Do you enjoy tennis rallies?

I enjoy rallies.

I found the rally played in a professional tournament in Richmond, Virginia, in 1984, particularly satisfying; a 29-minute, 643-shot rally (Nelson v Hepner).

If the 2010 Isner - Mahut first round tie at Wimbledon featured such rallies in their 980 point match, we would get 473 hours of actual tennis play. If we now add in the 20 seconds between points and the 90 seconds between games (of which there were 183) we get 482 hours of tennis. Perhaps we should add in a Nadal factor giving 484 hours of tennis play (excluding possible MTO's!). If we allow 9 hours of play per day (noon to 9pm), the match would have lasted 54 days, i.e. about 8 weeks (playing on Sundays too).

The Wimbledon Men's tournament consists of seven rounds of tennis. So if each match lasted this long we would need 378 days minimum to complete the tournament. However, since there are only 19 tennis courts, with 64 matches to complete in the first round and 32 matches in the second round, we would need 273 days to complete the first two rounds and 543 days in total. If we now take into account days lost due to rain and the reduced daylight hours during the winter period, we would need about 805 days to complete the Men's singles tournament.

If we now add in the women's singles tournament as well as the doubles tournaments we would need around 1702 days. Since some players would be entered for both the singles tournament, and the doubles tournament (including mixed doubles) we would need about 2060 days to complete the schedule, giving around five and a half years of continuous tennis to complete each years Wimbledon tennis championships.

Hmmm I should also add in the juniors and wheelchair tournaments ...

well we could always go back to the 4hour match between Sampras and Goran at Wimbledon...when they timed how long the ball was actually in play for it was 6 minutes! This is what led to the conditions we have now...a complete overreaction!
I like ralleys but I like allcourt play too...having just one style of play is not good for the game and at the moment its all about ralleys.
At the end of the day, the surfaces should play true to their origins...so we have fewer ralleys on grass and USO to a lesser extent and see more allcourt skills, more ralleys on clay and the slower courts of AO (preferred them as Rebound Ace personally).

I do enjoy ralleys...but not all the time.

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emancipator

The law of unintended consequences is one of my favourites.

You know what I mean; a new standard is set for waiting time inside a hospital so people end up dying on Ambulances, or you phone for a doctors appointment in 4 weeks and get told to phone in 3 so you're only waiting for a week.

Allowing MTO's is one in tennis; a good idea on the face of it, but it may well have contributed to more injuries as players are run to their limit and enabled to play on when actually crocked.

Not quite what the OP was writing about but this may be useful as a general purpose thread for the changes in the game.

I enjoy rallies, but I enjoy shot making much more.

If we don't have SHBH down the line cause they are too risky with very little reward as most players can retrieve those nowadays, then there is something wrong with the conds.

It's a very thin lines they have to find between too many aces, and too many gruelling rallies.

I think the best combination would probably be slow courts using fast ball. To me the French open had the best balance this year...and that's what it had.

Always wondered about that match in Virginia, USA, in 1984. Did they realise they could set a record and just played the tennis equivalent of soccer's "keepie-uppie" ? Can't think it was not contrived. You'd never be able to play such long rallies if you were really going for it. Anyone know wot happened at this match

sirfredperry wrote:Always wondered about that match in Virginia, USA, in 1984. Did they realise they could set a record and just played the tennis equivalent of soccer's "keepie-uppie" ? Can't think it was not contrived. You'd never be able to play such long rallies if you were really going for it. Anyone know wot happened at this match

I turned to religion during that rally.


They say they wern't aiming for the record but as time went on they became a little fearful of losing the point after putting so much effort into it, so they began to play safe ...

I like a mix - after a while I find seeing a shot that looks like a winner being got back rather tedious.

We've got it too far in favour of the returners right now, but as Lydian points out Wimbledon in the 1990's was way too far the other way around.

One of our big problems is addiction to a 'star system' in tennis whereby every tournament which takes itself seriously wants the 'best' players duking it out in the final or somehow it seems that it's not as important as the other tournaments. That may not have caused homogenisation of conditions, but now we have such homogenisation the 'star system' creates substantial inertia against undoing it.

Tennis is a beautiful game of individuality and variety, I love everything it can offer: rallies, S&V, passing shots, shots down the line, inside out forehand, brilliantly placed serves, great moving, drop-shots, chasing a dead ball and retreiving it with a millimeter of your racquet, counter-punching, lobs that land on the line...oh, tennis I tennis!

barrystar wrote: One of our big problems is addiction to a 'star system' in tennis whereby every tournament which takes itself seriously wants the 'best' players duking it out in the final or somehow it seems that it's not as important as the other tournaments. That may not have caused homogenisation of conditions, but now we have such homogenisation the 'star system' creates substantial inertia against undoing it.

