When Roger Federer Ended the Serve & Volley Era

[@damiannieman2870]

This conclusion is all wrong. First - Tim, while a great S&V player by 2000s standards - was never at the level of a McEnroe, Edberg, Becker, Rafter or Sampras. Second - you actually can see what really killed S&V tennis in these clips - the slowing of the courts the bigger heavier balls and the use of poly in combination with these changes. Tim beat Roger on the courts at Paris and Rotterdam with S&V - both courts that are crazy fast compared to any courts today but were considered normal indoor court speed at that time but would not even be considered fast by 80s and 90s standards. Indian Wells on the other hand are the SLOWEST courts on tour. Specifically made surface for the high desert that it literally like playing on heavy grit sandpaper. I've played on those courts many times. Roger didn't kill S&V - far from it. He was actually a very good S&V player in the style of Sampras (who Roger grew up emulating). No - the court speeds is what killed S&V. This slower speed gave the players time to react and to start to really take advantage of the poly strings with bigger loopy swings that just weren't possible on low bouncing fast courts. Roger's genius was in his ability to transform his game to be whatever he needed to win - to make himself the best attacking all court player to take advantage of the changing court speeds and tech.

[@raylopez99]

Sounds plausible, tho I wouldn't know as chess, not tennis, is my game.

[@choco1101]

There was a time in the 90s, when some had the opinion that Women’s Tennis was more entertaining, not because the women were better, but because of how clunky the fast pace two-and-done the men’s game was. Also because Agassi was “hero” and he was losing quite a bit to “boring” Sampras 😂

[@swampy1234]

"slowing of the courts" doesn't happen from polyester strings and heavier balls. Unless you're implying a different make up of the surfaces?

[@damiannieman2870]

@@swampy1234 I'm not implying that the court surfaces were changed dramatically- its a well known fact. From the late 90s to the early 2000s courts were drastically changed in their makeup. Wimbledon changed the entire court surfaces - harder ground to make a higher bounce and they changed the type of grass mix they used as well to make it slower. The tennis higher ups were worried that tennis was becoming boring with just big serve and one put away volley etc. So Wimbledon changed the grass between the 2001 Championships and 2002 season. Result - the finals were Ivanisevic/Rafter in 2001 before the grass change - and Hewitt/Nalbandian 2002 after the change. Hewitt won the title from the baseline. Never happened before. All courts were slowed down. Much more sand in the topcoat mix for hard courts. Indoor carpet disappeared. Rebound Ace soon followed. All the courts became incredibly slow and similar in play with much higher bounce and much harder to hit through the court. This combined with poly and the larger, heavier balls with much more fluff and you end up with long drawn out rallies with baseline based players that has become the norm.

[@chdori117]

​​@@damiannieman2870 I believe that Wimbledon changed the grass surface in 2001 from the old Red Fescue to the current Rye Grass mix with the intention of having a surface that would hold up better and not become torn apart by the end of the tournament. I do agree that the ATP made a deliberate choice to slow down tournament surfaces in the early 2000s, the changing of the grass at Wimbledon had an unintentional effect of creating a higher and slower bounce in 2002 that stumped a lot of players and led the the upsets that were seen that year. I don't think it was initially the intention to slow down the grass surface as much as it did, but since it has got slower and slower over the years I think the LTA just ran with it as the rest of the tour did. Also Agassi won Wimbledon from the baseline in 1992, which was an amazing achievement considering how fast the surface was, and who he beat to do it (Becker, resurgent McEnroe and Ivanisevic)

[@gratler]

title is kind of ironic considering Federer himself was one of the last top players to have S&V in his Arsenal.

[@henrypacquette1489]

Click bait😅😅😅 and Roger never beat Patrick Rafter

[@TheSupinesmokey]

@@henrypacquette1489 True but he beat Sampras

[@tennisfan599]

He was always a baseliner. He started the era of endless baseline rallies. He couldn't win wimbledon until the speed was green clay.

[@victorlu5399]

@@tennisfan599 no if you compared with baseliners nowadays. Federer is like in the middle. I think he should be considered as one of the transformers of the game.

[@redwoodtrees7068]

@@tennisfan599 lol no.

[@kevinf9822]

I never saw Henman play until seeing this. He had some serious game.

[@grospipo20]

Crap i am old

[@teluguserialactress7163]

😂😂​@@grospipo20

[@nikhilisgreat]

Only drawback in his game was his English choker mentality

[@cregenda]

@@grospipo20 came here to say the same 😂

[@williamstuartmitchell5480]

To get to the top 10 in the world you need to be playing at an elite level. You don’t get the full understanding of that from watching on TV. I was lucky enough to ball boy for 4 years and saw the talent level up close. So I agree that Tim was extremely talented.

[@leebrandt8597]

It wasn't Federer who ended the serve and volley game, it was the ATP officials when they decided to make all the courts slower. It was kind of ironic that it was a serve and volley player who defeated Federer at Wimbledon in 2013

[@agnetha7110]

ty sir

[@troybender1936]

Murray is not a serve and volley player, he's actually more of a pusher

[@areewitoelar448]

@@troybender1936i think op was referring to who beat Roger in 2013, a second round upset

[@MonkeyDao9]

🎯Yes this, slower courts, coupled with the advantages of the modern ground strokes creating passing angles.

[@varunsuresh22]

I miss these commentators.. they had a classier way of saying things than some of the commentary I hear these days.

[@MikeFloutier]

“Oh I say!”…”My word!” 🎾🍾❤️

[@altruism8637]

MUCH more classy commentating...they were very well read and very charismatic and wise, experienced.

[@cantwealljustgetalong2]

unfortunately the tennis channel ruined commentators

[@Ak-lv6xw]

Very much so , Australia had its share of tennis coverage

[@heardithere1]

Yea like Tim Henman!

