New tennis balls at the FO

by Tenez Mon 23 May 2011, 10:22 pm

http://www.sport24.co.za/Tennis/FrenchOpen/Federer-slams-changed-balls-20110523

I am always a bit suspicious when Babolat is asked to produce balls at the FO....knowing their biggest star is Nadal. But apparently there are a few different views on those new balls from the players.

by sportslover Mon 23 May 2011, 10:25 pm

I think Rafa will need " balls" but not necessarily the tennis kind in order to keep his title here. Whistle

by Guest Mon 23 May 2011, 11:31 pm

It is interesting to read the comments from the professional tennis players. It seems that changes to the ball can lead to players injuring themselves.

by gallery play Tue 24 May 2011, 8:55 am

Tenez wrote:http://www.sport24.co.za/Tennis/FrenchOpen/Federer-slams-changed-balls-20110523

I am always a bit suspicious when Babolat is asked to produce balls at the FO....knowing their biggest star is Nadal. But apparently there are a few different views on those new balls from the players.

I still makes sense though. Do you remember what i told about Krajicek and his tournament? In 2008 he went to Madrid to visit Nadal. Krajicek made an offer to Nadal: "You can choose the ball you want to play with, if you come and play in Rotterdam". And so Rafa chose the ball he won his last tournament with: the OG ball, which was a darn fast ball. Nadal doesn't mind a fast ball, as long as it's bouncy as hell

by Tenez Tue 24 May 2011, 10:17 am

I perfectly remember GP. I am not surprised Nadal woudl ask things like that.

I agree that Nadal doesn't mind fast balls as long as they bounce. But those are heavy so they are likely to bounce less and carry pace further and I am not sure Nadal will like that. Nadal wants desperately the ball to drag towards teh baseline (like at WImbledon) so he can muscle the ball safely with max topspin in it. If the ball shoots off, he has less time to inject the spin so vital to his game.

I agree that Babolat would certainly like Nadal to win...but The FO woudl not mind, I guess, a new champion and it seems they woudl try to avoid at all cost one sided finals like 2008 and 2010.

So I am not sure who between Babolat or the FO organsisers will have it their way.

It wasn't very smart for sure to provide different balls in the run up to teh FO.

by gallery play Tue 24 May 2011, 11:18 am

From what i saw yesterday i can't really say the ball flies faster than the previous years. But i have seen a lot of miscalculations. Even Djoko, who it seems, finds the sweet spot all the time this year, was fooled by the bounce a couple of times.

In my memory the conditions in 2009 were faster than ever. Fed-Delpo: that was something else..

by Tenez Tue 24 May 2011, 11:54 am

From what i saw yesterday i can't really say the ball flies faster than the previous years.
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Neither did I notice a faster pace actually.

The pace is greatly altered by the weather conds of course but more so, maybe, by the spin on the ball.

Fed v Delpo is always going to be fast cause they both hit rather flat so it is easier to hit spinless ball flat than hit a spinny ball flat.
Delpo/Federer can hit harder and harder as the rally goes on cause despite being pacy, the ball invites to be hit harder.

But hitting a spinny, high bouncing ball flat is of course a challenge and requires to add some topspin to handle it. This is why Federer, imo, has lost the sharpness of his FH over the years as he has been trying to take the sting out of hit and add topspin himeself to cut on the UEs.

It's Federer who had to adapt to Nadal's power spin but had the courts conds been faster, it woudl have been Nadal's task to adapt to Federer's pacy FH.

That was so clear at Wimbledon where the balls have been slowed down so much at the baseline making Federer's task pretty similar to teh FO.

by Tenez Tue 24 May 2011, 12:35 pm

I guess Isner v Rafa will tell us a bit more about those balls!

by Guest Tue 24 May 2011, 10:32 pm

Isner didn't need any change to the balls, his serve was fast and deep.

GP, you have to take into consideration the random bounce on clay, but if the balls are fast and low, then that would actually suit Nadal with his flat cross court shots and his 1st serves.

by Tenez Tue 24 May 2011, 10:33 pm

Jubbahey wrote:Isner didn't need any change to the balls, his serve was fast and deep.

but if the balls are fast and low, then that would actually suit Nadal with his flat cross court shots and his 1st serves.

No. it wouldn't.

by Guest Tue 24 May 2011, 10:40 pm

I didnt mean his returning but his shots would benefit.

I dont think any player likes the ball to skid through, much as it did at wimbledon a few years ago, but here, the ball will give him more power to hit to the corners and out of the other guys reach if it stays lower.

Its the same for everyone, but Djoko and Nadal are good retrievers anyway.