I think this is a very interesting point - hence Lydian's disappointment in another thread about Tsonga reaching the final, despite the fact that as Ed Smith puts it in The Times today he 'plays sport with the kind of joyful self-expression that cannot be coached into a player and should never be coached out of him' or Harman commenting in another article in Times today 'he (Tsonga) deserves consideration every bit as much as Murray, who was many people's tip this week but could play only one match after pulling a groin muscle'

Harman goes on to say 'If he (Murray) was tempted to watch the season's climax yesterday, Murray might have been unnerved not just by the sight of a 30-year-old romping around a court, but a 26-year-old going for his shots and coming very close to gaining the win of his life'

And yet, some still feel short changed that the then No 3, now No 4 again, didn't make if further and that the competition was devalued by having a Tsonga in the final instead of Murray. I admire a lot of what Murray has achieved, but Tsonga did the 'big time' proud last night and no-one can surely think that he didn't grace last week far better than players ranked above him - we didn't always expect the 'stars' never to be beaten - it is not their right to try and argue for rankings, conditions and scheduling to suit all the time - if the powers to be give in to the 'star' culture, then they will begin slowly, but surely, to ruin the game.

only if it's a rally with different variations, not one like the Murray/Benneteau obscurity. My best rallies of the season were probably the Djokovic/Tsonga ones at Wimbledon, but I haven't really looked back at the Clay season so I could've missed some.

time please wrote:

barrystar wrote: One of our big problems is addiction to a 'star system' in tennis whereby every tournament which takes itself seriously wants the 'best' players duking it out in the final or somehow it seems that it's not as important as the other tournaments. That may not have caused homogenisation of conditions, but now we have such homogenisation the 'star system' creates substantial inertia against undoing it.

I think this is a very interesting point - hence Lydian's disappointment in another thread about Tsonga reaching the final, despite the fact that as Ed Smith puts it in The Times today he 'plays sport with the kind of joyful self-expression that cannot be coached into a player and should never be coached out of him' or Harman commenting in another article in Times today 'he (Tsonga) deserves consideration every bit as much as Murray, who was many people's tip this week but could play only one match after pulling a groin muscle'

Harman goes on to say 'If he (Murray) was tempted to watch the season's climax yesterday, Murray might have been unnerved not just by the sight of a 30-year-old romping around a court, but a 26-year-old going for his shots and coming very close to gaining the win of his life'

And yet, some still feel short changed that the then No 3, now No 4 again, didn't make if further and that the competition was devalued by having a Tsonga in the final instead of Murray. I admire a lot of what Murray has achieved, but Tsonga did the 'big time' proud last night and no-one can surely think that he didn't grace last week far better than players ranked above him - we didn't always expect the 'stars' never to be beaten - it is not their right to try and argue for rankings, conditions and scheduling to suit all the time - if the powers to be give in to the 'star' culture, then they will begin slowly, but surely, to ruin the game.

Think this has gone off topic but anyway Time Please why are you bringing Murray into this debate. I've not seen any Murray supporter on V2 saying that the final was devalued because Tsonga was in it rather than Murray. So its a bit of cheap shot saying that. Djokovic and Nadal weren't in it either but I don't think that devalued it either. I for one really like watching Tsonga play and know that he is capable of matching anyone when playing at his best. The two best players over the week got to the final.

I enjoy rallies but there are different types of rallies. The ones I enjoy I guess are the ones that involve thinking ahead and shotmaking. I don't particularly enjoy seeing an amazing shot retrieved for a winner that took a fraction of the shotmaking skill. If this pattern goes on in the match then I start to feel for the disgruntled loser of the rallies as the crowd should be cheering their brilliance rather than some retrievals.

Calder106 wrote: I've not seen any Murray supporter on V2 saying that the final was devalued because Tsonga was in it rather than Murray.

Essentially for the reason that die hard Murray fans simply disappear with Murray and it seems there is little interest from them for the rest of the tournament.

