Hewitt, Cuevas, Bautista Agut, Halep, Petkovic Win ATP/WTA Titles

Can anyone explain why Hewitt is so good on grass? Huge fan, love him, but don’t really understand — his game seems like the antithesis of what surface stereotypes dictate as good for grass. He’s a great ball striker, but…

July 14th, 2014 at 3:42 am

1. he has an excellent net-game/transition game. one of the best volleys.
2. he has an excellent slice backhand.
3. he has flat strokes and gains some penetration on grass and can also finish points at net easier, helping to make up for lack of big-time power.
4. first serve is good for a smaller player. can serve/volley.
5. excellent return helps to nullify servers.
6. plenty of grass experience growing up in australia and with grass court coaches. very comfortable on surface.

basically, he’s not a massive server but he has such a good transition game/slice/return and such flat strokes that his game ends up being well suited. but you can see that despite being a purer and better grass court player than jerzy/soderling/brown, he’s been taken out by these guys at wimbledon over the years.

this is because grass doesn’t truly reward ‘grass court tennis’ these days, as federer fans like to pretend. it typically rewards huge servers first and foremost, regardless of whether they have a ‘well rounded grass game’ or not.

July 14th, 2014 at 4:15 am

Congratulations to Roberto Bautista, I’m happy he beat the arrogant and rude Rosol.
And glad to see Germany beating Argentina, their supporters are so arrogant too… you know the joke, “there aren’t earthquakes in Argentina because not even the earth put up with them” :) only a joke

July 14th, 2014 at 4:52 am

Karlovic seems to be in the twilight of his career. When he’s mentioned it’s usually his serve and his size that get the attention, but just as important now is the fact that, at 35, he’s older than Hewitt, and indeed older than most.

Hewitt probably enjoys beating him, remembering that shock first-round upset at Wimbledon in 2003.

I see Ivo’s daughter was born in September 2011. I wonder how tall she’ll be.

July 14th, 2014 at 5:05 am

I can agree with the rest but not with this:

“6. plenty of grass experience growing up in australia and with grass court coaches. very comfortable on surface.”

You obviously don’t live in Aussiland, grass courts are long gone, they are history. Tony Roche had to built one for Ivan Lendl outside Sydney so he could practice to win Wimbledon, it didn’t work, he never won one. Sydney didn’t have one, even few years ago when Australia played Swiss in DC, they had to build temporary one on Royal Golf Course (most upmarket golf course in the country) in order to play Roger and Stan on grass. That didn’t work either, they lost.
More trivia, Lendl hired Roche to help him win Wimbledon and Roger hired Roche (2005-2007) to help him win FO:)

July 14th, 2014 at 6:19 am

Hewitt so good, congratulations. Double Man. ☺

July 14th, 2014 at 6:43 am

I live in Australia and there 9 grass courts just down the road. So clearly not dead everywhere. Maybe just in the big cities.

July 14th, 2014 at 8:29 am

@Tmd,
Thanks for that, I do travel a lot and I haven’t seen them, obviously I wasn’t looking hard enough.
Do we have any grass court tournament, I don’t think so? The question is, how many players are practicing on grass courts if big cities are where they live and practice? When ever I checked Tomic’s, Hewitt’s, Matosevic’s and all other male and female players it was on HC and sometimes on CC, big cities have them, there is seven CC in Melbourne park next to Rod Laver arena but no grass courts.

July 14th, 2014 at 9:33 am

^^ I was wrong, there is 8 CCs in Melbourne park, have a look at this article and video, they invested almost 400 million dollars in this project but no one single grass court:

http://www.tennisworld.net.au/about/our-venues/melbourne-park/

July 14th, 2014 at 10:13 am

I’m happy he beat the arrogant and rude Rosol.
—
Rosol is a bad man. He tipped over my water bottles. Unpardonable crime that deserves 5 year ban and”re-education”.

July 15th, 2014 at 4:21 pm

I don’t buy into that. Then RG surface is unfair to players also. It favors Rafel Nadal. As well as grass then favors Roger Federer. They have merit, no?
—
Skeeze,

Hope all is well. You sound like me, no?

#recoveringskeeze#

July 15th, 2014 at 4:29 pm

Interesting, Roy. Thanks.

July 16th, 2014 at 12:38 pm