Qatar/Brisbane/Chennai

First topic message reminder :

Finally, the wait is over.  The new tennis season is starting tomorrow in Brisbane, with Qatar and Chennai joining in on Monday.

Djokovic will not play until Melbourne, but Rafa, David and Andy are all in action in Qatar.  Other notables include Berdych, Davydenko, Gasquet, Gulbis and Monfils.

In Brisbane, Federer is the No 1 seed (he should enjoy it, there may not be many more tournaments like that).  Overall, the field is much weaker than in Qatar, with Nishikori seeded at No 2 and Simon at No 3.  Still, there are some interesting players to watch.  The field includes Grigorov, Duckworth and Kyrgios, as well as Cilic.

Chennai has the weakest field, with Wawrinka and Youzhny seeded at #1 and #2.  Vasek Pospisil (an ethnic Czech from Canada) and Jiri Vesely (an ethnic Czech from the Czech Republic) being the two youngsters to watch there.

Shame Pospisil had to retire against Stan. Anyone know the problem? Always worrying when a player retires at a score like 5-5 - suggests a sudden and serious injury. Hope he can play the Australian as he's probably the best 23 and under prospect at the moment.

Del Potro - Olympics?

More recent than FO11.

I am surprised you guys started guessing that far back; I would have thought 20 aces in a match - while not common - is not that rare.

Born Slippy wrote:Del Potro - Olympics?

Correct, 24 aces (two doubles) in a much longer match than last night.

BTW, one thing that I noticed as I was scanning through Roger's old matches is that he always seems to get quite a few aces against Delpo.  Don't know if Delpo is in general easy to ace or if it is just something about Roger's serve that he does not like.

Currently spending some time in a very warm, sunny Australia, and very much looking forward to attending at least a couple of days at the Aussie Open at Melbourne Park later in the month.

Have just been watching (tv only, not at the stadium) the Final of the Brisbane International and cannot remember having ever seen Federer play a worst set of tennis. Quite abysmal in fact, and looking like a guy ranked 135.

And so to the astonishment of virtually everyone in the crowd (including the vast majority of Aussie fans too), Lleyton Hewitt took the opener 6-1.

Commentators now questioning Fed's fitness factor and talk of a possible injury (the back, again) suffered during yesterday's singles & doubles matches.

Very little prospect of turning it around from what I'm seeing right now ..........

Think it must be a long long time since Hewitt would have won a Final of any description on home soil, but he will never get a better chance than today. Pity for him it's a pretty meaningless 250, but at least a bit of a confidence boost for more serious matters ahead.

Update on previous post ......

Guys ranked 135-ish generally look better on court than Roger does right now   

Lleyton won.

It caps off a big day for Australian sport with the Ashes whitewash.

When was the last time he beat the Fed? Must have been in the Davis Cup in 2003?

That's what I thought ; but according to the Aussie commentators, there was a 15-0 streak by Fed after that DC rubber - which Hewitt eventually snapped with a 3 set victory win in (of all places !) Halle, back in 2010.

Obviously a fairly popular result in the Brisbane stadium, although having watched the full match live, I have to say that
a) there was general surprise from the crowd + pundits at Federer's highly erratic form on the day (his first set in particular was truly horrendous) and
b) a certain amount of dismay that he didn't somehow grind out a win.

But all credit to Hewitt for hanging tough, and for taking virtually all the opportunities that came his way  

Geez... that rings a bell. My memory is fading... fast!

Yeah, hats off to him. I was surprised to hear him say a few months ago that he is still keen to play a full tour in 2014. Really admire him for that attitude but let's face it - apart from tonight, we won't be seeing him knock off many of today's big name players in his twilight years playing the game.

Did Fed do a classic Djoko-Tipsy for Hewitts home crowd? Very noble

yeah, he tanked it...

Hewitt beat Federer at Halle 2010.
Lets not forget the guy has been plagued by injury from 2004 onwards and only a year ago had toe fusion surgery to try to save his career. Seems to have paid off. Had the court conditions in general stayed quicker he would done much better IMO across his career, one of the best fast courts players of the past 20 years...just look at his Queens record.

kingraf wrote:yeah, he tanked it...

Oh hey Haddie, what are you doing here?