My kind of rally has to involve all-court tennis ideally starting with DEUCE - score wise, a body serve that gets blocked out and it just manages to land on the line, then we have an inside-out forehand attack pushed back into the game by a backhand slice, only to be returned in the same measure with the rush to the net, where the misfortunate volleyer doesn't dice the volley enough allowing the other player to tip it back over the net. The volleyer then pushes it back in play but the other player chases it manages to recover the position in the rally (only just) . The crowd is at this point delirious and starts gasping and making noises but quickly resumes relative silence. The volleying player than tries to put the ball away in a rush with a cross-court forehand only to receive a flying bullet of a backhand down the line. The volleyer then only just manages to moonball it back in play while the other player executes a cleverly disguised drop-shot which (as expected ) hits the cord but tips over the net after another uncontrolled bout of crowd madness, the player kills himself to get to the ball,manages to get to it just 1/8 of an inch before it hits the double bounce, the other player is ready for it and lifts the most elegant lob which smoothly and effortlessly drop on the line a few steps in front of a smiling beaten player. Needles to say the point sets up the Wimbledon 2012 championship point. The winning player is Novak Djokovic (as expected ), who wins the final point by serving an ace bang on the T point.
The crowd is at this point beyond control completely deranged in the hysterical pandemonium of what they have just witnessed.

One of the fans faints with excitement, the ambulance is there quickly, they ask the person the name and in the recovering stupor the fan mutters out: nole is the best.....

Tenez wrote:

Calder106 wrote: I've not seen any Murray supporter on V2 saying that the final was devalued because Tsonga was in it rather than Murray.

Essentially for the reason that die hard Murray fans simply disappear with Murray and it seems there is little interest from them for the rest of the tournament.

Well I watched quite a bit of it. Didn't do much posting as most of threads turned into Nadal bashing after Federer beat him and I'm not into that.. Still not seen a Murray supporter saying the final was devalued because Tsonga was in it instead of Murray.

Calder106 wrote:

time please wrote:

barrystar wrote: One of our big problems is addiction to a 'star system' in tennis whereby every tournament which takes itself seriously wants the 'best' players duking it out in the final or somehow it seems that it's not as important as the other tournaments. That may not have caused homogenisation of conditions, but now we have such homogenisation the 'star system' creates substantial inertia against undoing it.

I think this is a very interesting point - hence Lydian's disappointment in another thread about Tsonga reaching the final, despite the fact that as Ed Smith puts it in The Times today he 'plays sport with the kind of joyful self-expression that cannot be coached into a player and should never be coached out of him' or Harman commenting in another article in Times today 'he (Tsonga) deserves consideration every bit as much as Murray, who was many people's tip this week but could play only one match after pulling a groin muscle'

Harman goes on to say 'If he (Murray) was tempted to watch the season's climax yesterday, Murray might have been unnerved not just by the sight of a 30-year-old romping around a court, but a 26-year-old going for his shots and coming very close to gaining the win of his life'

And yet, some still feel short changed that the then No 3, now No 4 again, didn't make if further and that the competition was devalued by having a Tsonga in the final instead of Murray. I admire a lot of what Murray has achieved, but Tsonga did the 'big time' proud last night and no-one can surely think that he didn't grace last week far better than players ranked above him - we didn't always expect the 'stars' never to be beaten - it is not their right to try and argue for rankings, conditions and scheduling to suit all the time - if the powers to be give in to the 'star' culture, then they will begin slowly, but surely, to ruin the game.

Think this has gone off topic but anyway Time Please why are you bringing Murray into this debate. I've not seen any Murray supporter on V2 saying that the final was devalued because Tsonga was in it rather than Murray. So its a bit of cheap shot saying that. Djokovic and Nadal weren't in it either but I don't think that devalued it either. I for one really like watching Tsonga play and know that he is capable of matching anyone when playing at his best. The two best players over the week got to the final.

Apologies if this looks off topic Calder, but it was something in today's newspaper which tied in with barrystar's comment about us all feeling that it is disappointing if the 'stars' - the top four in this case - not at the sharp end of the tournie. There was a different discussion at the same time which touched on this with lydian saying that for him it pointed to a terrible schedule or conditions, that the semis weren't contested by top 4 (despite the fact they were last year).

In other words, I responded with something topical to barrystar's interesting observation showing that Tsonga was a star in his own right, even if he had not been necessarily marketed as such pre tournament and so I was really continuing a conversation over threads, which I apologise for Nore - I didn't mean to distract from yours.

i wasn't having any cheap shots at anyone - it is not just the preorgative of Murray's fans to mention the name, the article might have talked of another player, but they didn't - my response wasn't about Murray per se, it was about the 'stars' and the 'spares' at the tournament, and I used a up to date article to agree with barrystar's point. I don't think Harman or Smith were having a 'cheap shot' either, though Harman has certainly posed a question, but I did think afterwards that it might have been better to make another thread about whether tournaments feel they need the stars to come out on top.

