Classical Tennis, Modern Tennis, Your Tennis

[don_budge]

Jack Kramer Pro Staff vs. Prince Graphite...

Geoff, I know you are a very knowledgeable equipment guy. What are your thoughts on the evolution of racquets since the prince graphite oversize?

It seems that wood racquets used to measure between 60 to 65 square inches in area...the Prince Graphite originally came out in two sizes. 110 square inches and 90 square inches. Chris Lewis of New Zealand made the finals of Wimbledon using the behemoth in 1983 where McEnroe gave him a good thrashing.

Let's say for instance that a wood racquet was 70 square inches and the Prince was 110 square inches...that is a whopping 57% bigger area to use. Anyone that thinks that the modern game is so much superior might want to ponder those numbers. Throw in the string technology and you have different games by definition. You cannot compare the two.

Federer on the other hand is currently using a frame that measures 90 square inches and his top three rivals use frames that are 100 square inches. That is over 11% smaller than his rivals. Somebody should give Roger a math lesson and convince him to play with more area...surely there will be fewer mishits. Does anyone think in a game that the lines are being called by electronic eyes to millimeters with balls traveling at zillions of mph it is prudent to give away over 11% playing surface to their opponents?

[stotty]

Hoad and Federer

For me, it's the strings that have vastly improved over the last 5 years, not racquets. Racquets have improved a little...but it's the poly strings that have made biggest difference. Look at Nadal...the work he gets on the ball...he was the first to take advantage of improved string technology.

The Classic era and Modern era CANNOT be compared because there is no means by which to do it. It would be like comparing a bow and arrow with Winchester...and look what happened there.

But, yes, you can regress things. In Formula 1 motor racing they impose restrictions, outlaw certain technologies...to stop things getting silly.

Geoff is right, though, racket and string companies like to launch new products every year, and they wouldn't take too kindly to technology being halted, as they would be faced with a marketing impasse, a brick wall.

Were it down to me, though, I give all the players a Maxply to play with and have done with it. That way I could compare Federer with Lew Hoad and see how things match up. I'd love that.

[jschaff]

I have just read your article on the change from the classical game to
the " modern" game. And I think you give to much credit to the
equipment. I really think it is caused by the teaching factories who
want instantaneous gratification by having to teach the two handed
backhand to the little kids to have them be able to play at all. Even
Sampras, your last classical great, was started out two handed and an
astute reacher switched him to one handed. I'm not sure if Federer
started out two handed or not.


Also, the conscious changing of the court composition to slow the ball
down, as Wimbledon itself did several years ago, gives the two handers
the opportunity to get to more backhands and flourish. Granted they
are in incredible shape today, but the two handers, except for Borg,
were not grand slam winners till this real change, except for the
French Open on clay.
Federer got robbed when Wimbledon gave Nadal that advantage by slowing
its center court down. Before that Nadal couldn't get past the third
round.

Jeff Schaffer

[stotty]

I have just read your article on the change from the classical game to
the " modern" game. And I think you give to much credit to the
equipment. I really think it is caused by the teaching factories who
want instantaneous gratification by having to teach the two handed
backhand to the little kids to have them be able to play at all. Even
Sampras, your last classical great, was started out two handed and an
astute reacher switched him to one handed. I'm not sure if Federer
started out two handed or not.


Also, the conscious changing of the court composition to slow the ball
down, as Wimbledon itself did several years ago, gives the two handers
the opportunity to get to more backhands and flourish. Granted they
are in incredible shape today, but the two handers, except for Borg,
were not grand slam winners till this real change, except for the
French Open on clay.
Federer got robbed when Wimbledon gave Nadal that advantage by slowing
its center court down. Before that Nadal couldn't get past the third
round.

Jeff Schaffer

It's always been a mystery to me why the two-hander didn't come about earlier. Pancho Segura had considerable success, and he was two-handed on both forehand and backhand. He turned pro before his peak so had no success in the slams, but on the pro tour he was a great success and won much. He was also a major crowd pleaser and popular so it's hard to understand why he didn't start a trend. And rackets weighed a ton back then!

