Has the standard of tennis hit a peak?

When watching a few videos on youtube of the matches of the past (ie. 70s and 80s), the thing that is most immediately apparent is the massive reduction in both the pace that the players hit the ball at and their speed around the court. Take a look at this match, for example, which was in fact the final of the tournament that year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW4z0FnUz4o

I don't want to insult the two players, but I daresay you could find a lot of top modern club players who could beat either of those two. As you enter the 90s, the difference in pace becomes less apparent, but the players of today are still much fitter and faster around the court, with more consistently accurate shots. My question is this; do you think that when we look back at the players of today in, say, 20-30 years time, they will seem tame in comparison to the players of the future? Do you think there's much more scope for the increase in pace of the game or the improvement of the equipment? I envisage a future where we will see improved versions of Djokovic and Murray; who each still have weakness in their games, albeit small ones - maybe in the future only the players with literally virtually perfect games will see success. I'm not sure the pace of the game can be increased a great deal further, however.

No, what you're seeing today is only improvement in speed/athleticism, and equipment. Nothing to do with the tennis skills.

Djokovic has huge gaps in his game versus, for example, McEnroe. Indeed, give him a small head wooden racquet with gut strings and he'd be hopeless right now. Give him a few years to have developed his game with it and he'd be a handy player, no doubt, but no better than the guys you watched, probably not as good.

"No, what you're seeing today is only improvement in speed/athleticism, and equipment. Nothing to do with the tennis skills."

Not sure I entirely agree with that - today's top players have a greater variety of shot available to them (admitedly in part due to the more compliant rackets), simply because once a particular skill has been seen it can be replicated. I'd use the example of the 'Cruyff Turn' in football - mind boggling in 1974, but now you see under 9s executing it (although not with the same fluidity).

I do think though we are getting close to the limits for athleticism (once you are playing at a flat-out sprint there isn't much more to go) and weight of shot unless further technological changes allow even greater spin to be generated.

Where improvements can be made relative to the current standards of Djokovic / Nadal - improvements in the single handed backhand (e.g. developing an effective topspin shot when stretched beyond the reach of the dhbh), greater willingness to come to the net and improved volleying/half-volleying (the 80s and 90s players were generally better at these shots than the current guys), some improvements in pure defensive shots such as the 'squash shot' and defensive skyscraper lob.

So much in tennis has changed. 60's/70's Slams were played on Grass and Clay courts. 80's saw the emergance of Hard courts and the 90's was the really the decade that major changes weren't made to the courts. In the 00's saw Wimbledon grass mix changed. The courts at the US Open were change in colour.

Racquets and Strings and Balls have all changed over these time periods and the skill set and physical requirements as a result have changed. 60's to mid 80's was all about serve and volley and in the 90's we saw a mix of Serve and Volley and the evolution of baseline games. The 00's has seen Serve and Volley die out and Baseline rallies become the norm.

It makes comparisons of yesteryear's players compared to the modern players almost impossible to compare and measure. It is vice versa. Could the players of the 70's and 80's cope in today's game and could the players of today cope in the game in the 70's and 80's?

Perhaps if you list the shots they have available to them that are not rendered possible only because of new equipment I can comment. I don't believe there are any.

For illustration, sliced forehands are not new; check out anything from the 40's/50's/60's for evidence of that.

Its just a different game now - no point in comparing players really. Like all sports the game is quicker, more powerful with better technology. Name a sport where this isnt the case - I suspect they're even fitter in darts now.

Its what they call "progress".

I woudl not call it "progress". It;s simply the a progress of techniques and technology at the expense of sheer talent.

Exactly like Formula one where the man behind the wheel woudl in theory count less and less.

I think dummy_half got closest to what I was asking with his reply; ie whether there is really anywhere the game can go from here in terms of improvements. I admit that this is the same situation for most sports - eg. rugby, where the training regimes and physiques of the players are pretty much as good as they're going to get. As good as players like Nadal, Fed and Djoko are, they still all have areas of improvement:

Djoko - his serve could be better, as could his netplay
Nadal - serve could be more powerful again, and his backhand can tend to break down at times. Lacks the ability to really hit through his forehand to put his opponent under more pressure
Federer - at his peak he was probably the most accomplished of the three, but still suffered from the obvious high backhand problem created by Nadal

The presence of such great all round players at the top could necessitate the arrival of players with all of the above's strengths but fewer weaknesses in order to surpass them. Maybe in 20-30 years time we will see top pros with every shot equal to the best ever; ie Federer's forehand, Djoko's/Murray's backhand, Sampras'/Roddick's serve, Djoko's movement etc... Or maybe the likes of Djoko won't be surpassed and will simply be replaced at the top when he becomes too old to play at his best, a bit like Federer nowadays.

