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Vote for speeding up the courts or against it!

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"Speed up the courts and general court speed Thread"

149K views 2K replies 436 participants last post by  kafkavert 
#1 ·
A few weeks ago I watched some old matches of James Blake including encounters against Kiefer (Vienna 2002), Agassi (Washington 2002), Safin (Hopman Cup 2004) and Moya (Indian Wells 2003) and it is quite obvious that today's game is far slower than it was then. James was able to generate direct winners off the forehand wing, whereas currently he has to fire his forehand at least two or three times to end the point. I just wonder whether his shots are less powerful now but looking at the shot and serve speeds it is probably not the reason. He uses the same frame as back then in 2002 or 2003, therefore it shouldn't be blamed on the technology of rackets. So what's the main reason - the balls or changes in surface? Or maybe James game is simply slower?
 
#1,594 · (Edited)
Fast courts follow this eschema:

A) If you have a good serve (if not you are done) the other guy return of serve is going to be hindered necessarily most of the times if directly is not an ace

B.1) You can take advantage of the weak return to hit a fancy forehand.

B.2) You can rush the net advantageously to finish the point

The key is to be good enough to break at least one game per set and don't be broken never.

And that is. Not very complicated tactics, not solid constructions of points, only a few powerful strokes. Really that requires so many talent?

Well, I guess if you collect the best points of any tennis GS final all of them would look fantastic. Nostalgia helps too. Sinatra, Elvis and Gardel sing better with each passing year.
 
#1,610 ·
yes , but you can`t refuse the arguments.

for you , it`s better ferrer or 35 years old haas than old agassi?????

agassi was a legend of the game , ferrer with less archivements that "weak era players" like nalby or davydenko , or coria it`s nÂş3......

and they were nÂş3 with proper ages , not with near 31 years old and one only masters1000 ( the less important of all , many elite players skip paris)

for you agassi in final of us open 2005 is weak era , for me it`s weak era ferrer in nÂş3 and old haas with many injurys near the top-10 and beating djoko in one of his favourite surfaces...........

and talking of wimbly , it`s true than in 2001 the organizers changes the grass , before 2001 was 75% a kind of grass but after 2000 was 100& .

but the grass is not the problem , the problem is the heavy balls than use many years after and the cut of the grass too , more larger provoques a more slow bounce.

wimbly was not the same after 2006.....much more slower.
 
#1,601 ·
Expected moonballertards against variety.
 
#1,620 · (Edited)
^^ So Federer is lying or is wrong.
Because what people say in public is always what they are actually thinking.

Anyway, RG being faster than ever not benefited him? Why Turkeytards never talks about this?
The topic being discussed was Federer's performance at Wimbledon. How is RG in any way relevant to this?

If correlation is not causation then Nadal also could have won Wimbledon IN SPITE of any court speed changes. :shrug: You can't have it both ways.
Where exactly did I contradict what you said and by extension when did I try to "have it both ways"? Quotes from this thread please.
 
#1,630 ·
true.

and even the same eddie seaward the guy who work the grass since 1990 , confessed that the gras is slow , not for the grass himself , if slow for the balls and the form of cut the grass too , the grass is more larger now and that provoques that the ball stopped a little more.

and the other problems is the hard floor who made the high bounce too.

even federer said that he saw more rallys in wimbledon than in clay
 
#1,631 · (Edited)
word of seaward :

Seaward on the speed of the court: “I don’t think the grass has slowed down. The ball still comes off the grass at the same speed. But, as the courts are a bit harder, the ball bounces a bit higher. The courts are a bit harder because of the grasses we use, and also because we prepare them that way. We wanted the hardness because we wanted the courts to be in just as good shape on day 13 as one day one, and that’s what we’ve got. If the ball comes at you at knee height at 140mph, you’ve got no chance or returning it. If it comes at you at chest height, you’ve got much more chance of getting the ball back into play. That’s why we’re getting the rallies.”

"Everybody was saying grass courts are dead because they're too fast and it just favors the player who's got a hard serve," Seaward says. "I spoke to the coaches at the time and said, 'Well, OK, what do you want?' And so they told me."

He listened.

The results have been favorable for the majority of the players. "Hopefully we've achieved that because we're getting greater rallies now just by slowing the courts down a little bit," Seaward says confidently. "Most players are liking the courts the way they are."


the problem is not the grass , is that organizers wants an slow torny and with high bounce.
 