Great win for Hewitt, good to see there's life in the old dog yet.

lydian wrote:Hewitt beat Federer at Halle 2010.
Lets not forget the guy has been plagued by injury from 2004 onwards and only a year ago had toe fusion surgery to try to save his career. Seems to have paid off. Had the court conditions in general stayed quicker he would done much better IMO across his career, one of the best fast courts players of the past 20 years...just look at his Queens record.

lydian - I think you're aware of how much I respect your knowledge of the game  ; but in the case of Hewitt, I do feel that too much can be made of the 'what might have been' scenario when it comes to the matter of his injury record.

Sure, the injuries have been real, well-documented, debilitating and have involved frequent surgery. And he deserves huge credit for his resolve in constantly bouncing back up each time, when many others might have called it a day.

And yet therein lies the paradox : history shows that he has invariably recovered remarkably quickly (at least until a couple of years or so ago that is, but in fairness he's an OAP now) as evidenced by the fact that he has gone deep many many times in big events - and by that, I mean not just before 2004 but well beyond.

But the fact is he has been found wanting on most occasions, hence the paucity of titles in the last ten years or so. If we look purely at the clashes with Federer, he has lost out in seven SF's and Finals (many of which were Slams). And so I don't buy the notion that he was fit enough to get that far and take out some quality players en route to those SF's & Finals - but then suddenly be 'plagued by injury' when he happens to meet Fed or Safin, to name but two.

My own take on this is that Hewitt had his year or so in the sun back in 2002/3 but the game moved on, new kids on the block appeared (whilst existing ones refined their skills and repertoire) and he soon began to find that running down every ball and shouting 'C'mon' was no longer enough to get the job done at the very highest level.

Lleyton Hewitt has achieved way way more in life than I could ever hope to do, and he has flown the flag for Aussie tennis in DC's over the years ; but I happen to think his two Slams are an 'accurate' legacy in relation to his true ability.

Hewitt suffered from the change of conditions more than any other top player. His whole game was built around picking off the serve and volleyers with his passing shots. Within the space of about 2 years he suddenly found there were no serve and volleyers left.
Few players have had to deal with such a change of conditions that rendered ineffective the whole style of play that he'd spent years developing - and which IMHO would have brought him more slam success if things hadn't changed.

Good to see Stan picking up a 5th career title - albeit against virtually a challenger field. A player of his talent should have far more titles.

Yes lags, but its not just the injuries that set him back, to whatever arguable degree. Most significant is the game changing significantly from 2001-3...the period from which nearly all the players from that era struggled afterwards. Its why I call it the "transitional era".

This group struggled not because they were relatively "poor" but because they were raised in completely different conditions and basically had the rug pulled out from under them by ITF who decided to radically change the game to increase ralley length. So Hewitt, Roddick, Nalby, Safin et al, all suffered and tried to adapt but their fast court honed games weren't well matched to the new baseline-rigid conditions. They were almost fish out of water. Out went continental/Eastern grips & volley techniques, in came more Westernised grips and longer ralley acumen. If your game was raised with fast court technique adapting to slow court conditions is very difficult indeed.

At the end of the day yes Hewitt like others simply didn't adapt. But I would argue their results would likely been much better over the past 10 years IF the conditions had stayed largely the same as they did through the 80s & 90s.

So I'm in full agreement with JHM. Many of the turn of century players were IMO robbed by ITF deciding to slow the faster surfaces and make the balls bigger...at a time when ralley-extending poly strings were coming through anyway. So the newer guys like Hewitt/Nalby/Safin or the older ones like Rafter & Henman got dealt a triple whammy and faded rapidly out of their former significance.

Therefore, I simply don't agree Hewitt achieved way more in his life than expected...I think he (and others) was dealt a bum deal by the ITF actually. Furthermore, I believe trying to adapt to a new alien way of playing also cost them physically-injury wise too. Look at Roddick, Nalby, Haas, Hewitt & Safin...probably others too...all blighted by injury after 2003. A coincidence? I think not.

lydian wrote:Hewitt beat Federer at Halle 2010.

@LS… Did Federer tank to Hewitt @Brisbane last night, as he did to Haas @ Halle 2012?

(This too, despite Lags's comments about the way Federer played last night).

lydian wrote:So I don't agree Hewitt achieved way more in his life than expected...I think he (and others) was dealt a bum deal by the ITF actually.

