How fast does tennis move on?

Reading on 606v2 today (I swear I hadn't visited it for a good few months) I came across some really strange comments. But this one got my attention:
"Nadal was better 4 or 5 years ago!"

What a joke. Posters keep forgetting that the tour moves on...very fast. Nadal in summer 2013 was by far better than anything in 2009-2011.

But it is not about Nadal only, the rest of the players move on.

Unlike some other sports, tennis can improve (or more precisely: becomes more competitive) on 4 different aspects. Fitness, technically, technology and more importantly by younger players trying to find keys to older players'game. That makes the sport constantly going forward at a pace I frankly could not imagine even not so long ago.

It is all about the musketeers and pyramid base theory.

Why is Spain, France or even some small populated countries can produce year in year out so many good players? Simply because they already have a few good players at the bottom of their pyramid. Sweden was the country once producing a bunch of champions, Australia, US (sure not small but same principle). So when a player takes on the game, he is trained against a very good base of players.

However what happens on tour is 10 folds what happens on a single country. You have at the top a gathering of the best players in the world constantly playing against each others pushing the game competitveness up. And this competition is constantly affected by sharing training, technology and technique amongst themsleves. We can see for instance how the adoption of DHBH has really troubled the SHBHers for more than a decade. Things are moving of course so if a player shows how to finally win at the net again, you may find millions of new players adopting the SHBH and amongst those some will really trouble the top DHBH players, like millions of DHBH pushed most of the SHBH out of the top. McEnroe showed the way forward to a whole generation of players as Borg had strangled all previous players forcing them to stay back.

In other sports like golf or racing for instance, one can be motivated by the success of others but the good player is not going to influence other players much. The tarmac or the green is the same for all players regardless of the nationality. In tennis the influence is going to be huge. The player has to cope with conditions set by the opponents. One cannot train in receiving 200kmh aces if one is not exposed to them. Same applies for all tennis shots. Handling Nadal’s spinny power was extremely difficult at first. Nadal needn;t need to have good length on his shots first to win the FO.

This is why tennis is evolving faster than a 100m record…even if that one has improved quickly recently thanks to diet and training. The difference is that the tarmac where Bolt races is the same for all his competitors and the same Carl Lewis competed on.  

In tennis the players and the level of competitiveness Thiem is facing are not the same at all of those Borg was facing when he was playing guys like Gerulatis and Nastase. And Thiem would not be nearly as good has he trained all his youth against the same player Borg trained against.

Tennis fans keep making this huge mistake to draw a correlation between a player’s winning percentage and his peak. 2 very different things

Tenez wrote:Reading on 606v2 today (I swear I hadn't visited it for a good few months) I came across some really strange comments. But this one got my attention:
"Nadal was better 4 or 5 years ago!"

What a joke. Posters keep forgetting that the tour moves on...very fast. Nadal in summer 2013 was by far better than anything in 2009-2011.

Funny, but that same line jumped at me, too!

Excellent thread, T, you really nailed the problem.

I think failing to understand the evolution of ball-striking is the main reason of all arguments that permeate both the GOAT debate and which Federer is better 2005 or 2014.

Here is another legendary line from v2 (Calder106):


"Do you consider a 28 year old Nadal who has had quite a lot of injury issues to be still in his prime ? I don't think so. We are frequently told on this forum that Federer has been past his prime since he was 27."

Yep....It's true that injuries can certainly affect a player. But in Nadal's case he has always come back stronger than he left.

When Fed was 27, that is in 2007, he was dominating, that's for sure like he won't now. But put him back in 2007 against the same player he was facing then with his today experience, more consistent shots, larger frames and he wins the GS quite easily. I don't think Nadal 2007 on clay woudl beat Fed 2014 on clay. Certainly not if the back holds.