Today's versus Yesterday's Tennis

[gzhpcu]

While agreeing mostly with all that has been said above, I still see some positive points about today's tenns:

Never saw as gutsy a player as Nadal before - intense from the first point to the last, relentless. Admittedly, his technique is personal and not to be imitated, yet nonetheless very effective

Today's players are more athletic and have more stamina. Apart from matches between Vilas and Borg, am not aware of any really lengthy matches in the past.

I think there is always a tendency to lament the passing of the "good old days".

For example, I have an old book, entitled, "Tennis Observed: Te USLTA Men's Singles Champions 1881-1966" by Bill Talbert. On page 59 he says, quote: (Referring to Fred Stolle's victory over John Newcombe)

The influence of the power tennis of Pancho Gonzalez and Jack Kramer may have reached its height in the final match of the 1966 nationals as Forest Hills. Two rangy Australians traded powerful serves for two hours and 15 minutes, and neither showed any real ability to make return shots. Modern players have managed to duplicate much of the strength of the Gonzalez-type game, but somehow they have failed to gain the accuracy and versatilty that went with it.

[stotty]

My dad used to call it "being a prisoner of your own generation". We lament for Newcombe and Rosewall while our forefathers turn their nose up at them and lament for Kramer and Gonzales. The past is always the best...or so it seems.

Look, if there is one thing the last decade has taught us, it's that if you plonk players on any given surface they will soon work out the best way to play on it. The playing style of today is the embodiment of the players collectively working out what is the best way to play...to win.

If there is one thing the 2014 Australian Open has taught us, it's that you can fight technology with technology. Tournament organisers can govern the playing style if they want. Courts may be super slow but you can speed up the balls and tinker with the surface and make it quicker. One characteristic can be off set by another. The possibilities to fine tune the game are greater than ever before.

I really like the fast pace of today; couple it with the return of net play and the game would be fab.

[klacr]

We are talking about two very different animals. Which makes it all the more fascinating. Different types of athlets albeit still incredible in any generation.

Today's tennis compared to yesterday's tennis is comparing apples to oranges. The game has certainly changed. Adjusted. Evolved.

Nadal vs. Borg

Federer vs. Laver

McEnroe vs. Laver

Djokovic vs. Agassi

These are all mouthwatering match-ups no doubt. Sadly, we will never see it.

The real key to enjoying tennis, teaching it, playing it, sharing it with others is to respect the past and embrace the future. Tennis will continue to evolve as long as the earth is still spinning and I greatly look forward to that.

Modern tennis vs. Classical tennis. Both are beautiful and fluid and powerful. Play however you wish as you will always have fans and detractors. Theoretically speaking, the "good old days" can be considered yesterday. It's awesome to look back at how far tennis has come. The money, the technology, the global scope and scale, breadth and depth of tennis. It's all very exciting and glad that I and all of you who contribute on this forum are a part of it.

Today vs. Yesterday? Yesterday was amazing, today is even better than yesterday, tomorrow will will be so good because it will remind us of today and yesterday.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[GeoffWilliams]

WAit until you see voice controlled force field string beds! Steel/carbon spring leg inserts. 170mph serves. All coming down the pike.

[don_budge]

Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker...

I think there is always a tendency to lament the passing of the "good old days".

Some thoughts from the "new" brain trust...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnfxfnqAhC0

[don_budge]

Taxi Driver...Travis Bickle

My dad used to call it "being a prisoner of your own generation". We lament for Newcombe and Rosewall while our forefathers turn their nose up at them and lament for Kramer and Gonzales. The past is always the best...or so it seems.

Are you talkin' to me?

[stotty]

Are you talkin' to me?

No, absolutely not. All of us... And I'm not confining it to tennis.

[bottle]

Some thoughts from the "new" brain trust...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnfxfnqAhC0

Pretty vapid interview. If this is any indication of what goes on between these now coaches and the players they bow to, it's not much. I think Martina was right about Roger holding his racket tip too high at the beginning of a forehand volley, and she said it again and again, pointing out that when he did make one, it was when he had a little more time for looping the racket down into the better position. This is only one example, I realize, but what if she was absolutely and unequivocally right? Was Edberg also alive to this little point? And would such a mild, genial person criticize Roger in this way, to his face? I doubt it and therefore think Roger should have hired Martina or Amelie Mauresmo. Llodra was a great opportunity for Mauresmo but he was only Llodra. A Lesbian coach was definitely the way for Roger to go-- to add some spice to his overly routined practice sessions. Agree or not, he did not appear, as Steve pointed out, to be willing to try something truly new and different beyond the changed racket and didn't have a new fearsome strategy that he then would stick to and make work. Meanwhile the much less thin air Magnus did great work with the Stanimal. Let's go with less thin air in all walks of life, say I.

[don_budge]

The Becker/Edberg Show...on Today vs. Yesterday

While agreeing mostly with all that has been said above, I still see some positive points about today's tenns:

Never saw as gutsy a player as Nadal before - intense from the first point to the last, relentless. Admittedly, his technique is personal and not to be imitated, yet nonetheless very effective

Today's players are more athletic and have more stamina. Apart from matches between Vilas and Borg, am not aware of any really lengthy matches in the past.

I think there is always a tendency to lament the passing of the "good old days".

For example, I have an old book, entitled, "Tennis Observed: Te USLTA Men's Singles Champions 1881-1966" by Bill Talbert. On page 59 he says, quote: (Referring to Fred Stolle's victory over John Newcombe)

Obviously you can think what you want...or you can listen to what others think. But be advised...nobody wishes to disturb your inner peace if you are happy with your thoughts. Most people are perfectly content to keep their eyes wide shut.

But you asked...