There is also something to be said about survival of those who adapt.

"I didn't play great today which is a bit unfortunate. But also Lleyton was the best player I played this week. He made it toughest on me. So I have a clear idea what I need to work on, and I have a clear idea where my mind and body is at. I'm very hungry and eager to attack the Australian Open next week."

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2014/01/1/Brisbane-Singles-Final-Federer-Hewitt.aspx

I like the attitude though.

Yes but LF do you understand what is required to adapt from pre-2001 to post-2003 conditions? The tennis landscape has never seen such a radical overhaul of conditions. It's not just a case of getting fitter for the longer rally's that resulted, its a complete change of technique & game style required for guys who spent countless years learning to play the game in a certain way. You don't easily overwrite muscle & brain memory like that.

By the way Federer also said this in Brisbane...
"If that's what people want to see, just rallies, rallies, rallies all the time, then it's good to have a slow court. If you want a bit more even ground for everybody, even the lower-ranked guys and more danger for the top guys, you go with a faster court. Maybe we'll get more serve and volley back into the game or more of the unknown, which I think is nice. I think it's quite incredible how things have slowed down over the years."

People seem to be easily misunderstanding my tanking reasoning

LuvSports! wrote:People seem to be easily misunderstanding my tanking reasoning

I am just teasing you, LS. None of these guys like to lose matches, no matter what.

lydian wrote:Yes but LF do you understand what is required to adapt from pre-2001 to post-2003 conditions? The tennis landscape has never seen such a radical overhaul of conditions. It's not just a case of getting fitter for the longer rally's that resulted, its a complete change of technique & game style required for guys who spent countless years learning to play the game in a certain way. You don't easily overwrite muscle & brain memory like that.

Bit naive perhaps, but you have a teenage #1, some very good players and if you change conditions drastically, does it imply that the then landscape of the sport is strongly disliked to institute such a radical change?

lydian wrote:By the way Federer also said this in Brisbane...
"If that's what people want to see, just rallies, rallies, rallies all the time, then it's good to have a slow court. If you want a bit more even ground for everybody, even the lower-ranked guys and more danger for the top guys, you go with a faster court. Maybe we'll get more serve and volley back into the game or more of the unknown, which I think is nice. I think it's quite incredible how things have slowed down over the years."

It is not just the courts, but string tech is another factor that a player can stand behind 5 meters and pass someone at the net. I do agree that a balance of court speed is required. Clay was always there for folks for rallies. For the sake of variety, after carpet was removed, despite ITF changes, ATP should have kept a good mix for the sake of players?

Sorry LF   , I am on the defensive on tanking
I like having different opinions to others.

But carpet was only removed in 2009...the 'speed horse' had long bolted the stable by then.

I don't follow your first paragraph tbh. Yes I mentioned string tech...and a reason why ITF was naive in bringing through so much additional change when strings alone would have helped change the game towards rallying just on its own.

Anyone would think the players turned up in 2003 and the courts were half the speed. It simply didn't happen.

The slowest Wimbledon I can recall was 2002. The final was between two out and out baseliners - Hewitt and Nalbandian. Safin and Roddick were also baseliners. Safin, in particular, was not a fan of quick grass. Roddick was but only because of his huge serve - his actual fast court skills were non-existent. None of these players had any need to change their games for slower courts. They had developed their games in the 90s using graphite racquets. Baseline tennis was their bread and butter.

Worth also noting that (away from Wimbledon) Henman enjoyed two of the best years of his career in 2003-04. True fast court play was still a viable tactic for someone who had grown up playing that style.

JHM is right that Hewitt's ideal opponent was a SVer. He was slightly fortunate that he could catch the tailend of that era (Henman probably being the youngest of that breed). However, courts slowing or not, that era was dying and had been for several years before Hewitt started his career. Players brought up in the 90s simply didn't play that way.

If 2002 is the slowest Wimb you can recall then why does video analysis of Federer's same serve speed show a post-bounce 9mph slowing between Wimb 2003 and 2008? Did 2003 suddenly speed up vs 2002 then slow down again?

Surfaces have been slowing for years and continuing to slow...they added paint to USO surface in 2003, ITF balls have got bigger, heavier and more fluffy....which makes the job much harder for guys grown up as fast hard court /grass players pre-changes.

