Our Great Era Debunked!

First topic message reminder :

Now is a good time to reflect on the previous seasons and get a better understanding of what happened to our game in the last 5 years. We hear of course all the fans of Nadal, Murray, Djoko and even some of Federer say that we are experiencing the strongest era in tennis and they support their belief by belittling the players of the past, particularly the time when Federer was dominant and had no opposition outside clay.

Nowadays, the players we perceived as great in 2006 such as Roddick, Blake, Nalbandian, Gonzales, Ljubo even are no longer remembered that great and compared to Nadal Djoko and Murray seem inconsistent and erratic. There is something about the way Nadal, Djoko and Murray consistently reach the last rounds of slams, all slams!, that certainly make them look very good even if in Murray’s case, he has not won a slam yet.

However as some of us explained in other threads, the main difference between now and then is that the game is simply played differently and the skills needed now are just different BUT not better than then. To compare the 2 “eras” I have highlited 2 matches played by the best players of those eras from the USO (06 and 11) and highlighted how the game and conditions have changed.

In short I have clocked the number of shots (length of court) played (that is how many times the ball travels the length of a court) on a few rallies and worked out the average time to get a more precise result. And here are the staggering results that you can check for yourself on youtube:


Nadal v Djoko USO 11
# rallies / seconds / time the ball takes to complete a length on average(ex: 1.32sec)
22 in 29s 1.318182s per length
22 in 29s 1.318182
31 in 44s 1.419355
14 in 18s 1.285714
Average 1.34s per length of court

Djokovic Murray AO 2011

14rallies in 19s 1.357142857
12rallies in 16s 1.333333333
18rallies in 26s 1.444444444
Average 1.38s per length

Federer v Blake USO 06
18 in 22s 1.222222
12 16s 1.333333
8 8s 1
12 13s 1.083333
13 15s 1.153846
13 16s 1.230769
8 7s 0.875
Average 1.13s per length of court

What this table says is that the rhythm played in 06 was nearly 20% faster than in 2011!! In some shorter rallies over 50% faster, helped by taking the ball earlier and hitting much flatter. This is a huge difference!!!

So what does that mean? It means that the players then, the best ones were the sharpest ones. Great reflexes, taking the ball early and flat and they were trying to take time away from their opponent to dictate and rushed the opponent into mistakes as opposed to today’s tennis where the retrievers push the opponent into mistakes by giving them smaller targets thanks to amazing retrieving skills that were unseen up to 2006.

But that’s not all. The game was faster, cause the conditions were faster, and that generation learnt their game with natural strings while spin was harder to generate and not as beneficial as hitting flat and shortening the point. Tennis was played at a smooth rhythm and everybody then was playing within the 20s rule. It was understood that there was no other choice so no need to learn a different tennis that could not be sustained over long distances, especially on those fast surfaces where taking risk was rewarding.

Another crucial stat when comparing those 2 matches is that Federer and Blake played 8 percent more points in 52% less time! Yes read it again if you wish. That is a staggering average of 34s per point while Djokovic and Nadal spend nearly a minute per point (56s) on average!!!. That includes aces, 2 shots raliies etc...

Who believes here they could play that kind of tennis within the rules? Not me. Can you imagine them doing as much running with 1h25mn to spare without coming up with more UEs under O2 starved muscles?

What a lot of people here fail to realise is that the game has seriously changed and the skills are different but certainly not better. When the courts were fast in 2005/06, Nadal was being beaten by Blake…..3 times in a row in fact. Yet Nadal was good enough to have 2 FOs. The very talented Davydenko could not take time away from Blake. The latter holds a 7/0 H2H against the Russian cause whom could take the ball earlier and inject pace was simply better at that time. Davydenko could not handle Blake or Federer but we know he loves Nadal’s slower pace as long as he can handle a fair bit of running with the Spaniard.

For those reasons above, I think it is ignorant to believe that 2003-06 was a weak era. In fact in terms of tennis played under the rules and on fast conditions, it’s been the best tennis we have had and we don’t know how Nadal or Djoko would fare in those. Well I am certainly more optimistic about Djoko’s success than Nadal, especially if we were to apply the 20s rule but I would expect Djoko to lose more often than he did in 2011 being rushed by players who spent their life learning to take time away from their opponents (Nalbandian, Blake, Safin and others). We have to stress as well that in those days, there was no recipe to run as long and as fast while keeping UEs down, so no-one had a choice to play differently than taking risk and the more talented were the better at it. And Federer was simply the best when it came to “skilled” tennis. We wii never know how great his peers would have been without him. But on fast surfaces, it was not Nadal that stopped him from accumulating his slams. It was other very talented players trying their best but falling short. Saying it was a weak era, is as stupid as saying Nadal had a weak era on clay cause no-one was physical enough to fight with him there and noone won anything significant on clay bar Nadal. But as we have seen this year, it’s changing fast now that we have another physical player.

In conclusion, the game evolves and I don’t want to fall in the trap of some posters here, that is belittling today’s era, but we have to recognise that the game changed thanks to a few factors and those changes are extremely important is changing the scenery of tennis when we know small margins can have a huge impact on a game, a match and a career.

Source:
Federer Blake USO 2006 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp0cc-leZg8
Djokovic Nadal USO 2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYkXZwhdRBk
Djokovic Murray AO 2011 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQpKJYhjEcA
Difference obvious to the naked eye.