I tend to think the narrative of heroic battle that sport depends on, is sold/marketted on, tends to become harder to hold onto the more available the techniques become through which to manufacture players of that sport. Once there's no area left untouched by academic/scientific analysis then developing players becomes a factory-process. The technology is there to analyse a player's strokes in minute detail, nutritionists can formulate the perfect diet, psychologists can optimise the mental approach etc..

Once upon a time some bipedal mammals were chucking balls around, then figuring out they could structure that activity in a social way by creating rules. After the industrial revolution and division of labour you have the possibility of professional sports people via marketing the 'spectacle' of the sport.

Snooker, I think, has reached a stage where all players are technically so good that the spectacle is diminished. I feel like I'm watching a bunch of robots and I kind of feel sorry for them as I imagine that to reach that standard of play must involve thinking of yourself as a machine.

I wonder if Tennis is approaching that kind of territory. It doesn't seem to be there yet.

Good posts from chaz, droogle and others. Pity I came along to ruin it, really.

I sometimes wonder how long it will be before racket/string technology and the scientific analysis of the service action leads to a player who can serve nothing but aces. Quite a while I guess, but at some point it could happen.

Not really, for Soderling to be number 5 in the rankings without having great mobility and variety just tells me it is quite flawed..

then you got players like Fish and Tsonga going far in the majors despite not being that great in returning....

Dummy-half - I do think though we are getting close to the limits for athleticism (once you are playing at a flat-out sprint there isn't much more to go) and weight of shot unless further technological changes allow even greater spin to be generated.
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That's what I thought 5 years ago...but not anymore.

If you remember back then, a lot of physical players (I don;t mean stamina here) were often injured as the muscles were becoming too big for the ligaments. That was teh case of Safin, Nalby, and then Nadal. I thought then that because ligaments are very slow at regenerating that there shoudl be a limit to the muscle mass that can be added which ligaments can support. 5 Years ago, I thought Nadal would not last more than 2 years then. We had seen guys like Mecir, Rios, Kent Carlson very talented players having their career cut short because ligaments and back problems could not be cured. PLus if you had big muscles, you were likely to starve of oxygen quicker like heavyweight boxers.

However we know now that through special treatments like PRP and others we can actually strengthen the ligaments further and that in turns can allow for more muscle mass. Furthermore, nowadays with special products (legal or illegal, that's not the problem here), an athlete can have a better stamina despite having more muscles.

This is why when you look at teh end of a 5 setter between 2 great athletes that were Borg and Lendl, they look like real amateurs compared to Vincent Spaeda and Hrbty.....let alone Nadal and Djokovic!

JM a PM for you.

Yes, looking at the Borg-Lendl 1981 final it looks slow. Ive been watching tennis since the late 1950s and the thing is that the tennis looked good and fast AT ANY PARTICULAR time.
Laver to me looked amazingly fast but now film of him appears to make him very slow. When Borg came along I couldn't believe how quick he looked and then Becker arrived and he was incredibly fast.
For some years I didn't think the game could get any faster. Yes, the players were fitter. But then I saw Tsonga take Rafa apart in the 08 AO semi and suddenly things seemed even quicker and the hitting power sensational. Del Potty arrived and it's doubtful if anyone has hit the ball harder than him. Now we're getting amazingly athletic matches of incredible rallies. Suppose it won't be long before this era looks slow.

I don't see why that post was deleted. It was questioning what could be considered cheating.

So have you got evidence to support your claim an athlete is cheating, in other words breaking the rules in the sport?

Please show some common sense!

I forget the exact wording of the post but the point is sport has an awkward relationship with the notion of 'performance enhancement' as it's not clear exactly how to define these things.

