Federer calls modern game "More one dimensional"

First topic message reminder :

These days, the topic of playing surfaces becoming similar keeps coming about in discussions as the top 4 men continue to dominate tennis irrespective of the surface. With the dominance of hard courts, which have been slowed down, tennis has become a battle of long baseline rallies. And those players who can win on hardcourts, also win on clay and grass courts. Roger Federer thinks that this should change and said that there should be some variety in the playing surfaces speed and conditions.

"I think there are no necessarily grass-court players, indoor specialists, not really clay-court specialists, for that matter. So everybody can play everywhere now. In the past people would miss entire clay- or grass-court seasons because they just thought, I’m not going to waste my time there. I’m going to practice and return on a surface that I prefer. It makes it sometimes easier then to dominate through different surfaces. But at the same time, if you’re on bad run, also that run can last longer as well.”

“That you come into, let’s say a quick hard court or a slow clay court and you have somebody who feels totally out of sorts, Before I thought that was pretty funny sometimes to see a guy feeling so uncomfortable having to play the other expert, but trying with what he had to make the other player feel uncomfortable. It’s not so much that anymore now, because everybody hits a good forehand, everybody hits a good backhand, everybody serves well now and moves well and is fit. It’s more one-dimensional now.”

But according to socal nothing has changed since 2003.

http://www.tennisworldusa.org/Roger-Federer-says-all-players-can-play-on-all-surfaces-now-articolo9858.html

Feds one dimensional...

Going through the draw last night I was reminded of my post from a few weeks back:

But I think there is some evidence that other players have also become more consistent. At this year's AO, I have noticed that 13 out of top 16 made the round of 16. I felt it was more than I used to see, so I checked all AO draws since 1990. And the pattern is quite clear - top 16 seeds are more consistent than they used to be. In the 17 year period from 1990-2006, there was not a single year when more than 10 out of top 16 seeds would reach the round of 16. In the seven years after 2006, it happened five times. That is a huge difference.

12 of the top 16 seeds are still around, so I had a look at RG history. Looking at the same years as AO before (1990-2006 vs 2007-now) and asking the same question (did more than 10 of top 16 make the round of 16?):

1990-2006: 17 years in total, without a single year with more than 10 of top 16 seeds making the round of 16
2007-now: 7 years in total, three of them having more than 10 of top 16 making the round of 16.

So not quite as extreme as AO, but the same pattern - fewer upsets, more consistent performances from top 16 seeds across the board. You can either choose to believe that this is because today's top 16 players are better, or you can take the view that the conditions have become uniform enough that the same players find it much easier to do well everywhere. I know which way I am leaning.

Good stuff SB.

Clearly the homogenised conditions make it easier for the top seeds to play a one size fits all game and be successful with it.

But of course someone no doubt will charge in and tell us that the tour is somehow less one-D than it used to be.

It would be interesting to see the same stats for top 4. I've no doubt they would be even more extreme.

So we have two choices; either the top 4 are further ahead of 5-16, who are in turn further ahead of the field than ever before, or it's the effect of 1-D tennis.

They should definitely change up the courts to vary from very slow to very fast, and more importantly vary the bounce. Different court types is part of what makes professional tennis special and the evidence is mounting that as that variation drops so does the variation in gameplay. The best players can adapt to multiple surfaces anyway but the loss of specialists is a bit sad