Slow Courts - Pat Cash echoes 606v2!

From yesterday's Sunday Times - by Pat Cash:

FOR the sake of fairness and because the guy in question wouldn’t thank me for naming him, anonymity must apply here. A few days ago I bumped into one of the top players who will be contesting the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and asked how he was. “Absolutely exhausted,” he replied. “It’s been a long year and I can’t wait to take a break.”

Nothing new, then, some cynics might say; name me a top-flight sportsman who feels fully fit and raring to go at the end of a long season. And remember, the tennis season has extended into an 11th successive month of competition.

But a small matter of 262,000 paying customers and millions of television viewers will expect the eight men who contest this week’s big event, worth a potential £1.1m to the winner, to be at their peak. I believe decisions made by the ATP are contributing heavily to the fatigue felt by these players.

Remember a year ago, Andy Murray could play only one match before pulling out with a groin strain. Novak Djokovic’s mind and body were spent long before he arrived in London and Rafael Nadal produced almost nothing, though he will be sadly missed this year.

The reasons? Well, I’m not the first and won’t be the last to say these players are expected to play too many tournaments. The decision to shorten the tour is a good one. But continuing to make playing surfaces slow, therefore extending most rallies and in turn causing the matches to last way longer, is taking a heavy toll and is the main cause of weariness.

For the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris and again for this week in London the surface is officially termed a hard court. Interlocking wooden boards are clicked together and then coated with layers of paint or resin. This includes something akin to sand, which has properties that grip the ball on the bounce and reduce its pace.

If you rub your hand on a newly laid court you will scratch your skin because it’s as abrasive as sand-paper. The surface was introduced, maybe 15 years ago, because big servers such as Pete Sampras, Goran Ivanisevic, Richard Krajicek, Michael Stich and Greg Rusedski were so forceful on quicker courts they were making the art of rallying obsolete.

Changes to conditions and technology now dictate that nearly every player competes mainly from the baseline. I’ve complained many times that serve and volley is a dying art at Wimbledon, where we’ve seen the grass worn away behind the back of the court rather than inside towards the net.

Since Wimbledon the calendar has pretty much decreed that play has been exclusively on hard court, outdoors and more recently indoors. The slow, abrasive court surface contributes to more extended rallies and longer matches. The other week Djokovic and Murray contested a best-of-three- sets final in Shanghai that lasted three and a half hours. In my day we hardly ever went beyond two. And it’s almost routine now for best-of-five-sets encounters on hard courts in Grand Slams to stretch beyond five hours. Remember this year’s Australian and US Open finals?

I don’t want to see more players exhausted and injured and I don’t want to see everybody playing in the same way. I’m not calling for a return to the superfast carpeted courts of a while ago. The only such court used now is for the Statoil Masters, a Champions Tour event coming up at the Royal Albert Hall, and us old guys who play it need all the help we can get in speeding things up. However, I would like to see things quickened a little. It would reward the attacking player who goes to the net and would restore that most necessary element to the sport of tennis: variety.

My Aussie mate Brad Drewett, the ATP World Tour’s executive chairman and president, knows my view. I’ve bent his ear and, given the opportunity, I’ll be doing it again this week.

Men’s tennis is going through a golden phase because of the guys at the very top of the game but I’ll ask two pertinent questions: who are the new stars breaking through that will be required to fill the gaps left in the coming years by Roger Federer and Nadal? And is their play interesting enough to engage the public? I guarantee if we carry on laying this kind of court, almost every player will adopt the same style and tactics. Is that really in the best interests of tennis?

Men’s tennis is going through a golden phase because of the guys at the very top of the game but I’ll ask two pertinent questions: who are the new stars breaking through that will be required to fill the gaps left in the coming years by Roger Federer and Nadal? And is their play interesting enough to engage the public? I guarantee if we carry on laying this kind of court, almost every player will adopt the same style and tactics. Is that really in the best interests of tennis?'

I meant to highlight this bit in the first post, and it probably ties in a bit with Danny's thread.

The ATP has to learn the lessons of the WTA tour where there is a lack of spectator interest in the women's game, really only filling seats when the two tours meet.

Pat Cash - what a moaner, what a whinger, what a negative Nancy.
I totally agree with him.

Cash has basically said all the things that the majority of people on this board have been saying for quite some time.

JuliusHMarx wrote:Pat Cash - what a moaner, what a whinger, what a negative Nancy.
I totally agree with him.

He is nothing but a 'Fed extremist' methinks (sorry socal )

Apparently the surface at the WTF this year is slower than previous years (and remember how ridiculously slow it was last year) and also higher bouncing.

This was reported by Steve Tignor (tennis.com)

Guess it's gonna be a Murray-Djokovic final (where's the yawn icon?)



emancipator

Well, the current conditions on the tour do favour both Andy and Novak... But I have to concede that I'd like a few more tournaments with faster conditions.