Yes, I noticed the court surface, quicker balls and heat since I was there and watched many matches. It amounted to many short rallies and matches as players had an abnormal number of short points and mishits (seen some balls go over the fences into the next court). I have never seen so many mishits and balls sent into orbit. Not the best quality tennis for what the players were capable of. It was easier the last few days with cooler weather and remaining players finally getting used to the speed.

Thank you very much for your eyewitness account of the Australian Open. I suspect that the tournament was being used to analyze the effects on the current state of tennis if some tweaking and engineering is done to liven things up a bit from the dreadful state of boredom that it now resides in.

What a wonder it is that these two have revived their careers as tennis coaches or consultants or whatever they are perceived to be. Is it possible that the advent of quicker surfaces is looming in the future...that is, while we wait upon the results of the qualitative analysis from the braintrust at the ITF and other related organizations. Is it time to retool the coaching and recertify? You do realize that quicker courts are going to make the current paradigm of modern tennis obsolete. Bill Tilden would have told you the same thing...in so many words.

It looks to me that the players have been given somewhat of a heads up and are now retooling...for the things that are to come. Can Becker instill the net player instinct in Djokovic? Does Stefan "Sleepy Bear" Edberg have any tactical input into the Federer game or is going to be the same old, same old when he faces Fafa Nadal every time. "Sleepy" had plenty of time to think through the situation and it looked to me as if he came up with....nothing. Nothing at all. Just pound the backhand into the unforgiving brick wall of Nadal's forehand and hope for the best. Not very original...to say the least.

Djokovic with the net player instinct? It is going to take some work. Novak's training has been one of a side to side movement all of his life. Going forwards with the ability to retreat backwards to smash is quite a different story. tennis_chiro outlined the program...I believe him. But with regards to Djokovic...he is a world class athlete so it would at least be interesting to see him attempt such a metamorphosis. I won't touch Fafa Nadal anymore...he is tainted as far as I am concerned. His Academy Award deserving performance regarding his injuries at the Australian Open made me rather ill...plus there is the well deserved question about PED's. Another can of worms all together.

Vapid? Or perhaps there were a couple of gems just under the surface as the interviewer invited the boys to reminisce about their parallel careers. So the relevant question of this thread sponsored by our resident Swiss member is with regard to "Today's tennis vs. Yesterday's tennis". This just so happens to be one of my favorite topics of discussion these days.

From the transcript of the tape:::

(Anyone notice the triple colon...the triple double dots...you saw it first here on tennisplayer.net!!! Connect the dots...stupid.)

First of all...there is no comparison between real classic tennis to what currently is being played under the guise of modern tennis. But there is a possible link between the Becker/Edberg era and the current make believe paradigm. In fact these two met for the very first time on the cusp of that transition...it was 1983 in the first round of Wimbledon. I wonder what kind of racquets these two were using...let alone the speed and condition of the turf. Coincidently my good friend at the time...Aaron Krickstein defeated Stefan Edberg in the first round at the U. S. Open 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6. Hmmm...you see that I am capable of connecting the dots.

Some thoughts from the "new" brain trust...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnfxfnqAhC0

From that first round of Wimbledon in 1983, "Sleepy Bear" and "Boom Boom" met 34 more times in ATP competition, but curiously only four times in Grand Slam events. Does anyone fully understand the ramifications of that little fun fact? Edberg goes on to explain that the difference between yesterday's tennis (his era) and the present era is that the field was so much deeper. Nowadays...he says it is the "Big Four" that dominate the play. There were far more competitive players then than there are now. It sort of kills me that there are those that claim that the talent pool is so superior to anything we have ever seen when it is the converse that is true. The talent pool has never been so diluted as it is now with such one dimensional players...and play in general. I really feel that the 2014 Australian Open illustrated this very clearly. Both Edberg and Becker seem to agree that this is the reason for the players today that have accumulated such enormous numbers in terms of Grand Slam titles. Both Edberg and Becker ended up with 6 titles to their names for their respective careers.

Keep in mind that the great tennis mind of Brad Gilbert assessed the Edberg and Becker era as equally boring as the serving and volleying was too fast to enjoy as well. Keep in mind too Sports Fans that this is all due to engineering and using the word evolution is dramatically incorrect. Evolution implies an absence of interference from outside influence. All of this nonsense is pure human invention. In order to compensate for that over compensation...the powers that be once again over compensated. It's really tough when you mess around with mother nature...when you try to engineer mankind from the nature of things. Tennis is indeed a metaphor for life.

But these two do deliver a couple of really sound missives if not bombshells in their vapid little interview in Båstad, Sweden. The game today is dwindling even in comparison to the era of "Sleepy" and "Boom Boom". But the propaganda and hype has kept it afloat so far but it seems to be losing momentum...without Federer it will be a "dead calm". The truly modern paradigm is only a facade of what tennis really was meant to be...as we witnessed at the Australian Open when the "super duper" baseliners were forced out of their element and towards the net. The net play was pretty mediocre at best. No surprise either...it has been engineered out of the equation. They (ITF) will have to gradually reengineer the game back as any sudden shift will make the sport look amateurish or incompetent. There are posters on this forum that are catching on to the Ponzi scheme perpetrated on the greatest game ever...tennis. I feel rather vindicated...not that it makes me happy.

[worldsbesttenniscoach]

As tennis has evolved on the WTA & ATP circuits, one skill that has & deteriorated over the years is anticipation & court positioning. Go back & view the 1972 Wimbledon final between Smith & Nastase, & some old matches between Mecir & Edberg, or Agassi Edberg. Those older players put to shame today's players who do not anticipate well where the next tennis stroke is traveling. Even today's top players (Williams, Nadal, Federer, et al.) can't compare with yesteryear's players in terms of crucial anticipation & counterpunching.

(And many of today's circuit players make unforced errors, on average, so early in the point.)