Of course, If Federer wuold go back to his old game, it would pay dividends for him this time around.

by Tenez Tue 24 May 2011, 11:40 pm

Balls shooting trough are harder to handle for heavy topspinners.

by lydian Wed 25 May 2011, 1:20 pm

Another factor is court dressing, seems to me they are using less and less every year. There seems to be hardly any on the surface this year so it just plays like a hardcourt really.

All part of the ATPs strategy to get all the courts playing in the same way - and then lo and behold, might as well DecoTurf the lot!

by bogbrush Wed 25 May 2011, 1:23 pm

I agree Lydian, the strategy stinks.

This is why I keep coming back to Borg when I think about an alternative to Federer as GOAT. What he did at RG/SW19 back then is staggering.

Today the double is barely 10% the achievement back then.

by Tenez Wed 25 May 2011, 2:28 pm

I think what Lydian said was true last year. But this year I very much disagree. I think there is more clay than the previous year and in fact we see more sliding and falls than in the last 4 years.

And this is of course going to help again the hard hitters and shot makers.

by Tenez Wed 25 May 2011, 2:50 pm

Did I just hear Lloyd saying that Nadal does not like the new balls?

by lydian Wed 25 May 2011, 3:13 pm

Agree BB, have always held Borg right up there....all those 'doubles' as you say were simply staggering. And your previous forum namesake came close to it too...and know it still haunts him.

Maybe Tenez, I'll need to keep watching abit more to be sure but still looks like a pretty low covering to me. I'm not saying no covering, hence they can still slide. And actually if you think about it, if there is less covering you can slide more easily than lots of covering which accumulates under the foot under sliding motion to act as a brake.

by lydian Wed 25 May 2011, 3:15 pm

I think a few of the players dont like them.

The question is why do they change them?

by Tenez Wed 25 May 2011, 4:22 pm

lydian wrote:I think a few of the players dont like them.

The question is why do they change them?

I think in that case it's clearly a commercial reason to get some business to a French company like Wimbledon using UK Slazengers balls or teh USO using Wilson's.

I think the balls are fine actually.

I would typically be against changing the conds of a court. Clay shoudl be clay and grass should be grass. But some players have exploited the courts "weaknesses" so that it does require some adjustment as the game evolves.

I am pretty convinced that seeing Nadal win teh FO just by standing 3 meters behind the baseline and waiting wisely that the opponent goes for too much knowing he won't have the lungs to compete on the fitness side with teh spaniard was frustrating to quite a few spectators. Likewise, I am pretty sure that Karlo or Isner woudl be close to unstoppable in 1990s SW19.

As the game evolves, we need to make some adjustement.

I think if one day we want to go back to old grass and old clay, we would need to prevent the use of synthetic strings and only allow natural gut only. It's those synth strings that really allowed a complete change of tennis dynamics the way it was played 10 years ago.

But that is never going to happen, is it?

It's exactly what happened at table tennis. New rubbers were developed to hit the ball faster and even created a super glue between the rubber and the bat to increase the pace considerably....so that they decided 10 years to introduce bigger balls to reduce the pace.

This is what Wimbledon did too.

by lydian Wed 25 May 2011, 5:45 pm

I agree with some of that however, if we look at Nadal's wins at FO it wasnt actually by and large by grinding opponents down. Probably >90% of his 39 wins at FO have been in 3 sets only so fitness isnt the key there. Plus when we look at how he destroyed Fed in the 08 final (and Soderling to a lesser extent last year) it wasnt by being 3 metres behind the baseline. You dont beat Fed with the loss of only 4 games by using that technique. Nadal can be extremely aggressive on clay and usually is but not this year so far...he's lost his mojo a little and playing safe and we shouldnt extrapolate this back over previous years where he played a different type of game. This year he is too defensive, and in staying too far back its meaning he's playing too many mid-court balls. I'm amazed Toni hasnt worked on this with him really.

Anyway, agree we cant ans shouldnt go back to old technology, I suspect we're probably towards the end of gains in technology now anyway, cant see what other big revolutions can come now. Just wish they would have a standardised ball and lock the individual surfaces down for speed index.

They just seem hellbent on homogenisation of surfaces which is a shame as its squeezing speciality approaches out of the game.

by Tenez Wed 25 May 2011, 6:11 pm

Probably >90% of his 39 wins at FO have been in 3 sets only so fitness isnt the key there.
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But that's not the point. It's knowing that you cannot rally with Rafa that sets the tone of the match from the beginning. If you know you cannot outlast Nadal, you have no choice than hitting risky shots if not suicidal shots on clay.