If Wimbledon could be speeded up, not to 90's style speed but somewhere in between where it was then and is now, and if New York was a bit quicker and a few masters speeded up then there would be a nice variety which is missing at the moment.

A longer grass stretch would be good too.

Good spot TP.

Its that fine balance between serve fests and ralley fests...they've gone from one extreme to the other. Dimwits.

They need to get it sorted because as much as I admire Ferrer I dont want to see every final contested by such a player in the future - and as Cash says, the revenue will start to fall as people turn off.

The one thing you can count on with Pat Cash is that he ALWAYS has an opinion and ALWAYS ready to share it .. lest we forget that he was after all a one slam wonder. He will change his mind by next week

He's on safe ground with this opinion, nothing like commenting once the horse has bolted.

He's been bitter about modern tennis ever since Nadal beat him as a 14 year old

I know Lydian.. he is very reluctant to praise Nadal for anything.
The wound went very deep me thinks.
Time to get rid of that chequered head band and grow up.

I think so - can you imagine how he felt losing to a 14 yr old...ouch. Cash was still only 34 at the time.

What gets me is because he won Wimbledon he's given a voice. But the guy only won 7 singles titles in total! I didnt like watching him at Wimbledon at the time, always found him a a little arrogant.

Thats what I said.. a one slam wonder and he thinks he is the oracle of tennis.
How and why they give him air time on the tv beats me he comes out with the same old rubbish every time. I hated watching him, I hate listening to him, I hate seeing him. Only a LITTLE arrogant Lydian ???.. you are being unneccessarily generous in your appraisal I have to say.
Well if Rafa was good enough to beat Moya at that age he was most certainly good enough to beat Cash... I think Rafa had one hand tied behind his back at the time

Yes...the "little" was meant as an understatement.

To be fair, Nadal was probably awful for any guy to have to play on clay at 14. After all it was only 2 years later he beat the defending French Open champion, A.Costa, on clay in straights at Monte Carlo!

And here is the match against Costa... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DP0b5-8DWU
He still looks like a young kid here...hang on, he was!
When you look back at matches like this it's amazing, and he played very aggressively back then too.

Re: Cash, he must have thought "this'll be an easy way to make a few quid, perhaps I'll give the kid a few games to make it look decent"...then followed by lots of huffing anf puffing, changing loads of those sweat dripping chequered headbands, and a sense of panic and humiliation taking over

I think the consensus dislike of Pat 'shoot-from-the-hip-aussi' cash, and Greg 'grinning' Rusedski is something that can unite this board.

Really when you think how old Rafa was when he turned pro and then when he won his first GS.. no wonder it seems like he has been around for years.
I just hope that he can come back fit and strong .. and stuff Cash´s headband up his.... well Ill let you fill in the gaps !!!!

haha emancipator, not much love on here for Cash or Greg "I'm just towelling-off" Rusedski.

Yep, Rafa's been grinding away for 10 years now...as long as many pros last. If he hangs his boots up tomorrow he's had a good run and will go down in history as one of the best. Sometimes though I just wish he'd play like he used to back in 2003-2005 when he played the way his instinct told him. He's too defensive these days. If you ever watch that match against Coria in 2005 at Rome, it was amazingly aggressive stuff with fantastic tennis on every point...one of the best tennis matches period I've ever seen.

Yep cant disagree with you yet again.. I wish he would come inside the court more and shorten the points. Grinding 20/30 stroke rallies is not what the doctors orders are Im sure... he is now 26 and he cannot affort to expend that sort of energy. Hey Lydian if he would only listen to us eh ???

Haddie-nuff wrote:Thats what I said.. a one slam wonder and he thinks he is the oracle of tennis.
How and why they give him air time on the tv beats me he comes out with the same old rubbish every time.

By that logic so many commentators in the sport would be without a job.

Well as far as Im concerned they wouldn´t be missed. Pat Cash and Rudseski would make a good pair of bookends. They get money for old rope. I would not call these two commentators that really is stretching the imagination.

Keep the ones who know what they are talking about.

I think to put Cash in the same category as Rusedski is absurd - Cash may not be everyone's cup of tea, but he is in a different league to the grinning buffoon whose greatest ever result was getting off the nadrolone rap.

Then we agree to disagree .. you think it absurd I dont

Yes I have to agree Barry,

Cash is irritating because of his manner and inflated self opinion.

Rusedski is just pointless, what is his purpose, he adds nothing and just waffles (without taking a breath) endlessly.

I just wanna punch that big chin whenever I see him

The horrible grinning monster, I hates it, I hates it



emancipator

Well then you know how I feel about Pat Cash ok!!!?

LuvSports! wrote:

Haddie-nuff wrote:Thats what I said.. a one slam wonder and he thinks he is the oracle of tennis.
How and why they give him air time on the tv beats me he comes out with the same old rubbish every time.

By that logic so many commentators in the sport would be without a job.

robbie koenig and jason goodall are the two best commentators in the sport and are slamless and didn't have particularly good careers, even smiling greg beats them there.