Henman Bill wrote:Tenez, you think their breaches of the 20 (or 25) second rule add up to a whole hour over a match? Sounds like an exaggeration to me...how many points is the average 4-5 set match, 400? In an hour there are 3600 seconds, so you think an average of 9 seconds over per point? Never seemed that much to me and I timed it a few times, for sure you get some points 9 seconds over, or more, but not point after point. I can believe half an hour maybe.

Oh yes they go over by 9s many times and certainly on average. If you look at the rule they have to play first serve within 20s and if a second serve is needed, they need to serve straight away. Serving 2 serves takes generally 50 secs minimum. Check again you will see.

Look at the samples of points I took. I chose longer ones to get a better idea of average between shots. but on average the points are relatively short (15s) so to get to 56s (the avergae time per point) you have 40s of in between point.

I am not making it up. It's there to check. But let say 9s only. And let say a game has 5 points on average, that's about 45sec of extra breathing time per game. Huge, especially if you had them up. Just look at the effort they put on each point. those extra resting secs are key. Those professional tennis perfectly know that. Those "bad habits" never go the other way (taking less than 20s).

What would you propose is the best way to better enforce it?

Clock, if the Umpires haven't got the stones to do it themselves.

Yes clocks is the solution. Second serve only if gone over 20s.

A point is lost if the ball goes out by one milimeter. I can insure you that playing tough rallies like that with an hour less breathing will affect their shot precision by one yard easily.

Allowing extra time between points is more avantageous to the player than giving him a bigger court to aim for.

Tenez wrote:Yes clocks is the solution. Second serve only if gone over 20s.

A point is lost if the ball goes out by one milimeter. I can insure you that playing tough rallies like that with an hour less breathing will affect their shot precision by one yard easily.

Allowing extra time between points is more avantageous to the player than giving him a bigger court to aim for.

Hard to argue with the second 2 paragraphs. Was time taken ever that much of an issue in the past or is it a new phenomenon. I agree though with such fine margins it easily makes a difference. Is it fair that you get your breath back before each point when it was your decision to run like that in the first place?

I would like to see the clock. I think this was discussed before, on 606, or somewhere. How would you go about it.
How about:
1. A button is pressed when the previous point has finished. As this is pressed, a loud noise sounds and the clock starts. (If crowd noise is very high or point was very long, wait an extra period of time before starting.)
2. After 20 seconds a quieter noise automatically sounds, but still clearly loud enough for the player to hear. This is to indicate that they have 5 seconds left to serve (although should already be obvious if they look at the clock).
3. After 25 seconds another noise sounds, this is to indicate that the server has been penalised one serve and now only has a second serve.

That should sort them out. No-one will want to lose their first serve.

In reality it will never be as clean as that, some additional rules will inevitably be needed, such as:

4. If a player wants to avoid the noise going off during their service preparation, they have to take the responsibility to make sure they serve in 19 seconds or less.
5. If a player throws the ball up at about 18-19 seconds or 23-24 seconds, someone flicks a switch to kill the noise. Likewise to stop the noise going off during the return or the rally.
6. If there is too much crowd noise at the discretion of the umpire the time clock will be reset to zero. In extreme cases if the crowd noise is very bad mutiple resets may be allowed or even complete suspension.
7. Suspension of the clock to allow player complaints or comments may be permitted, at the discretion of the umpire, and only occassionally.
8. League tables will be published of numbers of offences.
9. Inevitable grey areas where flashes are going off or player is claiming movement disrupting them. Player is allowed to stop the clock, but only a limited number of times per match. League tables to be published of number of times stopped.
10. In deciding sets/ 5th sets suspension of clock/extension of time? if both players agree? (Needed to stop really hot tiring matches becoming farcical.?)
11. Clocks only to be used on show courts / from certain rounds onwards/ in certain tournaments? (for practical reasons of installation of technology?)

There will always be grey areas and there is no perfect system, but I would like to see something done.

The umpires have timers. These timers are started when the umpire registers the point. The umpire has leeway to account for crowd noise disturbance. Lengthy rallies often lead to crowd noise after the rally is lost or won. It seems clear that umpires allow a few extra seconds recovery after long rallies.

There must be also some interpretation by the umpire as to when the point is "being started" - there are some routines players undergo as part of their serving process. Presumably the umpire has to start watching the server rather than the timer when the server is undergoing the serving routine.

Ultimately we need to have reports from the umpires, tournament referees, tournament officials, and the players. Also are the paying public who attend the matches satisfied, are the paying broadcasting corporations satisfied, are the paying sponsors satisfied? It is the concerns, if any, of these people that the professional tennis bodies (ITF) will turn to first for feedback before they start to consider the mixed message to be found on internet chat fora.

As a comparison with the 2006 era, I clocked a few rallies from Dubai between Federer and Murray this year and I obtain an average of 1.23s per length of court.So certainly faster than the USO between Nadal and Djoko or Djoko v Murray AO 11 but ....slower than Federer Blake USO 06.

This is probably due to Blake taking the ball earlier than Murray ...as opposed to slower conds than USO 06.

Just shows how good Blake was to take those balls early is such fast conds and again taking sets of (peak?) Federer.

Is anyone listening to Sky. They just said that apparently some stats came out a few weeks ago showing this is the best era.

Then adds that officially "the second best era" was "1990". Haha.

Well Rod Laver on the american broadcast came out and agreed that this is a golden era for the sport, but what does he know. Tenez afterall knows much more about tennis than anyone including laver. So what is it, is this era not golden because the top guys win too much or lose too much?