Wimpledon Redux 2011 – The End of the Short Game Part 2

Today’s version of Wimbledon, “Wimpledon” or “Wimpy” is a side to side sport with little movement up or down towards the net.  In basketball we have the 3 pointer, the slam dunk and the mid range jumper.  In football the short yardage run, the trap play, mid-range passing games and the long bomb.  In baseball the singles hitter, hit and run plays, suicide squeezes and the long ball.  In tennis, we have side to side movement and not much else.

Changing the Rules to Pump up Tennis has Failed!

As stale tennis goes, “Wimpy” is heads above anyone else.  Not certain what it wanted to be, in 2001 after a 5 set final between Goran Ivanisevic and Patrick Rafter, featuring 40 aces or about 1 every two games.  (You can re-watch that match here) The powers that be feared that the power service game would take over the last major fast surface tournament on the tour.   The tourney directors killed what made Wimbledon unique and turned it into just another tourney.  First they accepted the 32 seed draw approach which reduced upsets of the top seeds then they slowed down the surface in an effort to reduce aces and the power game.  As Greg Garber of ESPN explained, “Once, grass was the fastest surface in tennis. But after Goran Ivanisevic and Patrick Rafter turned the 2001 final into an ace-fest, Wimbledon slowed things down. The original mix was 70 percent rye grass and 30 percent creeping red fescue, but now it is 100 percent rye. Because rye sits up higher than fescue, the greater friction slows the ball down. Plus, players say, the balls are bigger today than they’ve ever been. The result is a higher bounce than before”  The consequences were immediate.  Wimpledon’s ratings plummeted by a million viewers and has not reached the heights of the 2001 finals since as documented by Nielsen.

This year you wear red and I’ll wear blue. 

 Next year I’ll wear red and you wear blue. 

Wimpy’s final has featured the first seed against the second seed in seven of the last eight years.   In several cases one year’s final is replayed the next.  Americans, faced with the same match they saw the year before with the same predictable result, turned off their televisions.  Ratings have sunk for Wimpy from an all time high of more than 8 million people watching the Bjorn Borg vs John McEnroe match in 1981 to less than 2 million people watching last year’s Rafael Nadal win.  Percentage wise, more than 4 percent of Americans watched pro tennis in 1980 versue less than 1% today.  One third the variety and more predictability equals less than one third the fans.  Tennis is in the dumpster, in the ESPN universe it is behind high school sports and soccer but narrowly maintains its advantage over mixed martial arts and poker.   ESPN has just acquired the rights for all US broadcasts of Wimpy for $40 million annually, or about  a 30% discount from the US Open.

They Might be Giants

Besides the predictability factor the game has suffered the unintended advent of giants which makes it far less accessible to the average fan.  As you remember, the court was changed to slow the ball down and stop giant tennis players hurling aces at each other.  However, slowing the court down assisted the giants as the ball popped up and they no longer had to bend down to hit balls.   In the 30 years before the change in surfaces, a dozen players over 6’4” reached the last 16 at Wimbledon (Philippoussis, Safin, Stich, Todd Martin,Rosset,  Rusedski and Krajicek), all were serve and volleyers.  Since the rules changed 10 years ago, a dozen people over 6’4” (Karlovic, Safin, Popp, Del Potro, Rusedski, Krajicek, Philippoussis, Querrey, Soderling, Ancic, Cilic, Berdych, etc) have more frequently reached the round of 16.  Outside of Karlovic, none of the new players are true serve and volleyers.

The “Isner-angle”

Slowing down the surface has had almost no effect on the number of aces as giant tennis players don’t need velocity to hit the ace.  Instead they hit angle serves as Jon Isner displayed when he hit 113 aces in 100 service games in last years record-setting Wimpy match for duration against Nicholas Mahut .   Mahut hit 103 aces.  There were a total of 216 aces in a total of 188 games or more than an ace a game.  So much for effectiveness in stopping the big serve.

We call the new service angle , the “Isner-angle” for a serve that could not be hit consistently in tennis in the past without the advent of the new tennis giants and new racquet technology.  The serve lands on the sideline but about 1 to 2 feet before the service line.  It is unreturnable since a player would have to run 5-6 steps to catch a ball going on average 120 mph.  If a player moves over to get the ”Isner-angle”, then Isner types can easily serve the ball down the middle.  Watch this video of Isner’s serve.  After his jump, he is well inside the baseline hitting the ball about 2 feet in front of it from a fully extended height between 10-11 feet.

Since there is no variety or chance of upset in the game, and since 7 of the last 8 finals have been between the first and second seed, a tennis viewer need ask two questions.  Who is playing?  Didn’t I see that last year?  In it’s utter predictability, American tennis viewership is near dead.

Tennis Viewership is On Life Support, Change the Rules

Like a 12 steps program, Wimpledon must admit its failure and fix the surface and big server problem to restore the game to it’s prior grandeur.  Look at other pro sports.  When Wilt Chamberlain was too big for basketball they changed the rules specifically for him, they widened the lane and initiated the 3 second rule.  In baseball when too many home runs were being hit, they raised the pitcher’s mound.