I was listening to Virginia Wade (I think on the BBC yesterday) and she said exactly what I had been saying on 606. Nadal was not playing great on clay last year until the FO final. It's only then that people realised of his achievement and said he had a fantastic clay season as of course the results showed, especially not losing a set in the FO. But I remember people on 606 saying that Rafa wasn't as good as 2008 but when he won everything they changed their mind.

My point is Nadal did not have to attack or not attack, play well or not well, like yesterday, he is simply given too many option cause he is simply super fit. And if you look at his matches versus Djoko, you will see that it is actually Nadal who is now forced to attack first...well he doesn't but is overall much more agressive versus Djoko or Murray than anybody else cause he knows he might run out of gas before them as he has a less energy efficient game.

And please do not mention this 2008 FO final match again....it is a very poor representation of the typical clay match between Roger and Rafa. All the other encounters have been much closer.

by gallery play Wed 25 May 2011, 7:13 pm

lydian wrote:if we look at Nadal's wins at FO it wasnt actually by and large by grinding opponents down.

Surely Nadal can grind his opponents down in 2 or 3 sets. It's all about the intensity, point by point
Look what Isner said about that:
"I haven't seen tennis like that ever....I mean, that 30-all point in the last game, I needed oxygen after that. I almost collapsed. My legs were dead."

For Nadal it was basically just another bread and butter rally..

by murrayfan Thu 26 May 2011, 2:18 am

New French Balls Have a Je Ne Sais Quoi

Even as the sport of tennis changed radically over the last 100 years, the balls pretty much stayed the same. At this year's French Open, however, the old Dunlops have been replaced with new balls made by Babolat and the players, a notoriously vigilant lot, have noticed.

Novak Djokovic, the No. 2 seed, who won his 38th-straight match of 2011 on Monday, called the balls "very, very fast" and "really difficult to control." Men's No. 3-seed Roger Federer, a 16-time Grand Slam winner, said they're "faster, indeed," especially when they're fresh. "That will be an issue," he said.

Mark Woodforde, the former doubles champ from Australia, peeled open a can of the new balls at a restaurant here Sunday evening. "Feel that," he said, squeezing the ball and indicating how firm it was. "They fly off the racket, and after you've played a bunch of games with them, they still don't seem to have much clay on them."

Babolat and the French Tennis Federation say the new balls have the same performance characteristics as the old ones. "The laboratory tests prove that these balls have the exact same specifications as last year," said Christophe Hayaux du Tilly, the federation's sponsorship manager. "The same speed, the same rebound, the same size, all the same."

Babolat, which began as a string company in 1875 and started making balls in 2001, had just a few months to design the ball. It subjected it to a barrage of lab tests and gave samples to the French federation and to players—and not just Babolat players, said Jean-Christophe Verborg, the company's international tour manager. The federation also sent each of the Top 10 players on the men's and women's tours a box of the new balls this spring. Player travel being what it is, though, it seems the balls mostly gathered dust. Stosur's box was sent to Liechtenstein, where she stayed for a bit during the European clay-court swing.

The bulk of Babolat's player tests were conducted in Europe last fall. Players were given several unmarked balls and allowed to hit with them for as long as they liked, Verborg said. He was present for some of the tests, including Rafael Nadal's, which took place in October in Manacor, Majorca. (Both Nadal and Stosur use Babolat rackets.)

"They didn't see a difference," Verborg said. Verborg and Hayaux du Tilly suggested other factors might account for the players' perceptions. One possibility: Paris has had warm and dry weather of late, so the courts are harder, which can make them faster.

"We've been making balls for over 100 years," he said. "That's certainly not something we're going to give away."

The International Tennis Federation regulates tennis balls and tests them for compression, mass, size, deformation, rebound, and durability. But as Jamie Capel-Davies of the ITF's technical department explained, the ITF doesn't analyze composition.

"The important point is, no one said it is bad," he said. "All the players say this is a very good ball."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576341380613199152.html

by socal1976 Thu 26 May 2011, 5:23 am

(I think if one day we want to go back to old grass and old clay, we would need to prevent the use of synthetic strings and only allow natural gut only. It's those synth strings that really allowed a complete change of tennis dynamics the way it was played 10 years ago. ) Tenez

AHA, I GOT YOU I HAD A SIX HUNDRED POST THREAD WITH YOU WERE YOU CLAIMED THAT THE BALLS AND COURTS WERE THE NUMBER #1 FACTOR AND MY POINT WAS THAT IT WAS THE STRINGS. In fact, I produced a quote from Federer himself stating that the strings made returning and passing shots easier and that is why it was harder to serve and volley. Its the strings and not big balls or slow courts. Although these things can have an impact, it is the strings and modern racquets that have killed S and V tennis, and quite frankly good riddance. Finally, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome for this! it certainly doesn't seem worth it.

by socal1976 Thu 26 May 2011, 5:31 am

I'd like to second what lydian has said. Nadal doesn't just beat players by making them collapse on court, i have seen him win a lot of matches on clay in 90 minutes or less and also seen matches were he steps in and hits a lot of winners, not just forcing his opponent into errors.

