September 2, 2008
Return of Serve (and Volley)?
By Aron Pilhofer
It's been six years since Pete Sampras played the U.S. Open, and with his retirement went the last vestige of a tennis style that dominated the sport for decades: the serve-and-volley.
Since then, the men's game has been ruled by hard-hitting baseliners who treat the terrain north of the service line like a demilitarized zone: to be entered infrequently and only as a last resort. None of the players ranked at the top of the game serve and volley as anything but a surprise tactic. Even Roger Federer, who grew up idolizing serve-and-volleyers like Sampras and Boris Becker, has become almost exclusively a baseline player recently.
But this year, this lost art may be seeing just a bit of a resurgence here. Though no one keeps statistics on serve-and-volley points specifically, Leo Levin, head statistician for I.B.M. and the U.S. Open, said he's seen it too.
"I think so. There is a slight upward trend up this year," he said. As to why that is, Levin isn't sure. Perhaps the courts are playing a little faster than usual, or perhaps it's just a one-year blip. But more players this year are following their serves into net, and finding success when doing so.
Take American journeyman Mardy Fish, who has never made it past the second round here. He served-and-volleyed his way into the quarterfinals, coming to net 69 times --- including a McEnroe-like 41 advances in the first set alone --- to upset No. 32 Gael Monfils in three relatively routine sets.
After the match, Fish said his attacking strategy was the only way he saw to win against a grinder like Monfils.
"He wants to keep the points as long as possible and run the guys down. I don't intend to let him do that," he said. "I'm going to try to keep the points as short as possible."
In the second round, Frenchman Michael Llodra came to net 97 times and nearly took the sixth best player in the world, Andy Murray, to five sets. Australian Chris Guccione pushed the 28th-seeded Radek Stepanek to four sets behind his big serve and steady volleys, approaching the net 65 times over four sets.
The trend has even reached the junior ranks this year: American qualifier Devin Britton, one of the very few top juniors who plays a serve-and-volley game, upset No. 2 Bernard Tomic yesterday in three sets. Britton was able to nullify Tomic's superior power throughout the match by coming to net and forcing him to rush his shots.
"I think it gives me a little advantage," he said after the match. "Some people don't like to play serve-and-volleyers, like today."
No one believes this suggests a return to the attacking style of Rosewall, McEnroe, Rafter or Sampras again, even those who play like them. Players these days return too well, and hit the ball too hard to employ the serve and volley 100 percent of the time, Britton said.
Nick Bollettieri, the coach who practically invented the power baseline game, is even more blunt: "No, it's not coming back. It's a different game now."
And Levin agrees. The difference between now and even when Sampras was at the top of the game, he said, is that the players now all grew up hitting the ball with the current high-technology rackets, not wood frames. Top players just one generation ago had to learn to use these powerful new weapons, whereas the current crop had them from the day they first stepped on a tennis court.
The biggest change this has had on the men's game is not, surprisingly, the serve. The best servers even with wood rackets could top 130 m.p.h., Levin said. The new technology allows players to return even the hardest serves with pace, accuracy and control, something you could not do with a wood frame.
"As a serve-and-volleyer, you used to try to force your opponent to return your serve to a certain area of the court. You can't do that anymore," Levin said. "Players can be completely out of position and hit screaming returns anywhere on the court because the rackets are so light and so powerful."
But, as a "change of pace" strategy, or against certain opponents, the serve-and-volley can be effective, he said, and that might explain what we're seeing this year. For fans tired of seeing players firing artillery shots back and forth for hours on end, a change of pace is welcome indeed.