Anyway, I will add to thread to say - I love rallies, but I also love varied aggressive shotmaking and net play too - as Lydian says on another thread 'vive la difference'

time please wrote: I think this is a very interesting point - hence Lydian's disappointment in another thread about Tsonga reaching the final, despite the fact that as Ed Smith puts it in The Times today he 'plays sport with the kind of joyful self-expression that cannot be coached into a player and should never be coached out of him' or Harman commenting in another article in Times today 'he (Tsonga) deserves consideration every bit as much as Murray, who was many people's tip this week but could play only one match after pulling a groin muscle'

Hmmmm TP, I think you're twisting my words a little there
I'm not disappointed in Tsonga per se reaching the final (and I've said 3-4 times now elsewhere that I love to watch the guy play...who doesnt!). My point was that its a shame others from the Top 4 were absent from the semis which marks this particular WTF, given their dominance across the rest of the year, out as being a very unusual occurrence...but a very interesting one nonetheless!

I think tennis desperately needs more events where most of the top 4 get beaten sooner.

These Slams with the top 4 are ok every few years but it's getting very boring and repetitive and doesn't reflect well on the period.

I actually agree with that BB, we need some new blood coming through at some point too...however for this particular year in question its strange to have had complete domination from the top4 and yet the WTF was not a reflection of the year at all.

Yes agree too here. I liked it (or hated it) when in the past we heard of upsets in early rounds. Now the biggest upset we hear is Ljubo seed 32 losing early.

I however expect more upset next year. I believe in the blossoming of this new generation finally troubling the top 4.

Again, homogenisation is the cause of this. With increased ralleying comes increased consistency and less shock results. Plus the players dont go for the same risks anymore, todays tennis doersnt reward risk taking. So in some respects the rankings are probably more accurate, on the other hand we are seeing less changes at the top and in tournaments. I think most true fans of tennis on here, lets forget individual players for a moment, want more variety in the game, more speed (where appropriate) and more youngsters able to come through.

I don't know why people are desperate of upsets.

There is always a healthy number of upsets at any slam. Rather than moan about the quality and consistency of the top 4, tennis fans should be appreciating admirable levels of commitment those players put in week in week out.
I genuinely admire their ability to live in and out of hotel rooms for years.That in itself is a mammoth task, let alone maintaining their level of fitness, trying to peak it for the right tournaments manage minor injuries on the go etc etc.

Try for once to imagine yourself do it, then criticise.

Who's criticising?

lydian wrote:Again, homogenisation is the cause of this. With increased ralleying comes increased consistency and less shock results. Plus the players dont go for the same risks anymore, todays tennis doersnt reward risk taking. So in some respects the rankings are probably more accurate, on the other hand we are seeing less changes at the top and in tournaments. I think most true fans of tennis on here, lets forget individual players for a moment, want more variety in the game, more speed (where appropriate) and more youngsters able to come through.

Great post

you are in the post above. There's nothing wrong with tennis at the moment. It's got plenty of variety.

The cause of homogenisation is Federer. They all wanted a Fed Nadal finals cause at the time that's what was selling most. They slowed the other 3 slams and most other TMS to ridiculous proportions so that we coudl have "a" or "the" rivalry elswhere than on clay. It was most obvious on grass and more recently on the USO.

Let's not forget, the ATP is a big business. If they can have a Federer Nadal final instead of Federer v Kiefer....they will!

Tenez wrote:The cause of homogenisation is Federer. They all wanted a Fed Nadal finals cause at the time that's what was selling most. They slowed the other 3 slams and most other TMS to ridiculous proportions so that we coudl have "a" or "the" rivalry elswhere than on clay. It was most obvious on grass and more recently on the USO.

Let's not forget, the ATP is a big business. If they can have a Federer Nadal final instead of Federer v Kiefer....they will!

A truly successful business plans for the future, the next ten years and the ten after that - the ATP would do well to realise that and to always be encouraging young players with a variety of strengths to come through. Very short sighted of them to focus on promoting one rivalry for a few years - but I think you are right Tenez - I can't see another plausible explanation for the constant tinkering of the courts and balls nowadays.

I like a rally up to 10 shots, then a SHBH winner down the line, or a crosscourt FH winner. I will accept a nicely net volley too.

Can not stand 35 shots of players standing 3m from base line and squealing like cats after every shot, waiting for the other player to hit the net or go out.