He didn't say that exactly, but it was an answer to a question from Roddick.
Around 1:20:00 mark.
Roddick: Is there a need to correct the court surface (speeds) to bring different elements of the game?
Federer: YES! (a very strong yes there, and that tells a lot of course).
I think both believe there was an overcorrection of court speeds as a reaction to how fast surfaces were back then, but also for business reasons, which Federer talked about shortly after. He argued that slow surfaces are there to ensure tournament directors have a higher chance of getting their Sincaraz final and not risk them getting upset. Slower surfaces force players to hit more incredible shots to win points against these two, making it harder to pull off upsets. To be fair to Sincaraz, both (Roddick and Federer) said they can adapt, of course, but the surfaces playing very similarly just make them harder to upset. I wish, however, Federer had pinpointed when exactly this overall shift happened. Roddick pinpointed to a reasonable shift around 2005 at Wimbledon, noting the difference of how different Federer played against in 2005 compared to 2004. He played much more from the baseline in Wimbly 2005. Surface speed in the 2000s perhaps reached a decent balance and variance and the overall overcorrection perhaps started to happen more clearly after 2010 and got worse from there on.
This was very interesting, especially the portion from 1:17:00 until the end. The question was about the current state of the game and what had changed.
He also mentioned how he HATED practicing with Nadal and Agassi because they just tend to want to hit a lot of winners in practice after a few shots lol. Too much intensity. This strategy apparently worked so well for Nadal. Made him very sharp, and at the same time, he didn't allow anyone to get a real feel of his game in practice. Dude was a ruthless winner lol.
Around 1:20:00 mark.
Roddick: Is there a need to correct the court surface (speeds) to bring different elements of the game?
Federer: YES! (a very strong yes there, and that tells a lot of course).
I think both believe there was an overcorrection of court speeds as a reaction to how fast surfaces were back then, but also for business reasons, which Federer talked about shortly after. He argued that slow surfaces are there to ensure tournament directors have a higher chance of getting their Sincaraz final and not risk them getting upset. Slower surfaces force players to hit more incredible shots to win points against these two, making it harder to pull off upsets. To be fair to Sincaraz, both (Roddick and Federer) said they can adapt, of course, but the surfaces playing very similarly just make them harder to upset. I wish, however, Federer had pinpointed when exactly this overall shift happened. Roddick pinpointed to a reasonable shift around 2005 at Wimbledon, noting the difference of how different Federer played against in 2005 compared to 2004. He played much more from the baseline in Wimbly 2005. Surface speed in the 2000s perhaps reached a decent balance and variance and the overall overcorrection perhaps started to happen more clearly after 2010 and got worse from there on.
This was very interesting, especially the portion from 1:17:00 until the end. The question was about the current state of the game and what had changed.
He also mentioned how he HATED practicing with Nadal and Agassi because they just tend to want to hit a lot of winners in practice after a few shots lol. Too much intensity. This strategy apparently worked so well for Nadal. Made him very sharp, and at the same time, he didn't allow anyone to get a real feel of his game in practice. Dude was a ruthless winner lol.