In this case it is easy to restore 3 surfaces of varying speed and eliminate the “Isner-angle”.  Though Andy Roddick has the fastest serve in tennis, he has proven beatable at the majors due to his lack of variety in the serve.  Likewise he gives away where his serve is going well in advance with a non-disguised lean in one direction or the other.  So the issue is the big guys and in particular, the “Isner-angle”.  The existing solution to the “Isner-angle” doesn’t work.  Isner and the other giants on the tour continue to hit the angle serve.

The rules change have not eliminated the ace for the small percent of men who hit angles, but it has slowed down the surface for 100% of the people who play at Wimpy as well as the US Open.  This has killed the short and mid tennis game, as baseliners take out anyone who dares to rush the net as approach shots bounce higher and slower than ever.  The big serve has not turned out to be the threat perceived by pro tennis management, but the “Isner-angle” has brought in an era of giant angle servers who win on every surface as the ball bounces up so they can take massive swings at it.  Also a legion of long range only tennis players have arisen, few different from the other in style of play but clogging the game so no new names can move in to popularize the sport.  As of this writing only one teenager is in the ATP top 100 rankings.

Our solution is to make “Isner-angle” serves illegal by drawing a box or line that eliminates the angle.   Who would be impacted?  Only a handful of giant players who are on the tour purely because of their ability to hit angle serves and have a foot and half serving advantage when including arm length over a 6 foot tall opponent.  Add another 1 to 2 feet advantage with a jump serve and giants have a 2-3 foot advantage on angles vs a 6 foot tall player.  Of those giants, only a small percent of their serves would be impacted while making the overall matches more competitive and adding to the diversity of the game.

But how do you call points where the lines are altered?  It is very easy to use shot spot to call these points and to have a wire into linesemen’s ears that tells them where the ball landed.  If the concern is over short balls, a second linesman can be setup directly across the umpire in a high chair to cover short balls on that side.

How does tennis manage this wrinkle in the game?  The same way the NBA or NFL does.  Every year they have a meeting and would decide what angle of  serves should be allowed.  It’s Wimpledon’s choice to revive tennis or not.

Wimpledon and the Inflated Tennis Era

Fans at the 1980’s Wimbledon tennis finals between Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker would wonder what they’re watching if they entered a “hot tub time machine” and saw the 2010 semifinals.  2001 rule changes by tennis corporate rule makers diluted the value of a Slam victory and inflated the likely number of wins for any all time great.  Wimbledon court was slowed the same year to align better with the other surfaces all but removing the serve and volleyer from contention in the game.  Wimbledon has become “Wimp”ledon.

In 2000, tennis was faced with the loss of their “Greatest Open Era Generation”.  Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Stefan Edberg, and the aging Sampras, Agassi and Gustavo Kuerten were all heading to the tennis court in the sky.  They were also the “Greatest Marque Generation” with championship level players from high net worth countries besides the U.S. including Germany, Sweden, France, a well-liked player of East Asian descent and a great South American champion.

Sponsors and Slams revolted as the brand dissipated.    Independently controlled Slams wanted to seed by surface and sponsors were concerned about the relative no-names or surface specialists  (read “unbranded players”) who could pull an upset in an early round and ruin attendance and tv viewership for later rounds.  Unable to bridge the discrepancy between relative talent on different surfaces corporate tennis decided to save the brand moving to the 32 seed (A32) approach which limited all the Grand Slams with the exception of Wimbledon from seeding by surface.  A32 reduced risk and the number of tough matches a top ranked player would play in succession saving them only for the later rounds.  Like McGwire and Sosa in baseball’s home run era, by inflating statistics, in this case the number of times the top players reached later rounds and finals, they could market the brand and hide underlying problems in the game while satisfying sponsors.  Like baseball, this resulted in smashing hard won tennis records and metrics as high seeds win more slams than ever due to A32.  Tennis corporatist’s stewardship of the game’s integrity is questionable with A32.  When considering their disastrous PEDs testing program after 25 years of scandal or inability to develop metrics to measure tennis athleticism across eras it is awful.

A32 business decisions impacted the game’s integrity with intended and unintended consequences that were many and immediate.   Besides minimizing surface specialist challenges, older champs in decline would typically fall into the 17-32 unseeded rankings slots but now had no “puncher’s” chance to knock off younger, high seeds in earlier rounds when they were well-rested.  This would then open up the draw for a deep run into a tournament and for new contenders to emerge.  Falling out of the top 32 for a tennis Pantheonist was equivalent to retirement as almost every all-time great has fallen out of the top 100 within a year of falling out of the top 32 rankings.

A concrete example of this was Federer’s US Open victory over a 35 year old Agassi in 2005 after Agassi had already played 3 consecutive 5 setters the prior 6 days, the finals played on one day’s rest.    It was a triumph of a player in his prime against one with an expired warranty and more than 1,000 pro matches under his belt.  Agassi’s prior match record to Federer before turning 33 was 3-0 including a shellacking at the US Open where Federer won 7 games.  Low-seeded Sampras faced a similar uphill battle in decline, losing to Hewitt in 2001 after performing a Slam Triple defeating the last 2 players to beat him at the Open, Rafter and Safin (the year before, he beat Hewitt).

