The slowing down of certain surfaces is hardly a new issue. For the past ten years, Wimbledon and other grass tournaments have all taken steps to reduce the speed of their courts. The ATP and WTA recognized the All England Club’s steps to slow down their treasured grass courts and followed suit, annexing the carpet surface to nothing but a memory of a distant past. None of the organizations have ever given a concrete reason for the dramatic change we have seen over the years and it has been left up to the masses to speculate
And it comes as no surprise that Novak Djokovic’s spectacular year – arguably one of the best and most consistent seasons in history – has come in 2011 as most major surfaces have become almost identical.
http://tennis.si.com/2011/11/10/the-tos ... =tn_bf2_a6
I definitely share your enthusiasm for baseline tennis and the positives that the slower courts bring. I can’t deny that, for me, the most uninteresting style of play is that of the tall, big servers who knock down aces at will. Thanks to racket technology in the last decade, the influence of that style on the ATP Tour in particular would be immeasurable had no action been taken. Thus, I accept that the governing bodies of tennis had to make some changes to the courts.
However, I can’t help but feel that without variety, tennis ceases to be tennis. I can’t think of another major sport that caters to so many different matchups and styles of play, with conditions that differ so dramatically from week to week and month to month. Golf may be tennis’ lone companion in this regard, but it obviously doesn’t have the same head-to-head format of tennis.