After all, for all their so called baseliner labels, Safin/Hewitt/Nalby/Roddick were hardly clay masters (if you excuse US fast 'clay') being more adept on faster, lower bouncing surfaces. For example, its no coincidence that Roddick & Hewitt won the title every year 2000-2007 at the fastest surface on tour - Queens?

In technical terms there is a massive difference between learning your craft - baseline or not - in fast vs slow conditions. In slower conditions the ball bounces massively higher (e.g. moving from waist to shoulder height) making FHs and BHs completely different shots than before. This would make guys struggle much more when brought up on faster surfaces.

Yes Roddick/Hewitt et al were all adept returners vs S&V players or other 'aggressive baseliners'...because they were used to a certain height & speed of bounce. Once this became radically different through the 2000s it made their task so much more difficult. For example, up to 03/04 Roddick had one of the most lethal FHs on tour, but the slowing conditions made him modify the shot into a spiny, rallying stroke that lost a lot of its potency...once he did that he couldn't fire winners the same and his movement was never suited to grinding tennis. A big mistake in my book to make the changes he did...but then his hand was arguably forced by conditions slowing.

So it stands to reason the accelerated slowing process hurt these guys significantly...highlighted by Hewitt's & Roddick's titles since 2006 being on faster paced surfaces including (back to OP) Brisbane today.

I think I had a concern about the accuracy of that comparison but I can't immediately recall what it was. In any event, that was 2003 when the Scud reached the final not the baked conditions of 2002. Nalbandian was a poor grass courter and got nowhere near another final because he struggled to cope with the low bounce. Henman destroyed him in 2004 I think. In 2002 the conditions suited his baseline game and he got a cupcake draw.

Nalby and Safin incidentally were both high quality clay court players. Hewitt struggled because he didn't quite have the weight of shot and Roddick simply was too one-dimensional. However, if you had suggested in 2002 that this collection of players (with the exception of possibly Roddick) were not ideally suited to medium paced hard courts you would have been laughed at. The likes of Hewitt and Safin were the very guys who heralded the end of old-school fast court tennis. Their respective failings over the years after 2002, whilst largely outside their control, had nothing to do with the court speeds.

Born Slippy wrote:Their respective failings over the years after 2002, whilst largely outside their control, had nothing to do with the court speeds.

But in the case of Hewitt it did affect him greatly because it affected the way everyone else played. His game style, developed throughout his junior and early years, was to combat a particular style of play (not exclusively, but to a large extent). Once that style disappeared (not just court speed, but strings, ball changes etc) his own style became almost obsolete. I'm sure he adapted somewhat, but his greatest strength - his GS winning strength - was pulled out from under him.

Roddick incidentally wasn't in any way an adept returner of SV. With his hand skills he would have no hope of breaking true fast court players. Which year was it he played Rusedski - a match which is up there in my "why did i put myself through watching this?" list. One of the worst returning matches I can recall seeing.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

Born Slippy wrote:Their respective failings over the years after 2002, whilst largely outside their control, had nothing to do with the court speeds.

But in the case of Hewitt it did affect him greatly because it affected the way everyone else played. His game style, developed throughout his junior and early years, was to combat a particular style of play (not exclusively, but to a large extent). Once that style disappeared (not just court speed, but strings, ball changes etc) his own style became almost obsolete. I'm sure he adapted somewhat, but his greatest strength - his GS winning strength - was pulled out from under him.

But he wouldn't have faced juniors who SVed. That style was already dying. The youngest natural serve volleyer was probably Henman. Even Scud was primarily a baseliner. To some extent he was fortunate he was just in time to catch the tail-end. SV stsrted to die when graphite racquets came in because baseline top-spin hitting was then the peecentage play. SV would have died regardless of the changes at the start of the 00s.

You don't think a young Hewitt would look at the likes of Sampras and Rafter (USO) and Sampras, Ivanesevic, Henman (Wimby) and try to develop a style of play to beat those players?

And even if he didn't you only have to look at his success on the faster courts throughout his career to realise that if more courts had remained that fast he would have had more success.

What's this stuff about graphite racquets?! What's graphite got to do with topspin? Graphite meant bigger frames, more power and larger sweet spots. More topspin came from evolving technique and poly/synthetic strings.

