RealGM

Thought this was interesting.

http://www.slatev.com/video/could-today ... -win-wood/

I'm having trouble viewing the video. What do the pros have to say on this one?

It's with Leander Paes & Murphy Jensen

Various comments from them:
-Much less able to use spin, forced to hit flat
-More able to "feel", resulting in greater touch & control, "more forgiving"
-Less power, but not as bad as you'd think. Paes only lost 5 mph on his serve with wooden racket and felt like he had much more control.

Their predictions about other players:
-Roddick & Nadal would struggle, Federer would do better (assuming peers also used wooden rackets)

Nothing mind-blowing, but it's fun to see the analysis from some pros. It's been 20+ years since I used a wooden racket, so it's really hard for me to even remember the difference.

Doctor MJ wrote:It's with Leander Paes & Murphy Jensen

Various comments from them:
-Much less able to use spin, forced to hit flat
-More able to "feel", resulting in greater touch & control, "more forgiving"
-Less power, but not as bad as you'd think. Paes only lost 5 mph on his serve with wooden racket and felt like he had much more control.

Their predictions about other players:
-Roddick & Nadal would struggle, Federer would do better (assuming peers also used wooden rackets)

Thanks. That all makes perfect sense.

Knowing Leander Paes, he's not much of a good server at all so his 5 mph loss could not be a very good indicative of the racket's speed.

He's had back problems all his career and he doesn't nearly put the same effort into the serve like a Roddick would do.

j-far wrote:Knowing Leander Paes, he's not much of a good server at all so his 5 mph loss could not be a very good indicative of the racket's speed.

He's had back problems all his career and he doesn't nearly put the same effort into the serve like a Roddick would do.

Ha, true. Modern technology allows 140+ MPH serves, and we saw Wimbledon domination by servers at their peak in the 90s where the serves were 120-ish. Seems pretty safe to say that for the biggest of servers, they are gaining a lot more than 5 MPH.

Doctor MJ wrote:It's with Leander Paes & Murphy Jensen

Various comments from them:
-Much less able to use spin, forced to hit flat
-More able to "feel", resulting in greater touch & control, "more forgiving"
-Less power, but not as bad as you'd think. Paes only lost 5 mph on his serve with wooden racket and felt like he had much more control.

Their predictions about other players:
-Roddick & Nadal would struggle, Federer would do better (assuming peers also used wooden rackets)

Nothing mind-blowing, but it's fun to see the analysis from some pros. It's been 20+ years since I used a wooden racket, so it's really hard for me to even remember the difference.

What about the other way around? does that mean Borg would have been a greater player now than he was at the time?

Ong_dynasty wrote:What about the other way around? does that mean Borg would have been a greater player now than he was at the time?

I wish they'd done that analysis too. Apart from the kind of obvious conclusion that Pancho Gonzales would have done really well in the 90s, I'd hate to really think it through before making such predictions.