How has surface change/increased homogenisation impacted the top players?

I was criticised earlier for starting this topic as a comment on my earlier thread on 'homogenisation vs popularity'; so as promised I have written an article based just on this.

Hope you guys like it



This is my judgement on the current surfaces in the Grand Slams of the ATP tour:

Australian Open- Medium Slow Hard Court

French Open- Slow Clay

Wimbledon- Medium Grass

US Open- Arthur Ashe: Medium Slow, rest all Medium Hard Court



So as we can see the surfaces at the moment are all quite similar, if you agree with my judgments you will agree that all surfaces vary from the range 'slow' to 'medium.' This means that the server will now have a decreased advantage during his service game, compared to 10 years ago.

I will now try and address some questions that could arise, in-light of this.



Why the Courts shouldn't all be sped up?

Some of you may think: Ah, let's just speed up all the courts to what they were before. However I think this could have possible disastrous consequences. The tennis racket is becoming more and moer powerful as a weapon. If the court surfaces are sped up to what they were before, I really think the game would just become a serve based fest. Players above 6"5 would just hammer down ace after ace, and there would be a lack of rallying.

I believe Tenez did a thread where he covered this on ja606, and it was a brilliant piece. Unfortunately I cannot find it, but Tenez went into some detail on how due to technology the game, could turn from a 'rally' fest to a 'ace' fest if we are not careful with the extent of the changes (i.e. surfaces speed).

Hence I believe that we should try and speed up some of the courts, but not to the point where a 6"7 guy can just go tournaments unbroken.

This would be, for me (of course you can disagree!) a good change in terms of variety:

Australian Open (Medium Slow Clay- like Rome)

French Open (Slow Clay)

Wimbledon (Medium Fast Grass)

US Open (Fast Indoor Hard Court)

This would mean we have a real mix, with: slow, medium slow, medium fast, and also fast.



Who has really benefitted from the change in surfaces?

At the moment there is an inbalance in surface distribution. I'm not talking about speed, I'm talking about the surface.

Movement on a particular surface stays the same, generally, for a player irrelevant of the surface speed. The only difference, however, is that as the surface gets slower, movement on that surface becomes even more important.

Now, we have 2 Grand Slams on Hard Court (50%), 1 on Grass (25%), 1 on Clay (25%). This means there is an imbalance, as there is more Hard Court Slams than any other surface.

If we look at surface movement, Federer moves equally on pretty much all surfaces (he's quite fast, but not as fast as others). The player though I believe benefits most from the Hard Court imbalance is: NOVAK DJOKOVIC. Djokovic, as we know, moves best on hard-courts. In-fact I could say that Djokovic is the best mover on hard courts of all time. So having 2 out of 4 slams on HC is brilliant for Djokovic.

What makes it even better for him is the fact these hard-courts are slower, which means that movement becomes more important, irrelevant of who you play. Let's get some stats to show Djokovic's hard court domination:

-Rafael Nadal has won more slams on grass, than Djokovic has won slams on grass and clay put together.

-Djokovic has won 5/6 slams on HC- this is 83%

So this 'hard court' imbalance has clearly benefitted Djokovic. The slowing down of the surfaces extend this even further to his favour as it makes movement more important, which is Djokovic's huge strength on hard courts.



What about Nadal?

Rafael Nadal has won 11 slams, this is the second most out of all active players atm. So how has the surfaces changes affected him?

Now let's get one thing straight before we start. There is no 'morally good' surface.' There is no requirement on surfaces- grass does not have to be fast, it does not have to be anything. A Grand Slam win, individually, is earned. Surface chance does not make a slam more or less 'valueable.'

However, when we have homogenisation of surfaces, it is easier to make your mark on all the slams, rather than just one or two. Nadal has shown he can win on clay, grass, and hard-court; i.e. on that particular surface. He moves well on all the surfaces, it is just the fact he moves best on clay which makes a big difference. More on this later. Anyway it can be argued he has not shown he can win on 'fast grass' 'fast hard-court'. In-fact I think if this was another era he might not have won so many slams off-clay. Conversely Pete Sampras, if he was playing now, in a game where rallying and baseline awareness is more important, would struggle to win a slam on any surface.

Nadal is not a 'one surface' pony at all, the fact is he has won Grand Slams on all surfaces. However it could be argued that he is a 'slow court' pony- i.e. he prefers slow courts to fast courts. But people get very confused when analysing the game of Nadal. I believe that Nadal could have chosen to be a more aggressive player, watch clips on Miami 2004/5 and Dubai 2006. However the surfaces then slowed down, and Nadal changed his game and has lost some of the aggression. If the surfaces were sped up I believe Nadal, as he matured, would be made by Toni to change his style to make it more effective on faster surfaces. Would he be successful? Who knows?