Pat Cash is not a particularly likeable fellow and he doesn't avoid bandwagons as scrupulously as he might, but he at least has an acquaintance with the concept of analysis - which Rusedski probably thinks is the brand name of a exotic hemorrhoid treatment.

All comes down to personalities in the end... we each have our reasons..
I dont like either of them sobeit

Rusedski always looks to me like a deer caught in headlights. You'd think after all these years of being a 'pundit' he'd have the experience to construct some coherent sentences which actually conclude with a point. But no. He also has this extremely annoying habit of ending every (pointless) spouting with a sensationalist cliched statement. Example: waffle, waffle 'he's raised the bar'.

Oh and finally, how can anyone take a person who grins (and boy is it a grin!) all the way through their speech? It makes him look like a politician.



emancipator

Well as the saying goes .... a grinning face denotes a vacant brain... and in his case it is so apt

Haddie-nuff wrote:Well as the saying goes .... a grinning face denotes a vacant brain... and in his case it is so apt

Just watching Tsonga toil away against Djokovic wants to make me agree with Pat Cash, irrespective of what his personal likability with Tennis posters might be.

well said Pat Cash

Gradually the mainstream media are catching up with what long-time fans of the game have been saying for a while.

It only takes eyesight to see what's already happening but brains to see what's coming. I think many posters on here have brains and these guys just eyesight. The difference is they have a voice.

[quote="bogbrush"]Gradually the mainstream media are catching up with what long-time fans of the game have been saying for a while.
quote]

If it is so, it's being very very gradual. In London this year the court is slow you get the impression they are playing with sponge balls. Great opportunity for Murray on these conditions.

The mainstream media is getting there, the organisers are still slowing it down.

I agree, the O2 looks absurdly slow; perhaps the slowest event of the year. I don't think even clay holds the ball up as much as this. There's basically no point hitting the ball with penetration as it just stops and sits up.

I've heard it's getting quicker by the day - catching the players out a bit.

JuliusHMarx wrote:I've heard it's getting quicker by the day - catching the players out a bit.

God knows what it must have been like when laid...... Sandpaper?

I guess, like Cash said "If you rub your hand on a newly laid court you will scratch your skin because it’s as abrasive as sand-paper"

I didn't know that!

Its ridiculous. Calling this stuff 'hard court' and implying it has anything to do with the material Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras used to win the US Open on is basically misrepresentation.

Slowest event of the year! What have you been drinking?! It looks faster than most of the outdoor hard courts to me.

Well that doesn't say much for the outdoor HC's. Besides, indoor courts are supposed to be faster than outside courts

This court is definitely slow. Federer hit some beautiful BH's against Ferrer, that should have been outright winners, but they came back easily. Coupled with the high bounce, this is a virtual clay court. Fed served some second serves that almost bounced over Ferrer. He was crushing some FH's but they just kept coming back. In fact you could see the same in all the matches so far. Massive hitters like Tsonga, DP (he could hardly get the ball past Ferrer), Berdych were hardly hitting any baseline winners.

Look at this link from AUS 2007, and you can see a marked difference in pace between that court and the O2, and that was considered a slow-med paced court at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDHadB9SA4

I'm just hoping it speeds up a bit as the week goes on.



emancipator

Absolutely emancipator; I was watching matches from Australia '07 the other day and was srunned by the speed of the court compared to today. To play on that you really needed great co-ordination and reaction. Why they changed it in '08 I do not know, it's not like the matches were boring.

This court is not only slow, but more than that it seems to hold the ball and make it sit up.

Yep BB,

I usually get a good idea of how fast courts play by looking out for baseline winners. I'm seeing very few at this tournament and you can literally see the players crushing the ball but to no avail. The DP-Ferrer match in particular.

Interview with Djokovic shown a few minutes ago on Sky but recorded earlier today in which he says that courts have slowed and conditions have slowed and that it benefited him, Rafa and Murray.

I wonder if this will enhance Federer's legacy in the long term? If it's widely regarded that he had to compete in conditions that favoured all of his main rivals, I mean. Perhaps it won't make any difference at all, he doesn't have anything to prove I guess.

But yeah, not many outright winners this week, although from what I've seen net play seems quite viable on these courts? Harder to nail the passing shots if the ball's bouncing very high...

What a beautiful set of highlights from the AO, even all the set points and other key points seemed to be decided by winners. What a point for match point.

Interesting trivia fact from AO 2007: Gonzalez was 2-1 down to the 18 year old Del Potro in R2 before Del Potro retired in the 5th set, and Gonzalez went on to reach the final.

Henman Bill wrote:What a beautiful set of highlights from the AO, even all the set points and other key points seemed to be decided by winners. What a point for match point.

Yeah that was a screamer of a Bh.

Fed looks so much faster in those days, the BH sturdier, and the defense fantastic.

Ah well, those were the days.

You do see how much Fed has slowed when you watch that.