"If your serve is good, you can win on grass even without playing your best"

"If your serve is good, you can win on grass even without playing your best"

I thought that was an interesting quote from Nadal after his win in Suttgart

http://www.tennis-tourtalk.com/?p=2796

"If your groundstrokes are good you can win on clay without a decent serve or volley"

I thought that was an interesting quote from Bogbrush today.

Both true!

bogbrush wrote:"If your groundstrokes are good you can win on clay without a decent serve or volley"

I thought that was an interesting quote from Bogbrush today.

Who would have thought it .....!!??

Hold the front page

bogbrush wrote:"If your groundstrokes are good you can win on clay without a decent serve or volley"

I thought that was an interesting quote from Bogbrush today.

Did he FO final prove or disprove that interesting quote ?   :

I think everyone already knows that the serve is more important on grass. I think what Rafa meant was that he can beat players of the calibre he met at Stuttgart by serving well and playing reasonably well, but not at his best - which he did.
I doubt he thinks good serving alone will get him another Wimbledon title.

Your points are well-made JHM.

Equally, I'd say one can attach too much significance/analysis to what in essence are sometimes fairly straightforward comments from players.

The guys at the top of the sport - especially the very biggest names like Rafa of course - are always getting a microphone thrust their way. You can hardly expect them to come up with radical pearls of wisdom & deep insight on every single occasion. Specific matches throw up specific talking points of course ; but as regards the sport overall there comes a stage when you realise that there isn't a whole lot to be said that hasn't - in one way or another - been said before.

Haddie-nuff wrote:

bogbrush wrote:"If your groundstrokes are good you can win on clay without a decent serve or volley"

I thought that was an interesting quote from Bogbrush today.

Did he FO final prove or disprove that interesting quote ?   :

Neither, because that match was played between excellent players where huge deficiencies cannot survive. Nadal was not suggesting a good serve and a mediocre game can win such a match on grass and my comment applied to the terms his did.

Well, hardly a surprise. He won the first vs Troicki having won all of four points on the return, and having a 44% success rate on his second serve (ie when the rest of his game would have to back up his serve). Luckily he clubbed nine aces, and won 86% on first serve. Serving at 5*-6 0-15, or 0-30 (can't quite remember), he went ace, unreturnable, unreturnable, ace to get to the tie break.

bogbrush wrote:

Haddie-nuff wrote:

bogbrush wrote:"If your groundstrokes are good you can win on clay without a decent serve or volley"

I thought that was an interesting quote from Bogbrush today.

Did he FO final prove or disprove that interesting quote ?   :

Neither, because that match was played between excellent players where huge deficiencies cannot survive. Nadal was not suggesting a good serve and a mediocre game can win such a match on grass and my comment applied to the terms his did.

Well of course.. why didn't I think of that ?!!

Bringing wisdom and light to the forum, that's what I'm here for. As the name suggests, I wipe away all that is soiling and unpleasant and leave everything bright and shining, with a hint of citrus.

bogbrush wrote:Bringing wisdom and light to the forum, that's what I'm here for. As the name suggests, I wipe away all that is soiling and unpleasant and leave everything bright and shining, with a hint of citrus.

In the absence of a tongue in cheek smiley, you will have to make do with
Wisdom..?? your term for personal opinion, conjecture, or assumption.
As for the soiling and unpleasantness on the forum I would prefer to use harpic, it goes well with a bogbrush especially useful for getting to all those nasty  little bits  that so often go unseen
"with a hint of citrus" ..another word for acid. on that I totally agree

You can win with a good serve. Period

temporary21 wrote:You can win with a good serve. Period

without anything to back it up? Isner and Dr. Ivo should be cleaning up on grass then.

If everything else is rubbish and you have a good serve you can still win, on any surface. Isner and Dr Ivo have made careers out of that

TRuffin. Main prob with Ivo, for one, is that he doesn't win enough of the tiebreaks. A solitary point against the serve in a return game in the main body of a set is meaningless, but can make all the difference in a tight tiebreak.
Playing a big server who is also not a good mover (ie Isner, Anderson, Ivo) you look after your own serve and try to sneak the tiebreak.
If I could find my way around the new ATP site (which is a bit hit and miss at the moment) I could tell you what Karlovic's tiebreak record is.

I think I worked out that Ivo had, at one stage, played 5 or 6 years at Queens and dropped serve once in total. Obviously, he had broken serve a similar number of times. Ivo is pretty much unbreakable at Queens but usually finds a way to go out on a deciding tiebreak.

I think Ivo actually has a good tiebreak record but if you are relying on them 90% of the time it will catch up with you.

Well, as we speak, Ivo at Halle is into..... a tiebreak, having faced no break points  against Santiago Giraldo.

Later: Whoops. Ivo, after being a mini-break up in that first set tiebreak, loses it 7-4.

Best not make any mention of Dr. Ivo if you ever happen to find yourself in conversation with Lleyton Hewitt.

Karlovic (ranked 203 at the time ......) dumped Hewitt (ranked 2) out of Wimbledon in R1 2003.