I am aware that when Nadal was young, and the surfaces were faster, he did not generate fantastic results on surfaces outside clay. But this does not mean it would have to be the case for his whole career. Nadal grew up playing tennis on clay in Spain remember, so would take time to change his game for other surfaces.

This causes a problem- it is like a experiment where two variables has changed:
-Nadal has got older, and hence was free to develop his game before-hand. If the surfaces were sped up then Toni could have changed Nadal's game to be effective for that, and the disparity in tactics between clay and hard courts for Nadal would increase further.

-The surfaces have changed. These changes meant that Toni didn't have to change Nadal's game as much for him to be able to play on all surfaces.



What would my surface mix mean?

I suggested this earlier:

Australian Open (Medium Slow Clay- like Rome)

French Open (Slow Clay)

Wimbledon (Medium Fast Grass)

US Open (Fast Indoor Hard Court)


This would mean we have a real mix, with: slow, medium slow, medium fast, and also fast.

In my eyes if this was impliacted the Slam Count of the Top 3 would look like this:

Federer- 18

Nadal- 15

Djokovic- 3

Thanks for reading, and hoped you liked the article

SLow and fast compared to what? If you taking the reference the 90s (roughly before they started to alter purposedly pace for watchability) then you are not so correct.


Australian Open- Slow Hard Court

French Open- probably unchanged as they were trying to speed it up already in the 90s. 2011 was medium fast, 2012 was dead slow.

Wimbledon- very slow Grass (balls rather as they are the largest balls used amongst all the slams)

US Open- Arthur Ashe: Slow, rest all Medium Hard Court

Now trying to deduct what woudl be the number of slams each woudl have won in the 90s woudl be very difficult. If you take into account the fact that in teh 90s players were not using synthetic strings but at 99% natural gut, then the only slam that Nadal could have won is the FO. But he woudl have had to share it with the attacking baseliners. Imagine Nadal with natural gut! His main weapon being the spin woudl have been considerably affected as topspinning with natural gut is much harder and exhausting with much less penetration. This is why in the 90s players like Agassi, Courier, Medvev, Korda, Kafel could win or go far and though Bruguerra (a moonballer) won it a couple of times he certainly could not have won it 7 times. The new strings biting the ball like nat gut could not is really what made Nadal so difficult to play on clay, helped of course by this new diet science allowing him to run like no-one coudl run before.

So if anything I would have given Nadal a maximum of 3 clays slams and nothing else had he played in the 90s....And I am generous.

Did you go to all this trouble just to say that Nadal is a great player?

I now this is never going to happen, but I'd love to see the entire current generation play in the same conditions and with the same equipment Laver did. For one season.

I reckon it would be great fun!

Tenez wrote:SLow and fast compared to what? If you taking the reference the 90s (roughly before they started to alter purposedly pace for watchability) then you are not so correct.


Australian Open- Slow Hard Court

French Open- probably unchanged as they were trying to speed it up already in the 90s. 2011 was medium fast, 2012 was dead slow.

Wimbledon- very slow Grass (balls rather as they are the largest balls used amongst all the slams)

US Open- Arthur Ashe: Slow, rest all Medium Hard Court



So if anything I would have given Nadal a maximum of 3 clays slams and nothing else had he played in the 90s....And I am generous.

No, I am not talking about anyone playing in the 90's. I am talking about this decade, now, how surface change would have affected matters.

Who knows what would have happened if technology was different in the 90s? Perhaps the Champions of that period would not be the champions, but there would be a completely different set of players.

It is very difficult to know what would have happened with technology change, but I doubt at any point the champions of that era would still be champions (if we go back in time and change the drastically change/reform technology for that decade.



But that is not the topic here.

noleisthebest wrote:Did you go to all this trouble just to say that Nadal is a great player?

No, not really. In-fact this is probably one of my more critical pieces of Nadal I have written.

Nadal is not a great player, he is one of the greatest. But that's the story for another day



Anyway I also have a section on how it has affected Djokovic, and conclude that he has benefitted hugely from the surface distribution (i.e. slow and 2 of 4 slams are HC).

Amritia3ee wrote:

Anyway I also have a section on how it has affected Djokovic, and conclude that he has benefitted hugely from the surface distribution (i.e. slow and 2 of 4 slams are HC).

