Re: Grinding wins agains, speed up the courts or the sport will die.
let's be honest it's true.
my favorite player of all time, any era, any generation, is Rafael Nadal, who the slowest of the courts has benefited more than anyone but it is somewhat gross to watch a player hit 5 insane shots in a rally to no avail
beyond even Djokovic, look at Nadal, Ferrer, Murray, Federer- all of the top guys are incredible movers. besides Federer are any of them more talented or better hitters than the likes of Wawrinka, Tsonga, Soderling, etc? not really
obviously some courts are going to be slow, clay is a whole entire section of the season that is very slow, but to make the majority of hard court tournaments play very slowly is ludicrous. what happens is those who work very hard on technique and actually are naturals at the beauty of the sport will lose over and over and over to athletes just based on agility and speed. I hear time and time and time again how Novak Djokovic has the best blah blah shots but the reality it's not so much that any of his shots are particularly incredible, as much as the nature of him always being able to get to balls with plenty of time
posters here are obviously right, it's not a coincidence that defenders are all atop the ATP rankings. once again, besides Federer.
while I love a good battle as much as the next person, there becomes a point where you would expect SOME big tournaments to play fast and be tennis competitions rather than Olympic run-athons. tennis is, after all, more about how you hit the ball than speed, or at least I think it should be. obviously we are presented with a problem when a player can hit the ball much worse than his opponent yet still win a match just due to how slo-mo everything has become
I loved the Wawrinka-Djokovic match. it was great. but you're watching it and it obviously hits your mind at some point, "how am I watching a match where one guy is dictating play the whole time with aggressive and wonderfully placed shots yet still only tied up in the match?" not to take away from Djokovic, but it is appalling that a player like Wawrinka has played the majority of his careers on ridiculously slow courts, and that if the ATP were not retarded and actually allowed some tournaments to remain at a decent speed, the likes of him would have chances to be successful based on talent rather than purely athleticism.
Wawrinka and Djokovic are both great tennis players but at their cores you have to think that Stan is possibly more talented yet with way way less success? why? inconsistancy? yeah. choking at times? yeah. mentality/focus? sure. but also then you have to realize and take into account the fact that a player who is more of a pure ballstriker and less of a hedgehog running around will fail in this slow paced world of tennis surfaces. it is a bit unfair. for gods sake are we going to have to create an indoor Grand Slam just for the sake of being fair? better yet speed up Australia or the US OPen, or prefarably both. I love watching Nadal play, but something is seriously wrong when you watch those highlights from last years Australian Open of Nadal winning points even when Berdych hits what, 4,5,6 winning shots. it's ludicrous