I believe it remains the only case of a defending Wimbledon champion losing his opening round. And despite all subsequent efforts on his favoured surface, Hewitt was never to see another final at SW19.

As of 2012, Karlovic actually had a losing record in tie breaks, but I don't know now as I can't access the bloody ATP website

Dr Ivo is actually dangerous in rallies. He has an uncomfortable habit of not putting it into the net and being about to get some serious spank on his groundstrokes. Sometimes players don't push in rallies expecting a quick capitulation.

The new website I have really struggled with when trying to check it on my phone. Seems messy to me.

There is truth to Nadals comments, but like other people have said Isner would be better on grass if it's completely true.

If Nadal didn't have an incredible forehand he wouldn't win on clay, ifs and buts. Nadal clearly gets frustrated at being aced over and over knowing if the ball was in play he considers himself the better tennis player. I agree there is merit to that, but again on the other side of the coin I'm sure players feel frustrated against Nadal on clay when they hit flat shots at 85mph and inch over the net over and over showing incredible ability, only for Rafa to use his incredible MOVEMENT to chase them all down. They could feel they are being the better tennis players with what they are doing to the ball than what Rafa is doing back to them.

There are two sides to the argument.

I will never forget a rally Federer had with Rafa at the French, Roger hit 5 consecutive half volley backhand on the rise as Rafa kept spinning in loopy forehands and chasing down Federer's angles before Fed couldn't keep it up. Federer showcased far more skill but lost the point.

Rafa I'm sure feels he can showcase far more skill than a big server on grass, which he can. Same thing.

I think what Nadal means is that you can lose a match - any match - on grass to a player who serves exceptionally well on the day, and he's right. That's one of the reasons why winning Wimbledon is so hard to win, because you can so easily lose any single match if you have a bad day and your opponent serves his socks off. But you can't win Wimbledon with just a big serve...the universe of players who have won Wimbledon is much smaller than other majors, and it does not necessarily reflect players with the biggest serve. Serving well (and not necessarily big) like Federer and Sampras helps a great deal, but you have to serve well, not just big.

temporary21 wrote:If everything else is rubbish and you have a good serve you can still win, on any surface. Isner and Dr Ivo have made careers out of that

If you are talking about individual matches, sure-- but tournaments? 4,5,6,7 matches in a row? The guys who have won the grass tournaments going back 10 years have been far more than serve masters and I can't think of one who won a tournament where everything but his serve was rubbish.

Thats what I thought it meant, you CAN win, not you definitely will. If youre nishikori and youre having a bad day, youve had it, whilst Raonic could probably still sneak it

temporary21 wrote:If youre nishikori and youre having a bad day, youve had it, whilst Raonic could probably still sneak it

Yes, Raonic can obviously get much more out of his serve than Nishi can.

But I agree with CAS that it is two sides of the same coin. You could also say that if Raonic is having a bad serving day, he will likely struggle to win, but Nishi may well sneak it even if his serving is not so good - because he relies more on his ground game.

These days you could definitely say that your baseline game can win you the match. Period. That used to be less true - certainly not on grass. In fact, these days having strong baseline game and weak serve can get you further than having strong serve and weak baseline game.

summerblues wrote:

temporary21 wrote:If youre nishikori and youre having a bad day, youve had it, whilst Raonic could probably still sneak it

Yes, Raonic can obviously get much more out of his serve than Nishi can.

But I agree with CAS that it is two sides of the same coin.  You could also say that if Raonic is having a bad serving day, he will likely struggle to win, but Nishi may well sneak it even if his serving is not so good - because he relies more on his ground game.

These days you could definitely say that your baseline game can win you the match. Period.  That used to be less true - certainly not on grass.  In fact, these days having strong baseline game and weak serve can get you further than having strong serve and weak baseline game.

Like Ferrer.

summerblues wrote:

temporary21 wrote:If youre nishikori and youre having a bad day, youve had it, whilst Raonic could probably still sneak it

Yes, Raonic can obviously get much more out of his serve than Nishi can.

But I agree with CAS that it is two sides of the same coin.  You could also say that if Raonic is having a bad serving day, he will likely struggle to win, but Nishi may well sneak it even if his serving is not so good - because he relies more on his ground game.

These days you could definitely say that your baseline game can win you the match. Period.  That used to be less true - certainly not on grass.  In fact, these days having strong baseline game and weak serve can get you further than having strong serve and weak baseline game.

Well that's where the surface comes in. You can roll your serve in on clay and it not matter half the time. Grass has always favoured a big serve. On grass I would pick a misfiring raonic to a misfiring nish. Both playing at too brass? Harder one to answer

You could also argue grass helps someone with a weak serve as they finally get cheap points as their serve becomes faster. Federer said something similar when he lost to Seppi, the quick courts helped the Italians usually retrievable serve

AUs? Quick courts? Didn't expect that at all.
Surely Aus is slow no?
Maybe the heat of the day sped it up I guess.

CAS - I happened to be at the stadium for that AO Seppi match (struggling to recall whether it was RLA or Hisense....) and it was quite a strange, somewhat flat atmosphere.

