There’s no better place to see the evolution of grass tennis than the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. Look at the worn spots of the course in the photos and you can see the bare-played part from the baseline to the net from the 1970s until now becoming a bit greener.
Also illustrative is the dive of the Czech Jan Kodes, who triumphed in 1973 with offensive play, while Novak Djokovic won the tournament last year mainly from the baseline. “You hardly see any volleys anymore. Because there is hardly any training for it, it is also one self-fulfilling prophecy”, says former professional and tennis coach Michiel Schapers (63). He is convinced that offensive play on grass can still be rewarding.
If you take a tour of the eighteen lanes of The All England, you will see that Schapers is a voice crying in the desert. Almost everywhere the game is played backwards. The dead patches of grass are behind the baseline.
On Friday, Carlos Alcaraz was the first crowd puller on the 101-year-old Center Court, who dictated the game with hard blows against the Frenchman Alexandre Muller. The Spanish number one in the world won in three sets (6-4, 7-6 and 6-3) and never got into trouble. Neither did his compatriot Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who settled a little further on court 15 in four sets (6-1, 2-6, 6-4 and 6-3) in baseline tennis with Botic van de Zandschulp – the last Dutchman in the single game.
Schapers, who played Wimbledon eight times between 1983 and 1992, has seen grass tennis change with his own eyes. “The game on grass is completely different these days,” says Schapers, who was active this year as coach of the Dutchman Gijs Brouwer. “If you met a Spaniard or an Argentinian in the past, it felt like a good draw. They were usually real gravel specialists, who didn’t like grass much. ‘Grass is for cows’, they would say. Top players such as Albert Costa and Alex Corretja simply skipped Wimbledon in 2000. That is now unthinkable.”
The tipping point can be clearly seen on the lists of Wimbledon winners hanging at Center Court. In 2001 there was still a classic duel between two service volley specialists with Goran Ivanisevic against Patrick Rafter, but a year later Wimbledon was won by the Australian baseliner Lleyton Hewitt in a final against the Argentinian David Nalbaldian.
With the women, the American Venus Williams had meanwhile played the service volley to oblivion. Together with sister Serena, she set the tone for another type of game: the power game. Schapers: „You could say that the game has become even more one-dimensional among women than among men. With a few exceptions, you no longer see any variation at all.”
As coach of Wimbledon debutant Gijs Brouwer, Schapers tried to come up with an answer to the all-round tennis of his opponent Alexander Zverev. The German’s game is typical of the way top players achieve results today: with good serve and powerful blows as weapons. And they care less and less what kind of surface they play on. Only in exceptional cases do they go forward, to surprise the opponent. They prefer to dictate the game on hard courts, gravel and grass from the back. Sometimes even without adjusting anything.
‘Slower’ grass
According to Schapers, some top players make a fallacy by assuming that it doesn’t matter what kind of job they play on. He saw proof of this with the Norwegian Casper Ruud, who went down against the British grass tennis player Liam Broady at Wimbledon with the passive clay tennis with which he reached the final of Roland Garros last month. “After his defeat, Ruud walked to the net with a smile. You could see that it was not his favorite surface,” says Schapers. “You have to learn to love grass a bit. But not everyone succeeds.”
Schapers believes that tennis players should adapt to the grass of Wimbledon, which according to experts is much ‘slower’ than that of Halle or Den Bosch. This is because the balls have become heavier over the years and the quality of the grass has increased. In addition, weather conditions can also affect the speed of the track.
According to Schapers, the British Andy Murray and the Italian Adrian Mannarino are examples of two modern grass specialists. “As a tennis player you have to take into account that the ball moves differently through the grass than on clay or hard court. As a result, you have to play a bit more compactly and move a bit differently yourself. Get down on your knees.” Furthermore, according to Schapers, it is important that players have a good return and a sliced backhand. “You have to get into the skin of the opponent to know exactly what he is going to do.”
Schapers and Brouwer made a plan for his match against Zverev in which all these elements played a role. The coach was immediately surprised at the side that Zverev did not even reach the net during his warm-up. Although the 27-year-old Brouwer took almost every opportunity to move forward, it was not enough to upset Zverev. Schapers could look back with Brouwer on a creditable first performance, but nothing more.
The defeat was symbolic of today’s Wimbledon, where the only remaining service volley specialist, Maxime Cressy, was eliminated in four sets against Serbian Laslo Djere in the first round. According to Schapers, Cressy goes full for every serve. “That is a risk. If his service doesn’t go well like now, he has no chance.”
With his game, the French American Cressy now belongs to a dying breed that only shines in a row with former champions in the museum under the Wimbledon shop.