#1,633 ·
When Federer, the modern master of grasscourts, was toppled by the king of clay, Rafael Nadal, in 2008, no one batted an eyelid. It was just another chapter in one of the game's great rivalries. After all, Rafa wasn't the first man to win Wimbledon and the French Open.
But it wasn't just Rafa who was enjoying newfound success on the grass. Other baseliners were appearing later and later in grass tournaments as well.

During the coverage of that classic final in 2008, an interesting video was broadcast. It showed two serves from Federer, side-by-side: one from 2003 and one from 2008. Both balls came off the Federer racquet at 200km/h, both balls whistled through the air at the same speed but, once the balls struck the surface, the 2008 ball lost 16km/h. Not only that, it sat up nice and high, not unlike the balls do at Roland Garros.

In 2010, Federer commented on the effects of the slower surface at Wimbledon, saying, "You can just stick at the baseline, half-volley, not panic when a guy moves in.

"You can always flick it at the end. Obviously they're not the fastest courts any more.”
 
#1,636 ·
How does this Decoturf in Montreal look to you? courts look low-medium speed to me :(
 
#1,638 ·
What exactly IS the speed of Cincy this year? It looked fast during Blake/Janowicz and Federer's/Dimitrov's slices made it look fast, but Nadal's topspin seems to work well on it and didn't both Djokovic and Nadal say it's slower than Montreal? And I swear I've heard Darren Cahill go from talking about how fast the courts here are to saying they're actually slow this year to once again saying it's one of the fastest courts on the tour. :confused:
 
#1,642 ·
Q. Rafa is undefeated on hard courts this year and you're undefeated on clay. Patrick said this year balance was really important with your clay game. I wondered about transitioning from clay to hard courts, what the challenges have been?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, actually, it's a lot easier, the transition, because the hard courts have gotten so slow since when I started playing. They were a lot faster. And now it's just so many more balls come back, and it's just almost basically playing on a fast clay court. I think the transition is a lot easier than it used to be.
:wavey:
 
#1,643 · (Edited)
NO. Servebots need to die for good. It's time for the HC specialists to improve their 1-2 shot game and develop forehands and backhands to stay in rallies. Sad for the voting. It's delightfull to see the younglings struggling against Spanish claymugs...says a lot about tennis.

It's already enough with both the AO and USO being on HC on top of the WTF.
 
#1,647 ·
body builder played half dead simon in one of his now epically hard draws.
 
#1,650 ·
The courts are fine. Tennis in the 90's was an abomination. Racket tech broke the damn game making it all about the serve. They had to slow the game down to fix it. You want faster courts, you have to go back to wooden rackets.

Watch matches from the 60's and 70's. If you think today's game is slow, you aren't going to be ready for what tennis looked like back then. It was cat and mouse and all about finesse. Watch Laver play. 20 shot rallies ON GRASS. It was a different game entirely.
 
#1,651 · (Edited)
The sheeple can't phantom the fact that claymugs have developed a more all-around game than the HC servebots of today and year after year make progress in tournaments and slams. Given the fact that slams like RG have speed things up, this also factors in. It's a pain for most to see their favorite players stumble on 5 shot rallies cause of their weak games against old claycourt mugs. Thus to most, it becomes an abomination, despite HC's dominating the Slams and WTF. This is actually better for tennis and not the other way around.
 
#1,660 ·
I'm no expert but I'd say the variety is more in the bounce than the speed. I would hate to see complete homogenisation and would like to see some serve and volley that can actually be a successful tactic on more than a handful of tournaments but things definitely could be worse; As serves get bigger and bigger the courts need to be slowed down to prevent endless ace-fests in my opinion.
 
#1,662 ·
How come no one complained about stats when the weak era "champs"
lost it mentally before playing FED?
When they turned 25, they folded physically, whereas
today's champs can play at age 28-35 with no whining about slow
surfaces.
You would never see Laver, Connors & Lendl crying over slow courts.

Gasquet's 27. He's not complaining.
Berdych & Delpo were rollercoasting for 5 years, but they
won't quit beating Federer.

NadalDjoker subdued Fed, so Fed was just
an unlucky, aging warrior overplaying
in his decade-long shortened schedules. LMAO
Funny how his failure to win 99% of Masters titles
and Davis Cup & Olympic singles
matches were ignored.
 
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