Part 1.1: The Slowing Of The Court

A quick(ish) addition to address court speed and how it fits into this equation.

It is true that in general the courts are slower than they used to be. This is especially prevalent at Wimbledon, where they’ve changed the blend of grass as well as kept it short to allow a higher, slower bounce. We’ve seen a definitive shift on the grass courts in the past decade. In fact, Jim Fawcette over at http://www.fawcette.net/ posted this excellent video in an article he wrote about court speeds. This isn’t an endorsement of the content of his post (some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t) but I do wish to give credit where credit is due.

However this shift skews the perception of just how much slower courts in general have become. While it is true that hard courts on the pro tour are slower than they were 15 years ago, we don’t seem to have any meaningful measurement that gives us concrete numbers. Why that is is a topic of discussion for another post, but let’s get down to business:

Does slower courts really mark the death of serve and volley tennis? The short answer, is no.

Why not? Here is a short run-down of why slower and higher-bouncing courts are not the death-knell of serve and volley tennis.

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