Besides, graphite racquets have been around since the 70s. Sampras and Edberg alone won 20 slams S&Ving with ProStaff85 graphites vs other players with graphite racquets, e.g. Becker. What killed S&V is poly strings, slower surfaces and larger balls...the 3 things that combined to usher in 'slow conditions' from 2001, the 3 things that killed fast court tennis and those who grew up in its shadow. We saw that Wimb08 was 9mph slower and much higher bouncing than Wimb03...so it's a lot more than just poly strings which were a staple by 2003. The playing conditions from 2001 onwards just became slower and slower and slower...reaching a tipping point where the young guns just couldn't shine the same anymore.

Slice and dice it however you like but its a really odd coincidence that nearly all the leading young players of 2000-2002 who developed their game under much faster conditions relatively faded a few years later under much slower ones whilst very much still in their primes.

So you guys are telling me.... Hewitt's oblong H2H with Federer has nothing to do with Federer getting good real quick... but more to do with him getting slow courts real quick? Always has troubled me, seeing a H2H go from 6-2 to 6-500

kingraf wrote:So you guys are telling me.... Hewitt's oblong H2H with Federer has nothing to do with Federer getting good real quick... but more to do with him getting slow courts real quick? Always has troubled me, seeing a H2H go from 6-2 to 6-500

No, that's not what we're telling you. The H2H vs Fed isn't really that relevant to Hewitt's overall career trajectory.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

kingraf wrote:So you guys are telling me.... Hewitt's oblong H2H with Federer has nothing to do with Federer getting good real quick... but more to do with him getting slow courts real quick? Always has troubled me, seeing a H2H go from 6-2 to 6-500

No, that's not what we're telling you. The H2H vs Fed isn't really that relevant to Hewitt's overall career trajectory.

Yeah I figured, the line has always been that Federer endured through 17 slams on slow courts...


Back to Hewitt - I'm quite happy for him, he was my favorite player growing up, ( i.e until 2002ish) and it would be great if he had a glorious (enough) autumn

kingraf wrote:

JuliusHMarx wrote:

kingraf wrote:So you guys are telling me.... Hewitt's oblong H2H with Federer has nothing to do with Federer getting good real quick... but more to do with him getting slow courts real quick? Always has troubled me, seeing a H2H go from 6-2 to 6-500

No, that's not what we're telling you. The H2H vs Fed isn't really that relevant to Hewitt's overall career trajectory.

Yeah I figured, the line has always been that Federer endured through 17 slams on slow courts...


Back to Hewitt - I'm quite happy for him, he was my favorite player growing up, ( i.e until 2002ish) and it would be great if he had a glorious (enough) autumn

What line? Whose line?

JuliusHMarx wrote:

kingraf wrote:

JuliusHMarx wrote:

kingraf wrote:So you guys are telling me.... Hewitt's oblong H2H with Federer has nothing to do with Federer getting good real quick... but more to do with him getting slow courts real quick? Always has troubled me, seeing a H2H go from 6-2 to 6-500

No, that's not what we're telling you. The H2H vs Fed isn't really that relevant to Hewitt's overall career trajectory.

Yeah I figured, the line has always been that Federer endured through 17 slams on slow courts...


Back to Hewitt - I'm quite happy for him, he was my favorite player growing up, ( i.e until 2002ish) and it would be great if he had a glorious (enough) autumn

What line? Whose line?

I was being sarcastic - your responses lacked the the genuine infuriation (which would make me laugh) or the repartee (which would make me feel smart). As such you spoiled it for me. Thanks a lot Julian!

Agree Hewitt's later career is linked to adaptability issues with slower surfaces.

But ok lets look at Federer then. Federer was a guy brought up on clay then trained indoors from 14 onwards. This left him highly adept on fast/medium to slower courts, but much lesser so on truly fast ones due to his fundamental clay underpinnings. This shows with his titles on treacle slow Hamburg and fast-medium surfaces such as USO/Cincy.

However, on truly quick surfaces Federer struggled against talented fast court players. Look at his H2H vs fast court guru Henman. Up to and including Rotterdam 2004 Henman was 6-1 up...yes all on fast surfaces and Tim was nearly 30 yr old by then! Infact Federer's only win was a Henman retirement. He also struggled against talented fast condition players Rafter, Nalbandian, Kafelnikov...and yes Hewitt, again up to around 2004.