Meanwhile Federer (82%) has an almost identical winning record against a weaker non-slam field to Sampras after 874 matches.  He has played about 55% as many slam winners as Sampras and played 30% the matches against tennis Pantheonists than Sampras and less than 20% the matches than Connors and Lendl.  Simply put, Federer won slams in an era with a dearth of challengers in a system favoring champions.

The “Slam Triple” is a metric we’ve created that marks when a player in a slam defeats 3 prior slam winners in a row, typically to reach the finals or win the tournament.  A32 has decimated this metric.  12 times on fast surfaces between 1973 and 2001 a player had to defeat 3 slam winners in a row to either win a slam or get to the finals.  Sampras did it 3 times.  It is another measure of the difficulty of a tennis tournament.  Post A32, no fast surface slam winner has beaten 3 slam winners consecutively to win or reach the finals of a slam.  Federer had a chance in 2009 but instead lost his 3^rd consecutive slam final on a 3rd surface to Nadal in Australia.

In addition, since A32, the top seed  has not won Roland Garros which speaks to the spurious use of seeding by ranking across surfaces.  When incorporating the slam triple for clay courts, we find multiple occurrences by Pantheon players as Ivan Lendl did it in 1984, Jim Courier did it twice to win his two French Opens in 1991 and 1992 and Rafael Nadal did it to win the 2007 Roland Garros.  Between the 1990 US Open and 1993 Wimbledon the slam triple was accomplished 7 times (in those 12 tournaments) by 5 different Pantheon players.  Clearly the most competitive era in tennis.  Thomas Muster and Yevgeny Kafelnikov won slam triples later in 1995 and 1997.

Wimbledon’s decision to slow down the surface and balls with A32 eliminated some of the power player’s advantage as seen by the contrast in the serve and volley slugfest of 2001 with dozens of net approaches by both players and 40 aces to the 2002 baseline tournament with 7 aces in total and few jaunts to the net.  Tennis commentators and former pro serve and volleyers:  Paul Annacone, John McEnroe and Darren Cahill, all commented on how balls no longer skid, they popped up while match after match saw multiple lengthy baseline rallies.

Commentators  blame racquet technology, but racquet technology doesn’t alter physics much when a ball skids 6 inches high.  The biggest change is most players are hitting down on the ball at a height equal to or over the net height which favors the groundstroker.  Indeed, no serve and volleyers made it to 2010’s quarterfinals.   Federer averaged net approaches on less than 15% of his total points in the tournament before elimination, averaging a measly 118 mph first serve for the tournament (well below some of Sampras 125 mph average service speed in many matches).

Wimbledon used to see the days of a hard charging Boris Becker, John McEnroe or Pat Cash coming to the net at all costs to avoid the balls skidding bounce.   Frequently the players would hit the ground before the ball, as grass tennis was a crazy form of hockey and rugby.  It wasn’t unusual for players to face off blasting volleys a few feet from each other.  You are lucky to see players get within a court length of each other in a match today and Nadal who frequently plays 10-20 feet behind the baseline remains the best all court player left in the draw.  Today’s tennis is like a basketball game where players only shoot 3 pointers.  What about using the rest of the court?  When this happened in the NBA threatening to ruin the game, they changed the rules.

Another consequence has been the advent of serving giants like Ivo Karlovic, John Isner, Tomas Berdych and Sam Querrey.  Though tennis has slowed the ball, the geometry of the game has made it easier for big men who can serve at greater angles and speed as the balls now pop up at stroke level for taller players rather than forcing them to bend to hit skidding balls.  In 2001 3 seeds were 6’4” or taller.  This year there were 10 such seeded players prior to Ivo Karlovic dropping out of the tournament.   Only Berdych, a baseliner made it to the semifinals.  Gone is the “serve and volleyer”, now we have the ”serve and rallyer”.

Other consequences are what to do as favorites begin downward progressions.  Federer is at the age where Sampras saw marked decline and has lost in successive slam quarterfinals.  Nadal at 24 is closing on the age where Borg retired (25) and is the same age when Wilander won his last slam.  Unless Nadal dramatically changes his game to reduce wear and tear and reliance on backcourt movement, it is likely that tennis will see substantial changing of the guard within the next 2 years.  And then what for the tennis brand as A32 starves its young talent of wide open draws?  Next, a framework for determining all time greats.

Unexpected Consequences of A32 Era
*		No First Seed Wins Roland Garros in 8 years.
*		Serve and Volleyers become Serve and Rallyers – Wimpledon
*		Slam Triple, Eradicated
*		Diminished New Branding Possibilities (What to do as Federer winds down and Nadal reaches 26, old age for 2 handers)
*		Super-Sized Players
*		Greater Difficulty for Older Champions to Win Tournaments