No Winners - Tennis loses

Hi all,

This is my first post.

Back in the Fed glory days I used to sometimes laugh out loud watching some of the audacious winners that players used to play.
Unfortunately times have changed and I now all I feel is frustration watching good players left toothless. The tennis authorities are making a right pigs ear of the game.

The writing was on the wall in 2009 AO. I was incredulous that Fed had lost despite playing so well. After the match the TV showed a replay of a point.
Fed makes a very good serve, Nadal returns, Fed hits offensive shot one inch inside the tram line, Nadal shovels ball back, Fed runs around and hits a massive inside out forehand one inch inside the opposite tram line, Nadal shovels the ball back into the open court for a "winner". So Fed plays 3 perfect offensive shots and gains nothing. Nadal plays three defensive shots and takes the point.
No wonder Fed was crying. Fed should have recognized this and retired the next week or demanded the courts be sped up. After all the players are getting stronger and faster, but the courts are getting slower. Where is the logic in that! The courts should be getting faster and faster each year.

This pattern has been repeated over and over and the Fed UE count rises as he is literally unable to hit a winner against the top players. Today it was just ridiculous some of the shots Nadal got back. Sometimes Fed looked like he didn't know which shot to hit and no wonder, every shot offered him no advantage.

Now I'm not bashing Nadal, he is making the most of the ridiculously slow conditions. I'm just making a general point that risk averse tennis is not very entertaining.
I noted today that the commentators on Eurosport said they were feeling "nervous". I had the same feeling but would describe it more accurately as "uncomfortable". It's the same feeling I get when I watch a boxing match that I know should be stopped because one of the boxers can no longer defend themselves.

Finally remember Gasquet / Roddick at Wimbledon. How many of those great backhands would be winners these days. Probably none.

Rant over. G'luck.

Agree that the courts should be faster. I am OK with them keeping the AO this slow as long as they speed up USO and Wimbledon.

This article does tend to unfairly demand the achievements of the current top 2 though.

I agree, but to be really authoritative the point needs to be made very broadly and outside the Fedal debate - this will swiftly turn into the usual stupid argument with various numpties trying to wind you up.

But yes, the game has gone too far down a certain road and unless it changes we'll have more matches decided, like the USO 2011, on who is least exhausted after three sets.

If Novak and nadal play in the final get ready for the longest, most physical match ever, if rafa can make it close.

I do agree that the conditions do not give anything to the attacking player. There needs to be some balance. If things continue as they are, every match henceforth will become a war of attrition from the baseline. This will lead to more injuries and burnouts. Surely this cannot be good for the sport.

Unless this trend is changed we may never see another Federer or macenroe

Usually I have 10 times more respect for what Fed brings than what Rafa brings but unfortunately Fed didn't really bring it today. Granted there were some 'great' points that were just because what should have been a winner was retrieved but Fed missed so many agressive forehands that those points weren't worth discussing in this context. Had Fed played better and still lost in a similar fashion I'd be with you. I felt the same way about the 2009 final seeing Fed get no reward for great shots but here those shots were too few. Whether that's the result of mental scars or just not feeling it today I don't know but this time Nadal was the deserved winner for sure.

The conditions change massively on Rod Laver depending on whether it's a day or night match.

In the daytime the ball bounces pretty quick; conditions looking similar to Brisbane.

At night the Rod Laver turns into fairly low bouncing blue clay.

I predicted a 4 set win for Rafa and so it came to be.

A night match final between Nadal and Djokovic will provide no end of table tennis, and I can't pick a winner right now.

Incidentally I still think conditions are fairly quick at Wimby (and they still schedule matches in the daytime).

Federer has been bundled out the last two years by big hitters clubbing flat forehands for winner after winner.

As we have said conditions may not help Federer sometimes these days, but it is only a single piece of the puzzle.

Where I posted demand, I meant demean

I don't think their intention was to demean, they're just not liking what they see in terms of the way the odds stack up.

Henman Bill wrote:Where I posted demand, I meant demean

It wasn't my intention to demean the "achievements" of any player. However, I do think realistically that winning grand slam events is not the be all and end all.
After all, if you change the variables enough then you end up with a completely different list of grand slam winners (sorry Rafa, but in all the other multiple universes you have zero slams).

Entertainment is where it's at for me. It's not what you win but how you play the game !
For me the GOAT can't be measured by facts, or figures, or even victories. Instead the GOAT is the guy (or gal) whose tennis career you would want to "quantum leap" into.

"oh boy"

LightBreeze... welcome to 606v2. Glad to have your opinion enrich this forum. Enjoy the debates.

From my early days of watching tennis, players at FO did not favour W and vice-a-versa. Laver and Borg made the transition look very easy.

Homogenization of surfaces to produce matches between top players, such that profit and sponsorship could bring in revenue was the evolution to the next stage. The desire to raise prize money which emanated from the coffers filled by broadcast rights and sponsorship deals is partly responsible.

Will it change in the future? Do not know? Watch this space.

Welcome lightbreeze, I like the modern game. I really didn't like tennis in the late 90s and early 2000s with the one and two shot rallies dominated by players who could just hit there serve 10 miles and hour faster than anyone else. I think there should be a balance. Wimbeldon needed to be slowed down a bit frankly it was getting to be unwatchable, it seemed like Sampras going through an entire tourney without getting his serve broken. For me that it is a little too much. The Australian for the last 20 years or so has always been a slower hardcourt. And I don't want wimbeldon sped up to what it was in the late 90s.

Part of the question here is that with today's bigger modern players maybe the slower conditions are needed to maintain some entertaining rallies. Maybe the pendulum has swung too much, I don't know if I would support tinkering with the game. Lets remember the courst were slowed in the early 2000s before federer ever one a single slam. So the slower conditions does still allow for an otherwordly attacking player to win to have success. I just don't the conditions get to what we witnessed in the late 90 and early 2000s.

Lightbreeze wrote:

Henman Bill wrote:Where I posted demand, I meant demean

It wasn't my intention to demean the "achievements" of any player. However, I do think realistically that winning grand slam events is not the be all and end all.
After all, if you change the variables enough then you end up with a completely different list of grand slam winners (sorry Rafa, but in all the other multiple universes you have zero slams).

Entertainment is where it's at for me. It's not what you win but how you play the game !
For me the GOAT can't be measured by facts, or figures, or even victories. Instead the GOAT is the guy (or gal) whose tennis career you would want to "quantum leap" into.

"oh boy"

Well, to be fair Nadal would still probably have most of his RG major titles, unless your advocating removing clay as a surface? I'd agree that on faster grass and hard Rafa would have struggled to beat Federer (and a few others, the destruction by Del Potro springs to mind) to win those slams

Tennis court surfaces allow the athletes to compete at their best. While some are designed to slow them down, I think that others like the US open courts are great!