Also agree that we can not and should not try to revert back to old technology or prevent the evolution of the game towards a more physical nature. This is natural and virtually every sport has become more physically demanding over time. Furthermore, I like the modern game, I loathe big serve tennis. After the Ivanisivic Sampras wimbeldon final I don't think i watched tennis for like 18 months I was so disgusted. 250 one and two shot rallies. Nothing, nothing is as dull as watching an ace contest. I don't want to see Ivo Karlovic or John Isner winning wimbeldon with deficient backhands and poor movement. To me the modern game is great, I remember S and V tennis and I found it horribly dull. I also didn't like the classic grinder like Wilander or Chang. Today the power baseline game is actually pretty entertaining in my mind, and players still volley they just have to use it more sparingly and really earn their chance to get up to the net instead of just charging up behind any type of garbage.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 9:17 am

AHA, I GOT YOU I HAD A SIX HUNDRED POST THREAD WITH YOU WERE YOU CLAIMED THAT THE BALLS AND COURTS WERE THE NUMBER #1 FACTOR AND MY POINT WAS THAT IT WAS THE STRINGS.
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You are simply wrong once again. I have created this thread cause I think the balls are crucial to the game. And if you go back to my main argument on 606 you will see that I have always stressed it was the combination of bigger balls (Increased the friction surface) and strings (allowing twice as much spin, therefore increasing again the surface friction as the ball travels) which contributed to the slowed down of the ball towards the baseline. It's like having 2 coefficients working together to slow the ball down. Imagine te slowing forces being representated by tose simple coeff: 2 x2 = 4 (1990s) suddenly became 3 x 3 (today) = 9 (dragged down forces). And this is why a flat serve, despite the bigger ball is still a pretty good fast serve, cause it hasn't got the second coeff slowing things down.

I string racquets so I have always been aware of the importance of strings too.

Good article Murrayfan! Mark Woodforde is the guru of the importance of tennis balls.

by socal1976 Thu 26 May 2011, 9:32 am

I am simply right once again, the strings are the biggest factor, followed by the racquets. The slightly bigger balls do not slow the ball down quite that much its the added spin from the strings and also racquets. The readings on the radar guns are as high if not higher today than ten years ago. With wood racquets and gut strings you almost have to come to net to finish the point off. With the modern strings it is easier to hit winner and angles from the back of the court and therefore you are not forced to move to the net. Please no math, I feel like I am in college calculus class and I begin to sweat bullets. And your knowledge as a tennis stringer is great, here is my personal experience I switched to luxlon string and it gave me much more bite and control on the returns and the passing shots in particular.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 9:52 am

Yes of course!

by socal1976 Thu 26 May 2011, 9:56 am

Well its nice of you to concede to my peerless logic and my mastery of the Socratic method and my dialectal genius not seen since the time of Hegel.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 10:07 am

Do you crave for recognition? We can talk about that if it can help.

by Guest Thu 26 May 2011, 10:19 am

I did do a piece on ball tech on old 606, and it seems as though the importance of ball design is such that restrictions have been put in place on both size and flight characteristics.

As far as I can remember, the re are 3 designs that each have three further allowances/designs.

This caters for surface needs, altitude needs and weather/humidity needs.

There are many manufacturers, all of them have to design their balls around the specifications laid down by the ITF.

they are all stringently tested before they are allowed on the professional circuit, these are not the same balls that you buy in a shop, unless it has been licensed to sell the Pro types.

In this respect, it is down to the events holders to choose which design from the 3 basic ones that the ITF allow for each surface, so basically, they have a choice of a maximum of 9 balls as long as it falls into the parameters that the surface requires.

Thats going from memory, but its obvious that organisers can "doctor" an event with their choice of ball design. But it remains to be seen if that "favours" some players over others or that it is effective in speeding or slowing a court down to any perceptible degree.

To me its down to a combination of factors, court surface - humidity levels - wind speed - racquet+string design/materials - ball technology, all made more prominent by a players style and hitting ability.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 10:31 am

In this respect, it is down to the events holders to choose which design from the 3 basic ones that the ITF allow for each surface,
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Yes but they all use type 2 balls nowadays...even Wimbledon but what they don;t tell us is they use the extreme limits of type 2 (so the largest possible ones used within the type 2 margins) and also the lightest ones at Wimbledon making them slow down quicker.