You aren't correct about your observations on the Wimbledon grass courts, however. I live in the UK and visit Wimbledon every year. Wimbledon slowed the courts down well before Federer and Nadal came along. The major slow down came in 2001 and they've remained the same since.

Queens Club had reasonably quick grass until recently, and Nadal was deadly on that stuff. Nadal is misunderstood like this. Nadal is brilliant on grass and clay...like Borg was. With those two, so long as the ball is just high enough, the faster it comes in, the better. Hence, this why both Nadal and Borg come/came in to their own in the second week...when the grass browns...bounce gets higher and much faster.

[kerrymitchell]

Great article John!!

Great article John!! The sad thing and I feel the part that has hurt tennis the most (especially for the women's game) is the homogenization of the court surfaces. It has only produce one type of player.
Much like when Borg was transitioning to the top of the game, the training of the tennis athlete was the same across the board. We are seeing that again now in how training is done, but with the emphasis on baseline play.
Players had to adapt their games more as the variety of the surfaces changed in that period. Borg improved his serve and volley games to dominate at Wimbledon. Lendl tried desperately to win Wimbledon later on in his career by improving his slice and volley game. Players who couldn't adapt or didn't want to adapt just didn't bother to show up to certain tournaments. This terrified the tennis establishment and so the transition to homogenize court surfaces began, which as you pointed out meant slower speed for the hard and grass courts and the speeding up of the clay. Sure there is still some differences but the transition doesn't require major changes or adaptations to the players game like it used to.

[curiosity]

Enjoyed the article very much, as well as the perspectives in the comments.

I've been caught up for two days with work and continuing ed. At one point I was typing a memo on my laptop with research on the screen too, and a lecturer speaking at the front of the room. And it hit me:

Sometimes I feel a parallel between tennis gear evolution and my computer equipment and network resources. Like most attorneys I learned to type, so that I could efficiently write down my thoughts, citations, and not have to pay someone to decipher my handwriting, or encounter delay when a paralegal called in sick. I didn't adopt laptops and software and online research tools because I wanted to. Instead, it was a matter of competition, price efficiency, and speed-to-finished-product. I don't think it changed my relative success. It just helped prevent falling behind.

Long ago, about 1983, I moved to fiber glass/resin/graphite racquets because I had to. The other guys did. We all started hitting harder, missing much less, but the relative scores didn't change much. The lighter stiffer bigger racquets simply helped prevent my falling behind.

In both computer support and tennis gear there has certainly been an arms race. It's not we who decide to move up in gear. Necessity forces it. And, I wonder, where did I put my spaghetti-strung racquet? Where's yours?

[ClassicStrokes]

Curiosity,

Do you really have one? Never even seen it in the flesh.
Your point about relative gain is true. You change the equipment or the scoring system or you could even change the court dimensions. The best players win. The only point that is debatable on that is the speed of the court. But maybe that just leads to a new more homogenized definition of best. Like Kerry Mitchell said the differences in grass and clay and fast hard courts and indoor carpet made the game less predictable and more exciting. There were much more clear differences in style.

[curiosity]

ClassicStrokes: My reference to spaghetti-strung racquets was rhetorical. I was just reflecting on the fact that, indeed, the USTA has to step in periodically to set limits on equipment innovation. So, laugh, "no!" I don't have one.

I did get an invitation from an old non-tennis-playing friend to play tennis, back about 1977. I was a decent wood-racquet player at that point, the usual JK autograph. I couldn't effectively touch the balls he was hitting just by brushing up on the ball a bit with little forward velocity. In 1978 the racquets were banned. I still know the guy. It's still a subject of laughter when we meet up.

I'm afraid the work-related arms race is only going to get worse. As more advanced software and machine learning are brought to bear on reading through discovery materials and searching for relevant statutes and precedential cases, I only see the race accelerating. It's becoming "no country for old men." laugh.