His W:L on carpet from 1999-2007 was 72%, his lowest of any of the surfaces he's played on.

Its highly noticeable that Federer started turning his results around significantly from late 2003 onwards after conditions had slowed tremendously and he'd reinvented himself as a much more physical player through a new gruelling regime to suit the new ralley-extended conditions. He was over 22 by then which is actually quite old for someone of his talent to break through. This is because in my opinion he needed the time for surface slowing to bite in enough to then perfectly suit his game. By 2003/4 onwards the much slower sand heavy HC and changed grass conditions suited his game better than previous carpet or truly fast HC (I mean proper old school fast courts not the much slower HC DecoTurf/Plexi sand heavy type surfaces of recent years). The only problem was that other highly adept, highly physical medium/slow court players were to come along in time.

Dont get me wrong. Federer is highly talented across pretty most surfaces due to his all court game and exceptional movement but I strongly believe it wasnt until conditions had significantly slowed down after 2003 and continued to slow up to around 2009 (don't think they've changed much since) that Federer found his true mojo and calling. He simply wasn't the true fast court player people think he was...he was great on pretty fast courts to much slower ones...i.e. conditions we've had since the big changes earlier in the 00s.

This is not a sleight or attack on his skills. No way - I marvel at his game & ability. It's just an observation that the slowed conditions probably far more suited his clay-derived, attacking baseline game than the generally much quicker pre-2003 conditions would have done.

Federer may say conditions have slowed during his career, which they have, but they had already done so to tremendously benefit him to begin with! So he shouldnt be complaining too much really otherwise guys like Henman and newer versions of Henman on continued slicker surfaces, inc grass & USO, would have made his career much more difficult IMO. Anyway...keep or sweep!

Fed struggled against Hewitt because he wasn't consistent enough and Hewitt ground him down. He would have had more problems against him on slower courts.

Fed, in fact, is the only one of that generation who should have been harmed by the courts slowing down. He played as close to fast court tennis as anyone of that generation. All the others play a style of tennis perfect for medium hard-court - the surface on which I suspect most of them grew up on. Nalby grew up on cement which, from my experience of that surface in SA, was probably terminally slow.

Federer v Henman was interesting. I saw a lot of those matches. At that time, Fed just lacked the power to be able to beat Henman. I have to say, watching those matches, it was apparent he was talented, but he seemed to lack a real killer shot. By 2004 (we surely aren't saying the US Open was slow when Tim had his best ever run there are we?) Fed had added substantial power to his forehand and Tim, despite being in the form of his life, got mangled.

I wrote a long Hewitt post earlier but my battery died just as I was checking it - too much effort to do it again now.

Lydian  
Coming from a regular otf poster

Tim was 29 in 2003. Fed 22. If courts slowed dramatically in 2003 and serve volley was the way forwards up until then there should be a multitude of 23-28 year old Henman style players right at their peak and at the top of the game who suddenly sank without trace. Instead, it was apparently a bunch of youthful baseliners who suffered? JCF and Coria suffered dramatic falls as well - were those due to court speed.

Well BS it doesn't quite work that way does it. We can't precisely say when the changes exerted their effects but we know many changes were happening around the early 2000s. Surely you're not discounting all the changes around 2001-2003 (and beyond) as having no effect on the pro game at all? That would be ridiculous. After all, the USO Director admitted they added more sand in the paint in 2003 to slow it down. Other HCs then started to follow suit...grass slowed down...carpet disappeared...etc etc etc. So what type of player will these changes hurt more? A slower court player? Hardly. A fast court conditioned player...more likely. So yes, we saw the emergence of the medium pace player...the all rounders...because that's what ATP/ITF wanted...more ralleys.

Henman had a great year in 2004 (the year he was 30...born 1974), yes absolutely. And no, USO wasnt "slow"....just much "slower". But to be honest the field IMO was weakened by all the surface/playing changes, creating a weird transitional period in tennis.

The emergent best were those who adapted the best. Henman worked v.hard to adapt to the changes...and did pretty well to be fair. It completely knackered his shoulder and back though. 2004 was great but it actually killed off his career after that. However, one good summer for Henman doesn't disprove the whole trend we're talking about. He hated the slowing down of conditions and said so on many occasions.