Tenez

As someone from a rugby playing background, I get what you are saying about excessive muscle mass and the pressure that puts on ligaments - even some of the pro rugby players (ABs flanker Jerry Collins being one prominent example) have actually cut down the weight and muscle building side of their training partly because of the strain on the ligaments and partly because too much bulk was affecting speed and flexibility.

I think there is a limit to the bulk that tennis players (and footballers for example) can develop to and still be effective - indeed, even Rafa (considered very muscular for a tennis player) is under 90kg (the ATP list him at 85kg, same as Federer) at 1.88m, which is actually quite slim (a similar height rugby player would be around 95-100kg). The problem is that the more bulk you are carrying, the more power you need to change direction and accelerate - more power requires even more muscle mass (especially in the legs) so you get into a vicous circle where too much bulk slows you down.

Also of course, tennis players need the upper body flexibility to produce shots, and this is inhibited by excess muscle, so again there is a balance between muscle mass to produce strength and the physique to be an effective player.

hey LK

PRP or Plasma Patelets is used to heal the bone, I did not mention blood doping?

Doping would be to enhance his upper body muscles, PRP is for repairing the bones.... wow man!

Repairing bones OR soft tissue!!!!!

Some sensitive fanboys on today!

Dude I was talking about his knees, knee-doping that's a new 1

I am not a fanboy.

Where in your comment did you refer to the knees?

LK this is you being a little pedantic now, I might not have said exactly the word KNEES in my post, but I gathered it was obvious after his many problems with tendinitis.

It's not. It is getting silly when posters are making throw away comments without any knowledge to back up such claims!

Well if my comment was worth deleting, then many others written the last 2 days should have been also.

I sometimes wonder how long it will be before racket/string technology and the scientific analysis of the service action leads to a player who can serve nothing but aces. Quite a while I guess, but at some point it could happen..

The idea of a player with a scientifically perfect service action (as well as potentially other strokes) is kinda scary, but possibly achievable (in a way that takes all the fun out of the sport). Essentially you would first have to take a child and from the first moment he/she tried to serve, you would have to repetitively train this specific motion into them until it becomes second nature. I think the problem with a lot of players' serves is that they develop their own preferred action at a young age (I know I was shown the basics of the ball toss/follow through etc, but the actual mechanics of the serve I developed in a way which felt right to me), and so training from them on is just to iron out the faults in a possibly already terminally flawed action. It's pretty difficult to completely redo your service action from scratch; Djokovic struggled over the last 2 years making even minor changes to his. Therefore this perfect service motion would have to be instilled into the child from the moment they first picked up a racquet, turning them almost into a tennis playing robot. I hope tennis never sinks to these depths!

Like?

I'm thinking it ought to be possible to transition from one motion to another in a way that feels natural. Perhaps PHDs are being written on the best way to do this as we speak, i.e. the order in which to adjust things such that one doesn't feel like any major change is taking place.

It will have reached it's peak once Verdasco and Fish get to numbers 1 and 2

Hands up all those posters who didn't EVER play tennis
or even watch a 500 event !

There appears to be a certain element who've joined 606v2 for the
specific purpose of *knockin* certain players and I (FOR ONE) am
finding it a bit boring !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's a joke, why be so serious all time?

"I'm not sure the pace of the game can be increased a great deal further, however."

I hope not!

bogbrush wrote:No, what you're seeing today is only improvement in speed/athleticism, and equipment. Nothing to do with the tennis skills.

Djokovic has huge gaps in his game versus, for example, McEnroe. Indeed, give him a small head wooden racquet with gut strings and he'd be hopeless right now. Give him a few years to have developed his game with it and he'd be a handy player, no doubt, but no better than the guys you watched, probably not as good.

You mean like Mcenroe's beautiful groundstrokes! Technically perfect.

Djokovic has huge gaps in his game versus, for example, McEnroe. Indeed, give him a small head wooden racquet with gut strings and he'd be hopeless right now.
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Don't see the point in comparing players who played under different conditions.

Keep it to yourself

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Djokovic has huge gaps in his game versus, for example, McEnroe. Indeed, give him a small head wooden racquet with gut strings and he'd be hopeless right now.
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Don't see the point in comparing players who played under different conditions.

Keep it to yourself

On a thread asking whether the game has reached a peak, failing to compare players under different conditions would be to dramatically miss the point.

Still, you were very honest in confessing that you "Don't see the point".