The importantce of the ball is such that any tiny change has huge implication. It's te difference from struggling to return a good shot from actually being able pull a passing shot winner while in a bad position.

by Guest Thu 26 May 2011, 10:43 am

I agree to an extent that the slower the ball, the more time a player has to set up a return, but we are talking about nano seconds rather than full 1 sec additions.

but aren't we forgetting the acquisition of "court position awareness" and the ability of a player to hit that ball into an attacking shot ?

I only see that kind of play from the top 6-8 players, on a regular basis, if it was all down to ball characteristics, then the trend would be seen across all ranked players in the top 100, but its not, so I think it has come down to a necessity for the top players to beat one another and produce shots of extreme talent, but yes, the ball and certain court conditions, have come into play to allow them enough of a split second to think in those terms, but it still needs skill to produce those shots. IMO.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 10:52 am

I agree to an extent that the slower the ball, the more time a player has to set up a return, but we are talking about nano seconds rather than full 1 sec additions.
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It's a question of a splits seconds of course. But an atlete covers 10m in about one seconde...so knowing that the width of a court is 8m, a split second makes a huge difference.

by lydian Thu 26 May 2011, 11:34 am

I thought lighter balls flew through the air quicker, hence why they're always so quick at USO? The slowing down is probably only an issue after they have travelled beyond the length of the court.

From what I understand the issue with these new ones is their hardest and non-fluffiness, making them quick and stay-quick. Many players have spoken out about them despite Babolat assuring they are 'exactly' the same as the previous Dunlop ones.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 11:39 am

lydian wrote:I thought lighter balls flew through the air quicker

The inertia law is comming into it. Try to send a birthday air balloon far....See how quick it slows down. Or without going that extreme, try to throw a pinpong ball as far as a tennis ball...despite the ball being much smaller and lighter...

by socal1976 Thu 26 May 2011, 11:51 am

Tenez, last time I argued this issue with you I remember you distinctly saying that the balls were bigger and therefore that is why they slowed down faster through the air. The facts are there are three types of balls, and the miniscule difference in size of this balls does not deaden the pace. In fact, the slightly bigger balls help the servers as they allow for added serve accuracy with no depreciation in the speed of the delivery.

To me this conversation is not that important the players have to win with the conditions dealt them, not with what some fans would prefer or not prefer.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 3:18 pm

Those Babolat balls seems excellent to me. Watching the match between Murray and Bolleli and Nadal v Andujar as well as all the matches I have seen thus far and it seems they favour the shot makers over the defending players.

I think Federer is going to love them.

by lydian Thu 26 May 2011, 3:57 pm

That is what the players have said, the new balls favour the bigger, flatter hitters - Djokovic will love them too.

Still not convinced about the light ball theory - at the USO they say the lighter Wilson balls favour the big servers/flat hitters. Inertia is one thing, absolute velocity is another.

by Tenez Thu 26 May 2011, 4:11 pm

At the USO, the balls are smaller (or used to be smaller prior to 2010) and that is why they were flying faster.

Q. Were you a bit worried about the balls? Can you tell us more?

RAFAEL NADAL: No, I like the balls. It's true that those balls would stick to the strings a bit longer, but it's not bad. It takes a bit of adaptation. You need to get used to it. You need to have enough confidence, because normally the ball doesn't stick to the strings.So it's difficult to control it. You don't know if you're going to play a short shot, so you have to have sufficient confidence to know exactly where it's going to go.So you have to get used to it. This is why sometimes I would play two short balls. It was a bit difficult not to be disturbed by this feeling that you were not controlling absolutely everything.Still, I think the ball is better than the one that we had in the past. That's my opinion

I am surprised to read this from Nadal. Because the balls are harder they actually don't stay as long in the strings and this is why he finds it more difficult to control.

Maybe his English.

And of course he cannot quite criticise the Babolat balls as the company is probably one of his biggest sponsor.

by socal1976 Thu 26 May 2011, 7:32 pm

Lydian the old Djoko was a flat ball striker but since 09 he has changed his forehand made it more western and with a more up and down motion. His backhand is still pretty flat but his forehand is actually very heavy, not as heavy as Nadal's but I think Fed and soderling will be helped more than novak. Also lets not forget the king of the flat ball strikers JMDP, could the new balls give his rocket flat forehand that little extra bite needed? I don't know we will have to analyze the results.

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