Mark Nixon · @markalannixon
15th Jan 2018 from TwitLonger
Marc Rosset: By numerous measures adopted to favour the best players, tennis leadership has shot itself in the foot. https://www.letemps.ch/sport/2018/01/13/marc-rosset-latp-vient-se-voir-presenter-laddition?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=article
In preparing this column, I dived into various specialised web sites. I wanted to see if there were statistics that could explain the current carnage in men's tennis. First of all, I tried to discover the number of career matches played by the very top players in history, and it's always around 1000 matches, for a McEnroe as well as for an Edberg, Sampras or Nadal. Then I looked, unsuccessfully, for the number of winners hit by those players to see if there was a correlation between playing style and injuries. I did, however, find a stat on the average length of the matches: 1 hr 33 min for Sampras, 1:50 for Nadal, and 1:55 for Stan Wawrinka.
I finally searched my memories: I remember that my buddy Evgueni Kafelnikov played like a crazy person, played more than 1000 matches at 1:56 on an average, played back-to-back singles and doubles, and ended his career without any serious injuries.
In brief, nothing conclusive. So I'm sticking with the opinion I've had for many years: surface uniformity, slower courts and the increased protection of the top seeds (16 to 32) have ended up with the emergence of a generation of four or five players who won everything and, especially, never rested. They're now paying the price.
There's something that's been forgotten: in my era, thirty-somethings were pushed out by the younger. Today, the slowing of the courts has made tennis more physical and the newcomers don't have big enough "tanks" to stay with the best for five sets. We see it with Alexander Zverev, who wins Masters 1000's - which means he has the game - but withers in best-of-fives.
I've been fighting against this tendency, which was adopted to satisfy the tournament organisers who all wanted Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray in the semi-finals. Would Nadal have won Wimbledon if they hadn't slowed the grass? Would Federer have won eight times if they'd done it a few years earlier? These will remain unanswered questions, but those decision have deeply changed tennis.
The official story is that those players were "The Big Four", "The Fantastic Four" or a generation of extra-terrestrials. I remember a discussion a few years ago on BBC radio. A guy from the ATP was saying that, and I said no, it wasn't true. The best proof was Stan. We knew him as a kid and, so sorry, but he wasn't an extra-terrestrial. He built himself up through the years, especially physically. He was one of the only ones.
Today, the ATP is being presented with the bill for its short term vision. Those who were winning are all injured, and there aren't many players behind them. Goffin, Dimitrov, Raonic, Thiem are all very good players but they're already 25-26 years old, and that's not an age where you become a big star. Borg, McEnroe, Becker, Sampres, Nadal all won their first Slams at 18 or 20.
The present conditions don't allow it, and we end up with a US Open with an Arthur Ashe Stadium half empty for an Anderson-Carreño Busta semi-final which interests no one. I was at the London Tour Finals, and Jack Sock was walking around with his kit bag and no one recognised him. Because by only seeing the same four people, they've become disinterested in the rest. But an Andy Murray, whom I personally adore, is his game objectively attractive? By dint of seeing him, we've learned to know and appreciate it, but new players don't have that chance. With the return to 16 seeds forcast for 2019, and the NextGen tournament in Milan, the ATP seems to have understood the problem.