How Tennis Has Evolved in the Last Two Decades: Part I

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: December 6, 2010

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As 2010 draws to a close, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how tennis has changed from the 1990s to today in terms of technology and strategy.

If you take a simplistic view (many people do including certain sections of the media), then you can say the 1990s was the decade of the big serve and the 2000s was the decade of the big ground strokes and staying away from net.

It’s a bit more complex than that, but the change in technology and surfaces has meant tennis is now a different game than 15 years ago, and even 10 years ago.  Tennis was a more diverse game with different styles of play in the top 10 with the surfaces varying quite a lot throughout the year.

Throughout the 1990s the top 10 revolved around Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Stefan Edberg, Michael Chang, Patrick Rafter, Richard Krajicek, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Gustavo Kuerten, Alex Corretja, Sergei Brugera, Michael Stich, Marcelo Rios, Tim Henman, Goran Ivanisevic, Thomas Muster and Carlos Moya.

The 1990s was the era of fast grass, indoor carpet, rebound ace, medium-paced hard courts and slow red clay.  The top reflected that there was a lot of diversity in styles of play with the battle lines very much drawn between attackers and baseliners. However, during this particular era, it was the all court players who gravitated towards attacking net play.

There was also the attempt to slow the game down as early as 1994 when the Wimbledon final was contested on a very hot day between Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic, which had zero rallies and serves consistently between 125–135 mph.  I remember back in 1995 there were reports that Wimbledon had changed the composition of the grass to slow down the game.  

During that period, the Australian Open was played on rather slow high bouncing rebound ace, which was introduced in 1988 and definitely hel...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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