About v2Slow Courts - Pat Cash echoes 606v2!
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Slow Courts - Pat Cash echoes 606v2!
by time please Mon 05 Nov 2012, 12:05 pm
First topic message reminder :
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?
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?
time please- Posts : 2729
Join date : 2011-07-04
Location : Oxford
Re: Slow Courts - Pat Cash echoes 606v2!
by bogbrush Sat 10 Nov 2012, 8:36 am
Fascinating. I missed that.Henman Bill wrote: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.
bogbrush- Posts : 11169
Join date : 2011-04-13
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» Bodo on slow courts and Federer
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