I don't know why you needed to involve other players to prop your theory, it makes it even weaker. It's like having an ugly woman at a beauty contest and five people trying to persuade the jury she is actually gorgeous.

People are not blind. You'll never see a Federer fan writing an article of this type or even a Nole one for that matter.

noleisthebest wrote:

Amritia3ee wrote:

Anyway I also have a section on how it has affected Djokovic, and conclude that he has benefitted hugely from the surface distribution (i.e. slow and 2 of 4 slams are HC).

I don't know why you needed to involve other players to prop your theory, it makes it even weaker. It's like having an ugly woman at a beauty contest and five people trying to persuade the jury she is actually gorgeous.

I don't understand what you are saying
Are you sure you have read the article?
I'm not sure what you are saying, but I think you may have skimmed through the article and come to all sorts of weird conclusions.

I thought you were being sarcastic earlier because I haven't been positive on Nadal. But I'm not sure now.
If you read the article I say that, and I quote exactly: 'The surfaces have changed. These changes meant that Toni didn't have to change Nadal's game as much for him to be able to play on all surfaces.'

BTW what theory of mine are you talking about? :chin:
I also say in the article that Djokovic benefits a lot as 2 of the 4 slams are on his favourite surfaces (hard-courts) and the fact it is slower further accentuates the benefits for him as he moves so well on the surface. Is that the theory? Do you agree/disagree with this?

And I don't know what a beauty contest has to do with this

Well we all have seen as what happened to Djoker on slightly fastest grass courts, haven't we?

And Murray despite of being branded as the most defensive player has done better than Djoker on grass except 2011, in which Djoker was aided by the external elements (read egg chamber and gluten free diet).

Now I have started to think that gluten free diet might be a code for some performance enhancing substance.

wow3 wrote:Well we all have seen as what happened to Djoker on slightly fastest grass courts, haven't we?

I don't think it's the pace of grass which troubles him, it's just his movement is worse.
On HC the court could be faster, but it will be better for Djokovic, as he moves well on there. Shows how lucky he is to have 2/4 slams a year on hard-court.

wow3 wrote:
And Murray despite of being branded as the most defensive player has done better than Djoker on grass except 2011, in which Djoker was aided by the external elements (read egg chamber and gluten free diet).

Djokovic has won Wimbledon, Murray hasn't. Funnily though Nadal has won more slams on grass, than Djokovic has won on clay and grass put together, yet we hear how Djokovic deals with 'all surfaces' better than Nadal.

wow3 wrote:
Now I have started to think that gluten free diet might be a code for some performance enhancing substance.

That's a contentious issue- perhaps you can make a thread on that
This thread isn't about doping allegations though

Amrit, I agree Djoker won Wimby but that year he won almost everything, the field was not at par anyway. 2011 is an asterisked year

OTF is a sub forum for THASP, no? For sure

wow3 wrote:Amrit, I agree Djoker won Wimby but that year he won almost everything, the field was not at par anyway. 2011 is an asterisked year

Asterisked?
Don't be ludicrous.

Djokovic played brilliant that year, he deserved his success.

Anyway this is a bit off-topic
WOW what did you think of the points I made in the article.
Would you strongly/lightly agree/disagree?

I disagree with nadal's slams, Nadal would have rooted to 7 slams or probably six as he wouldn't have won anything outside French. Andy and Fed would have benefiited with the varied court pace as those two are more equipped to changing conditions.

wow3 wrote:I disagree with nadal's slams, Nadal would have rooted to 7 slams or probably six as he wouldn't have won anything outside French.

Are you sure about that?

Australian Open (Medium Slow Clay- like Rome)

French Open (Slow Clay)

Wimbledon (Medium Fast Grass)

US Open (Fast Indoor Hard Court)

This would mean we have a real mix, with: slow, medium slow, medium fast, and also fast surfaces.

I think Nadal would win 14-15 min.

Nadal might win 15, who knows. I guessed like 7-8 slams for Nadal regardless of the conditions but he has already gone beyond that.

wow3 wrote:Nadal might win 15, who knows. I guessed like 7-8 slams for Nadal regardless of the conditions but he has already gone beyond that.

Well he could have if he had the luxury that other players (Djokovic cough cough ) have of having 2 slams on your favourite surface.

Just to answer the ideal mix of slams.

I like variety in pace and in surface but we have four slams (only). So I think 50% hard, 25% clay and 25% grass is ideal as hard is clearly the most common type of surface. Now, I would enforce a roof for all slams and let luck/weather decide of when it turns indoor .