Almost everybody expected a fairly routine Federer win of course - not least because of the H2H history. But Seppi played better than I have ever seen him play, right from the off, and fully deserved the win. Fed never really found his range, lots of UE's and he seemed almost resigned to defeat in the latter stages of the match.

LuvSports! wrote:AUs? Quick courts? Didn't expect that at all.
Surely Aus is slow no?
Maybe the heat of the day sped it up I guess.

ROGER FEDERER: We had some good matches in the past. He hits a good ball, forehand and backhand, so I knew that on a quicker court where he gets more help on the serve it was potentially going to be more tricky

So he doesn't say AO is quick. Just quicker. It's relative. If he's referring to their previous encounters on clay, I would suggest AO is quicker.

Me....I love grass court tennis. Purest form and test of racquet skill and control. Which is what tennis is about first and foremost.

And people criticise big servers. Well, the serve is the only shot in tennis you get two goes at....so someone thinks its important.

No one has said it here but my pet hate is comments about only being allowed one serve. Not thinking that would actually help the biggest servers even more!! Having two serves equalises it at least a little.

Not the modern day grass court tennis when a big serve and big forehand will do on grass, can be very boring. Not many can volley well or S&V to make it interesting.

I personally find grass court tennis incredibly boring; much prefer to watch tennis on any other surface.

MMT, Wimbledon is hard to win only when you dont have a good serve to start with! Those who win Wimbledon multiple times are those who can serve well. There are no shortage of multiple Wimbledon winners, just like there are no shortage of multiple FO winners.

Garcia Lopez vs Anderson, nearly 9 games played and only 6 points dropped on serve. No one even close to a break point, and barely any rallies above 3 shots.

I think HC tennis ends up becoming most interesting these days, when I can see players with different playing styles could win on the HCs, kind of an even playing ground for all.

You should watch Karlovic vs Berdych, even more boring, practically a serve fest!!

Belovedluckyboy wrote:Not the modern day grass court tennis when a big serve and big forehand will do on grass, can be very boring.  Not many can volley well or S&V to make it interesting.

If there were more grass events, perhaps players can learn. Lopez, Nieminen, Stepanek, Karlovic, Dodig, Groth (and many doubles players) use S&V.

All these players do have big serves and big forehands. The difference between them is relative. All these players can routinely serve 120+ mph, hit forehands at 90+ mph. Nadal can serve at 130+ mph, IIRC, as can Wawrinka or Tsonga.

Karlovic, Isner are outside the normal bell curve for players at the top and relative exceptions in ATP.

Lisicki and Williams can also serve around 120+.

http://www.foxsports.com/tennis/story/aegon-classic-sabine-lisicki-into-quarterfinals-behind-powerful-serve-had-wta-record-27-aces-in-previous-match-061815

Belovedluckyboy wrote:You should watch Karlovic vs Berdych, even more boring, practically a serve fest!!

I am. And point construction requires a non-rally mind-set with a good return. Karlovic can entangled in his own legs. Blocked returns and passing shots can get the job done very easily (for the players at this level). Bps have to be taken, otherwise one can lose the match.

There have been big servers throughout the history of Tennis starting from Big Bill, all the way to Karlovic, Isner, et al.

If one claims that variety is part of tennis and unique styles, this is indeed unique. It is a weapon, like a return, or FH or BH.

Tanner served at 120+ mph with a wooden 7-inch round.

LF, nobody says the serve is not a weapon, in fact it may be the most lethal weapon, to the point of being unplayable (in this case unreturnable), and that's why to some it becomes boring!

Belovedluckyboy wrote:LF, nobody says the serve is not a weapon, in fact it may be the most lethal weapon, to the point of being unplayable (in this case unreturnable), and that's why to some it becomes boring!

Yet, people sit mesmerised in front of TV watching Karlovic v Berdych (aka serve fest) rather than finding the off button on their favorite electronic device.

And, every winner FH DTL, Lob, BHDTL, Drop is also an un-returnable (or a winner) depending on your perspective.

I am/was watching Anderson/GGL on my TV screen and Karlovic/Berdych on IPad. My main focus is/was the GGL match, as I was bored with the other match.

I'm more interested in GGL after how he had beaten Dolgo the day before. It looks like Anderson's serves are too much for him.

BTW, Karlovic served 45 aces, poor Berdych!

Nah, as I said, the serve is the most lethal weapon, a one shot unreturnable. How many can produce more than 10 FHDTL or lob or DS or BHDTL winners in each BO3 match? Not to mention 20 or 45!

Yes, watching just serves can be quite boring. But watching endless rallies can be too. If anything, we get more of the latter these days so that is where we currently have more problems than with quick-fire tennis.

LF, why are you talking about doubles players? They don't play in singles do they? And not many singles players are good at volleying or S&V, and that's why many find the modern grass court game boring when just a big serve and big FH could dominate.

Sure, more grass court events may help, but that's for the future generations, as I think it's too late for the current players to learn and be proficient in acquiring the traditional grass court skill sets.

Endless rallies? Maybe only on clay! Even on slow HCs, it's not necessary to have long rallies all the time, as big serves do work on slow HCs albeit not as well compared to grass. At least we can see good serving and good returning at work, not so much on grass.