Was The Australian Open Court Faster Than Wimbledon? Roger Federer Didn’t Mind!

It’s about time they starting speeding up the courts. But…….Fed has won on the slow stuff also, so all good. Variety of speed and surface is the key…not having all slow or all fast. That’s Tennis.

February 8th, 2017 at 12:09 pm

^ I agree. Makes tennis much more interesting. And please someone do away with those awful courts that behave like glue!

February 8th, 2017 at 12:26 pm

Federer always had the advantage over Rafa on slick hard courts (4-1 at WTF) and Nadal hit so many short balls to Fed in that match especially at the end lacking energy from the Dimitrov SF to make it even less effective. Nadal let it slip away in the end.

So it worked!

February 8th, 2017 at 12:40 pm

Fraud struggled to win on every surface. It’s not Nadal’s fault that Fed needed –
– Texas Ddick
– fluke Slam finalists
– injured legends
– Safin wannabes that showed up once every 5 years to beat Fed
– old and slow clay specialists to bow down to him on their worst surfaces

February 8th, 2017 at 1:04 pm

Well Truth be told – glad he won here. And I agree: wasn’t Nadal’s fault.

February 8th, 2017 at 2:25 pm

I don’t want to belabor it, but as I understood it, the court isn’t faster, but the balls had been “designed” to be faster in warmer conditions and slower at night. I don’t know how they did it, but apparently during the day the Bernoulli effect was minimized by reducing how much the balls fluff, reducing lift, making the trajectory of shots flatter, straighter and effectively get to the point of contact quicker. However, somehow at night, the balls fluff up again, creating more lift making the trajectory of shot more parabolic and arriving at the point of contact more slowly.

February 8th, 2017 at 3:18 pm

To be honest, the Australian Open surface was a disgrace. You know that by the facts – a guy with a weak backhand was hitting winners left and right. He didn’t learn to play backhand overnight, it was the courts.

February 8th, 2017 at 9:41 pm

The AO was a disgrace? Made it to the finals and a Disgrace. Looney.
Hopefully you”ll work harder on your BH so gou can be more like Fed. Keep dreamin the 18 Fishies.

February 8th, 2017 at 11:26 pm

@ Humble Rafa,
Agree with you here. It was a disgrace that a 35 year old with a weak backhand hit double the number of backhand winners than his younger, stronger, higher ranked opponent.
What a disgrace.

February 9th, 2017 at 12:29 am

Sorry guys… but this is only crictiscing the roger that he won only because of faster courts this is not indeed correct.. but see the open era there is no other palyer who is giving such a great competition to top players even at the age of 35.And now he has won the grand slam everybody is criticscing this is not correct..
Even top guys fear facing federer .. he is god of tennis… and will remain for years

February 9th, 2017 at 7:28 am

The tournament designs the courts and selects balls so the speeds is in a certain range. The tournament director in one of the interviews a few days ago confirmed that the court plays within the designed speed range. The range specifications haven’t been altered for years.

Comparison with Wimbledon and prior years is a mute point if the speed is within the designed range.

February 9th, 2017 at 10:19 am

Tournament director Craig Tiley, quoted in Melbourne’s Herald Sun on Saturday, insisted the courts were the same speed as a year ago.

The courts were resurfaced, he said, between October and December — the show courts ahead of the outer surfaces. The timing of the resurfacing, Tiley said, may have created some subtle changes that left the players feeling the courts were faster.

“How courts work on their speed is that when you resurface them,” Tiley said, “they take a few weeks to slowly increase [speed] and then they hit a plateau and they stay in that plateau for months.”

February 9th, 2017 at 10:21 am

There should be more variance in court speeds. Too much homogenization over the past 12-15 years or so, tending toward an almost uniform medium-to-slowish court on all surfaces. Not only does it benefit certain kinds of players to the detriment of others (Especially more traditional attacking players – I don’t think we’d have seen Rafa or Djoker have success on all surfaces if courts were at speeds they were 20 years ago), but slower surfaces mean longer points, which means longer matches, which means more wear-and-tear on the body and injuries. People say the game has become too physical and demanding and something needs to be done. One way to help would be to go to faster surfaces, which allow more attacking play and shorter points. In some recent years I’ve heard people even say Roland Garros was faster than Wimbledon. That’s just crazy!

February 9th, 2017 at 5:01 pm