Despite liking variety I like to have a star system etc. so I would not make them too drastically different. First half of year should be on the slow side, second half on faster side. And I wouldn't want a shock between FO and W. So here we go:

Australian Open: Medium Slow Hard
French Open: Medium Slow Clay
Wimbledon: Medium Fast Grass
US Open: Medium Fast Hard

What do you guys think?

Just one thing though, let's not forget ball sizes. Please no huge slow balls anywhere...

Hard courts have, and always will be, the worst surface for the body. A slow hard court is even worse, as Lydian has said, it will very dangerous for tennis.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_court#Hard_courts
Although hard courts are the least expensive to maintain, they are generally more rough on the human body than other surfaces due to their rigidity.

sphairistike wrote:Just one thing though, let's not forget ball sizes. Please no huge slow balls anywhere...

In this day and age, with these rackets and their power, smaller balls will mean big servers will dominate hugely. If we have a combination of smaller balls, and fast surfaces, with these rackets we could be looking at the other end of the spectrum- i.e. big servers will go tournaments without their serves being broken.

We have to find some sort of balance.

Also Sphair... your surfaces don't have too much variety.
They are all medium slow or medium fast, not too much difference between the surfaces.

I think tennis needs some real variety and mix in surfaces (just my opinion), which my balance provides. USO to be played with roof all through the week, and fast, while French Open will be outdoors, and remain slow

If you are really that interested on the subject:

https://ourtennisforum.forumotion.co.uk/t107-jim-courier-how-gear-has-changed-the-game-1

I personally think we should not have changed the surfaces at all from the 80s and 90s cause it gives us a good reference with the past players. Winning the 4 slams meant something special then.....now it doesn't.

Yes, Nadal would have won on clay as much but he woudl really have struggled in teh first round of Wimbledon like all clay courters did. McEnroe and Edberg coudl reach the FO final SVing but Bruguerra and Wilander coudl never get past the 1/4F of WImbledon. The players who did do well on both clay and grass had something special. Now Muray, Nadal and Djoko all reach the finals of the 4 slams playing the same physical tennis and that is simply wrong in my view.

Just to be a bit more specific, for HC medium slow for me is like other than Arthur Ashe in USO, like Armstrong. HC medium fast is a bit faster than Cincy, not as fast as Dubai this year. Otherwise, as Tenez said already, what makes Wimby slow are the huge balls and this is what I am against, otherwise it would be medium fast to medium towards the end, so wouldn't need to be much more speeded up as long as we remove the big slow balls. I don't want a shock between surfaces speeds but still enough variety. For the body to cope better with HC, players will need to have a more efficient tennis and use their skills.

The reason we woudl want to slow some surfaces is that we are trying to avoid those service only matchs of the 90s at WImbledon. However it is important to note that with the new string technology, the returner has gained a serious advantage that was not available in the 90s. So came roughly at the same time the slowing down of the conds and the new spinny strings which in effect have completely reversed the advantage towards the baseliner. It cannot be more striking than this 2002 Wimbledon championship which was essentially dominated by counter puncers and clay specialists: Lapenti, Nalbandian, Andre Sa!!!, Malisse, Hewitt, Shalken in the 1/4F!!! Kraji crashing in teh 1/4 v Malisse and Henman needin the crowd and 4 sets to ovecome Sa!

sphairistike wrote:Just to be a bit more specific, for HC medium slow for me is like other than Arthur Ashe in USO, like Armstrong. HC medium fast is a bit faster than Cincy, not as fast as Dubai this year. Otherwise, as Tenez said already, what makes Wimby slow are the huge balls and this is what I am against, otherwise it would be medium fast to medium towards the end, so wouldn't need to be much more speeded up as long as we remove the big slow balls. I don't want a shock between surfaces speeds but still enough variety. For the body to cope better with HC, players will need to have a more efficient tennis and use their skills.

Sphair, good to see you posting on this topic

You might also want to check out this thread if you are interesting in this topic, here I have seen the impact that homogenisation can have on popularity:

https://ourtennisforum.forumotion.co.uk/t91-how-does-homogenised-conditions-affect-tennis-popularity



Personally I feel your surface choices doesn't have much variety- it is either medium slow or medium fast.

Also I think we should be very wary of racket technology changes, as a small change can cause a dramatic switch in favour of the server.

What really can cause a huge change is a player more than the technology.

Take teh top 4 out and everything becomes quite open for everybody else.

But likewise, have one player like Nadal can make all surfaces play too slow or one like Raonic or Karlovic could easily make tennis towards the end of tournaments a serving fest if they had kept pacier balls.

That's why teh balance is very tough to get cause one player can make things unbalanced on any given surface.