especially since S&V is no longer a viable strategy.

There's something to this. Krajicek wasn't quite the athlete Goran or even Stich was but his lethal S&V struck fear into everyone.

That said Richard also had a fantastic running FH. In fact his FH was one of the biggest ever, so he had that advantage over his two peers (Goran and Stich had a strong FH of their own, but not as big or consistent.)

Its strange really. But... Why is Novak so good in Australia and so average at Flushing? They're pretty much the same surfaces. Makes no sense

You're right about the two surfaces being more or less the same, but not about the different conditions. More on this below:

Djokovic is better than Federer on clay

no he has been destroying nadal in h2h even on clay to the point that nadal can't even get sets. so has murray for that matter. live in the NOW not the past. He was destroying Nadal on clay since 2011. Why didn't he win FO until 2016?

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

ESPN voters choose Nadal as most dominant athlete (individual or team) of the 21st century

Rafa beat the King of grass and then world number 1 in the greatest match of all time on grass to win the title in 2008. That says something. Had he not been seeded according to an arbitrary formula, which has now been discontinued, who knows how many Wimbledon titles he would have won? Just...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

 

[NAS]

I dig your 1st sentence but that's not really why the Next Gens never took to grass, LOL. As I keep pointing out S&V was already dying in the '90s which means kids born in the '80s or earlier were already ditching the big game for the safe haven of baselining.

And yet the few '90s holdovers still more than held their own in the aughts. But sure, Mac, Edberg, Becker or Pete friggin' Sampras would struggle against a two-trick pony like Berrettini who has no BH and net game to speak of!

Your grousing about "zero net skills" is obvious hyperbole but quite valid for most youngsters, but it's hard to blame them when we expect immediate results in this age of helicopter parenting and social media but still insist on "the good old game" which demands a substantial investment of time and $$$. And it also doesn't help that tennis offers decreasingly competitive career prospects vs. major team sports. That's why I think it would take probably unforeseen cultural shifts to turn these trends around. I dunno when or what, and if my infallible CB can't pinpoint either anybody who tells you otherwise is lying!



Think someone said in another thread that Novak is actually a better net player than any of the Next Genners, and I think he may be right. I mean ma boy posted a stellar 75% in 190 net forays at this year's Wimbledon! Can't get much better than that.

Oh and krosero in his last update(s) had Fed at 64% and 67% in almost 1000 attempts vs. Rafa and Novak respectively. And yet the lemmings keep regurgitating this nonsense about poly somehow killing off S&V or even regular net rushing. Evolution, my ass.



There's something to this. Krajicek wasn't quite the athlete Goran or even Stich was but his lethal S&V struck fear into everyone.

That said Richard also had a fantastic running FH. In fact his FH was one of the biggest ever, so he had that advantage over his two peers (Goran and Stich had a strong FH of their own, but not as big or consistent.)



You're right about the two surfaces being more or less the same, but not about the different conditions. More on this below:

Djokovic is better than Federer on clay

no he has been destroying nadal in h2h even on clay to the point that nadal can't even get sets. so has murray for that matter. live in the NOW not the past. He was destroying Nadal on clay since 2011. Why didn't he win FO until 2016?

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

ESPN voters choose Nadal as most dominant athlete (individual or team) of the 21st century

Rafa beat the King of grass and then world number 1 in the greatest match of all time on grass to win the title in 2008. That says something. Had he not been seeded according to an arbitrary formula, which has now been discontinued, who knows how many Wimbledon titles he would have won? Just...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

How come you so often come with good post

 

[zagor]

Think someone said in another thread that Novak is actually a better net player than any of the Next Genners, and I think he may be right. I mean ma boy posted a stellar 75% in 190 net forays at this year's Wimbledon! Can't get much better than that.

Oh and krosero in his last update(s) had Fed at 64% and 67% in almost 1000 attempts vs. Rafa and Novak respectively. And yet the lemmings keep regurgitating this nonsense about poly somehow killing off S&V or even regular net rushing. Evolution, my ass.

Oh I'm positive Novak's much better at the net than them. Novak has slowly developed into one of the best net players over the last few years when it comes to the top singles players.

Though I feel even when he was younger, his efficiency at the net was always underrated. Basically he never looked good at the net but his success rate was always decent.

There's something to this. Krajicek wasn't quite the athlete Goran or even Stich was but his lethal S&V struck fear into everyone.

That said Richard also had a fantastic running FH. In fact his FH was one of the biggest ever, so he had that advantage over his two peers (Goran and Stich had a strong FH of their own, but not as big or consistent.)

I think I remember hearing about Goran being the fastest player on the full run actually. He was a far better athlete than given credit for.

 

[Nate7-5]

And more carpet tournaments please!

 

[SumYungGai]

Well, where are the grass courts? Hell, even the only clay courts we have are in private clubs. The only surface I get to hit on is hard, even though it's my least favorite.

 

[Sir Weed]

Because of yo mama.

 

[Crazy Finn]

Oh I'm positive Novak's much better at the net than them. Novak has slowly developed into one of the best net players over the last few years when it comes to the top singles players.

Though I feel even when he was younger, his efficiency at the net was always underrated. Basically he never looked good at the net but his success rate was always decent.

It's an incredibly low bar. I swear there were players in my USTA league that could volley better than half the ATP.

Despite the relative truth of your statement - the Novak is one of the better net players in the last couple years, he's still a strong contender for the worst net player of the ATG list. Of course, this is mostly a product of the modern conditions and game. If there are future additions to the ATG list, he'd probably be above them, at least.