June 27, 2008
The grass is meaner
By Rahul Jacob
Some four and a half decades after Manuel Santana derisively declared that grass was for cows, more Spanish men made the second round at Wimbledon this week than players from any other country. If proof were needed that the serve and volley game is now virtually extinct, even at a tournament that was once monopolised by players such as John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras, this was it.
While David Ferrer, the Spanish fifth seed, and Igor Andreev played brutal baseline tennis in a match that would not have seemed out of place on the red clay at the French Open on Wednesday, the former British player Greg Rusedski put it bluntly on the BBC: "Baseline tennis is where it's at. Serve and volley doesn't exist."
Earlier that day, the Russian Marat Safin said his decision to play from the back of the court in his straight-sets dismantling of world number three Novak Djokovic was because "the courts have been getting slower and slower at Wimbledon. Now you can play from the baseline without even getting close to the net."
The change dates back to 2001 when Wimbledon introduced a type of rye grass, developed by scientists in Wales, that was more durable than the previous surface. The grass could be mowed shorter and stood up to the wear and tear of the fortnight better.
The two rye varieties, called Aberelf and Aberimp, sound like something that would go into a witch's potion. The spell they have cast over Wimbledon has taken much of the fun out of the grasscourt game.
The vagaries of the surface --- bad bounces and skidding balls --- that prompted players to take the ball in the air have mostly disappeared. The soil under the grass is also harder and less likely to retain moisture than in the past, which contributes to a truer, higher bounce. This bounce allows baseliners such as Rafael Nadal to play their usual game with small adjustments --- in his case shortening his forehand swing and adding a sliced backhand.
In a telltale sign that the action these days is all at the baseline, by the end of the tournament the grass is worn out at the back of the court rather than the T where serve and volleyers hit their first volley. For all practical purposes, the grass at Wimbledon today plays "almost like a hard court", as Andre Agassi put it a few years ago.
Eddie Seaward, the head groundsman at Wimbledon, has repeatedly denied that the courts are slower, arguing that because the bounce is higher, this gives the impression that the surface is slower.
Tim Henman, the former British number one and one of the finest serve and volleyers of his generation, played mostly from the baseline in his last few years at Wimbledon. Watching Henman struggle against Carlos Moya in last year's epic first-round, a player he would have beaten handily on the pre-2001 grass, it was hard not to feel that the pendulum at Wimbledon has swung too far in favour of baseliners. It is at any rate a bizarre demonstration of the British sense of fair play that Wimbledon is played on a surface that handicaps its own players. Jim Courier, a baseliner who was a Wimbledon runner-up to Sampras, says: "The court speeds have slowed to the point that a fast-court specialist has limited opportunities for success, Wimbledon being the primary example."
On Wimbledon's practice courts last Saturday, only the doubles specialists were spending a lot of time at the net. Nadal was thumping forehand winners from the baseline past a bewildered Janko Tipsarevic. A little later, Novak Djokovic mostly traded ground strokes with his coach Marian Vajda, working especially on a single-handed sliced backhand. Djokovic spent three months last year working on volleying with the Australian doubles great Mark Woodforde but, in the thrust and parry of championship tennis, he still stays on the baseline.
The transition to playing more serve and volley tennis is tricky for players coached to hone their groundstrokes from an early age. Developing a serve and volley game has to wait until players are about 14, says Courier. "Junior players can't have success with this style until they have the size to cover the court, and then they need more time to accommodate the new angles and strategy that serve and volley tennis entails."
Writing in the British newspaper The Independent this week, Nick Bolletieri, the veteran American tennis coach, blamed "pushy parents" who wanted "instant success" for their children and would not be prepared to wait three to four years longer for a serve and volleyer to mature.
In any case, it would be foolish to play serve and volley tennis today. It is not just Wimbledon that has levelled its hallowed playing fields, the US hardcourt circuit has also become progressively slower. Technological changes in rackets and strings have also made it harder for volleyers.
If they were playing today, even the great practitioners of this craft --- Stefan Edberg, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King et al --- would need wrists of steel to withstand groundstrokes hit at more than 100mph. John McEnroe, with his delicate drop volleys hit with the racket below the wrist, might never have been a champion.
A little-known Swiss with an unflattering ponytail played serve and volley for more than three hours to upset Sampras at Wimbledon in 2001. Since then, Roger Federer has found success at Wimbledon and elsewhere by playing from the baseline. The champion does serve and volley on occasion, but more as a surprise tactic.
The force with which the ball is struck today is compounded by what might be called the Luxilon effect --- the string many of the top players use to give their strokes vicious topspin. As Djokovic and Andy Roddick found in their unhappy forays to the net against Nadal on grass in London's Artois tournament two weekends ago, the heavy topspin makes the ball dip even more quickly than it did in the past. Nadal's groundstrokes and precision has turned the tables on players rushing the net; he tends to finish the point faster with a pass.
Last year's Artois tournament provided a rare showcase for arguably the last classic serve and volleyer, the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, to show off his repertoire of crisp forehand and angled backhand volleys. He beat Nadal in the quarters and lost a third-set tiebreaker to Roddick in the final. This year, he was easily defeated by the Argentine David Nalbandian on a windy Thursday, muttering to himself, complaining to the umpire and thumping his racket against the backstop.
It is a lonely business being a serve and volleyer in today's world. Mahut lost in the first round at Wimbledon this week. On Monday, two other less able serve and volleyers, the giants Ivo Karlovic and John Isner, crashed out as well.
Santana, the 1966 champion, has had the last laugh. At Wimbledon this year, Nadal is the favourite. Grass is no longer for cows --- it is tailor-made for baseliners and his countrymen are proving the chief beneficiaries.