Why Federer-Nadal Era Is Evidence of Tennis’ Continued Evolution

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: December 8, 2014

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Tennis fans like to discuss the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal era. It’s easy to proclaim it as a Golden Era, because of unprecedented records and superstar accomplishments. Young or recently converted fans have watched this unfold front and center, and it’s an easier kind of living history than trying to remember the past or take an historian’s approach to the maddening comparisons and conditions of previous decades.

However, part of the approach to understanding the modern game is to study the past eras, its legendary players and the various styles that evolved tennis into the sport it is now. The 1960s’ star Rocket Rod Laver was a completely different kind of player than we see now, yet he was instrumental in how tennis has evolved.

As Laver and his sport evolved into the Open era in 1968, professionalism continued to improve the quality of tennis, expand into deeper fields of players, and produce champions with bigger and greater skills from one generation to the next. This is not to say that a past legend was not better for his time, or that he would not play differently in 2014 than in 1968, but there is no question that the sport’s quality has increased.



 

Removing a Couple of Fallacies

An associate of mine made a comment that tennis now is not so radically different than 10-15 years ago because Federer is more dominant now than he was in 2002. Let’s take this line of thinking and start earlier from one era to the next in a madcap debate of anti-Darwinism tennis.

Ken Rosewall, who had one of the longest and most successful careers in tennis history, was winning Grand Slam titles in 1953 and as late as 1970. Therefore, the quality of play in the early 1970s was not substantially different than it was in the early 1950s.

Jimmy Connors, coming off his dominant 1974 season, was humbled a year later by the likes of 1960s veterans Jo...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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