I don't buy at all that Federer should have been the one most affected by the slowing down. Earlier in his career Federer said he hated volleying, said moving forward to the net made him panic. He was an out and out ralleyer...yes one with good hand skills at the net as it turned out but not a natural fast court player...because he wasn't brought up that way and you can't reprogramme your tennis upbringing and instincts. Neither could Roddick, Henman, Hewitt, etc. Federer is adept on faster courts because he's simply talented, but rallying at the back and spotting opportunities to pull the trigger early is where he's most comfortable...come on, we all know that by watching his tennis.

When tennis slowed down it suited him perfectly...bringing it down from the blink and you missed it speeds of the 90s into much more moderate, ralleying conditions of the 00s. It turned what were fast HCs into medium-fast courts which suited his brand of attacking baseline-heavy tennis down to the ground. Are you telling me the guy raised on clay who went toe to toe with Nadal on Rome 2006 clay for over 5 hours from the back of the court, getting to MP in the 5th, the guy who won 3 times at the slowest surface on tour - Hamburg - was really at heart a fast court player hurt by the slowing conditions? No way.

Federer is getting older and now bemoaning the slower conditions because he knows his movement and consistency isn't what it once was (of course) but for those 2003/4 to 2009/10 prime years he was like a pig in **** with the more homogenised ATP/ITF conditions. It's not a sleight on him, nor does it make it a weak era, just that he was perfectly suited to that environment and by far the best player under those medium-fast conditions.

I'd still say conditions have slowed further in the last 5 or 6 years over the whole of the tour.

Perhaps more importantly, for what the fans see, players have adapted to (or been brought up on) slower conditions, so we see more and more rallies. At least in the 2003-2007 period, maybe later, there were enough 'throwback' players (older players and younger ones brought up on the faster conds) to be able to see more variety in play than nowadays.

If I were to bemoan anything, it's that the changing conditions over time have led to a status currently where it's OK if all you want to see is "rallies and more rallies" (I think that's the term Fed used - can't find the quote). So it's all sort of built up to a tipping point, as it were, from my pov.

Wow, I'm somewhat stunned by this thread.

The suggestion is that Hewitt's game was harmed by the slowed conditions? We're saying that a baseline game built around great movement and great return of serve couldn't prosper in slower conditions? Have you seen the top players of recent years?!

Hewitt did just fine under slower conditions. Between US04 and US05 he made 2 slam finals and 2 semi finals. He was a top 5 player until 2006. His decline was more to do with hip pain than conditions.

I know it's easy to argue the path not taken but I'm convinced that had he avoided injury, Hewitt would have a top level career. Look at what David Ferrer has achieved with a not drastically different skill set.

I really think this an argument built on a flawed premise. The logic seems to be that because 1) conditions slowed and 2) a generation of players yielded to another, then the two must be linked. But this cause and effect is entirely speculative and personally I just don't see it.

The more obvious reason is that a generation of players variously suffered with injury, were not committed enough, were not fit enough or, quite simply, were not as good as those by whom they were replaced.

Let's take poor old Andy Roddick's YE rankings following The Great Slowdown:
2003:1
2004:2
2005:3
2006:6
2007:6
2008:8
2009:7
2010:8

So in 2004, he was second only to Federer. In 2005 he we was behind only Federer and Nadal. From then on he is in the chasing pack where just a few hundred points separate a few places.

In other words he is pretty much exactly where you would expect a player with a somewhat limited game, who's not great on clay, who's gradually getting older to be.

Or is the argument that under quicker conditions he would have been achieving similar things to Federer, Nadal and Djokovic?

Absolutely agree JHM. Homogenised conditions have resulted in much less variety than old...it would have been great to have some carpet events, more HC surfaces like Brisbane/Qatar and speed up USO too...that would have preserved more styles of play and made the tour more interesting.

I would agree some events have continued to slow...many events slowed down between 03-09 and I suspect some "stragglers" had to catch up by also slowing down accordingly. We know that IW added more sand in the paint this year too. On the other hand we know more clay courts have speeded up too...FO and uses less top dressing than before. However, I wonder if ATP has decided enough is enough....both Brisbane and Qatar looked quicker this year and we hear about more "lively" balls at AO so perhaps they've decided it went too far and the public doesn't want 3-5 hour finals all the time so another tipping point has been reached.

lydian wrote:We know that IW added more sand in the paint this year too.

Gotcha!