[@giacomograndi5527]

Henman was a fantastic serve and volley and net player witha lot of talent. So sad that in these day there's no one player that plays at the net constantly....

[@gyrmik8294]

it's almost impossible to do only serve and volley! The returns nowadays are 10 times faster!!!

[@lsb9073]

Cressey does. As did Mischa Zverev

[@dylan.dog1]

now it's impossible to do all the time, the court speed it's slower to encourage more rallies, so the returns speed are faster....in that time with the serve speed of today tennis every point would have been a serve and volley...and the court speed It is also the cause of the decline of one handed backhands players in fact now there are only 2 player in the top 20 with one handed backhand

[@pacifist1360]

Djokovic comes to net a lot still. Alcaraz has a really nice net game.

[@dylan.dog1]

@@pacifist1360 djokovic rarely comes to the net and usually make errors on net because it's not his game style now that is more "old" comes more frequently on net to short rallies but he has to improve his net skill

[@aca8638]

I just love serve and volley! Henman was great at S&V!

[@antburman]

Beautiful Indian Wells match thank you.

[@ssake1_IAL_Research]

Thank you for sorting through all this historical footage and coming up with excellent choices.

[@carniedph]

Nice that this shows some sick Henman plays 👌💪

[@tshavfengvang7831]

Tim Heinman was a classic of gunning down opponents with S&V. It was a perfect weapon against RF. This was probably the only time RF lost control of his game and cool on the court.

[@robertd9965]

Nope, not the only time. There was at least one match against Djokovic in which Roger also completely lost his cool and smashed a racket. It was indeed a rare occurrence, though :)

[@vinny6_9]

"This was probably the only time RF lost control of his game and cool on the court." LMAO you've never watched his early matches, i take it

[@thegreatNEb]

@@robertd9965 That match vs Djokovic was in Miami 2009. However young Roger was always having tantrums and throwing rackets around :D

[@sooperman12]

What killed the serve and volley wavy Federer. It was the slowing down of courts and the change in the ball.

[@nedot]

He would be a wonderful serve&volley player but they changed the conditions of the game...surfaces and balls. So he adapted his game...this is what happened.

[@Ak-lv6xw]

Yes, nothing like what the title suggests

[@pukulu]

Federer decided to take the ball early against the net rushing Henman. It worked. Federer was still developing his style, staying on the baseline to handle net rushers and rushing the net himself selectively against certain shots and certain players..

[@sleepyjoe8394]

This channel is pure cultic delusion. Federer did not end the S&V era. It was ended by changes in court speed and racket technology in 2002-2003 which made S&V obsolete. Federer enormously benefited from this change and opportunistically capitalized on it before the field was able to adjust (also benefiting from the lack of great players besides old Agassi from 2003-2007).

[@AaravYadav-em5tj]

Like Djokovic benefitted in 2018-23 😅

[@sleepyjoe8394]

@ he benefited by breaking Federer in the 2019 Wimbledon final (the latter had doubled championship point in the fifth set). Federer played the best tennis of his life in Wimbledon 2019. “Peak” Federer would not even be top 10 in 2018-2023 you deluded cultist. 😂

[@stevenmajor1796]

@sleepyjoe8394 Federer ended 2018 number 3 in the world … tempting to call you a cultic cultivar of cultaciousness, but instead I’ll just suggest that you try some breathing exercises and maybe don’t watch KZbin channels that make you such an emotional culty McCultFace

[@stephenn4034]

​@sleepyjoe8394 Federer was world no 1 in 2018. Apart from that you were spot on.

[@sleepyjoe8394]

@ yeah because Djokovic was injured. That changed real quick as soon as Djokovic recovered. Fed revealed himself, as usual, to be nothing but an opportunist.

[@giansaccount]

Great video Raz!

[@RazOls]

🙏

[@goldencalf5144]

It was polyester strings, not Federer who ended serve and volley tennis.

[@docstranger9520]

What was it about poly strings that neutralised S and V? The power you could get from the baseline while still getting the ball in?

[@goldencalf5144]

@docstranger9520 Polyester strings slide across each other as the ball is struck and then snap back to impart a lot of topspin on the ball. This combined with the higher dynamic stiffness allows players to swing as hard as they like at the ball and still hit it in. In fact, the harder you swing, the more topspin you get. The extra topspin causes the ball to dip sharply, so returners can hit higher over the net and still have the ball dipping at the server's feet. Gustavo Kuerten was one of the first pros to use poly strings and used it to win the French Open as an unseeded player. Agassi referred to Luxilon poly strings as Cheatalon after trying it for the first time.

[@Ak-lv6xw]

@@goldencalf5144then everyone was a top spin baseline player, overnight ; and others weren’t so special anymore

[@goldencalf5144]

@@Ak-lv6xw Yes and the preferred combo for attack went from serve and volley to serve plus one. And the return of serve arguably became a more important shot than the serve.

[@chdori117]

​@@docstranger9520Yeah pretty much. Poly made passing shots and return of serve a lot easier for baseliners to punish S&V players if they did not hit the perfect serve, approach shot and volley. By the early 2000s younger baselines who adopted poly strings like Hewitt were passing excellent volleyers like Sampras and Henman with ease at the net even on faster surfaces like grass and indoor carpet.

[@nocode61]

Roger Federer is, in my opinion, the greatest tennis player of all time. However, he did not single-handedly end the serve-and-volley era. He defeated Tim Henman, a solid volleyer but someone who never won any major titles, when Henman was just 1-2 years away from retirement. It was the slowing down of surfaces and changes to the tennis ball that truly marked the end of the serve-and-volley era, which began to take place around early 2000. These changes made it more difficult for big servers to dominate, but they also contributed to the decline of serve-and-volley players, who were already rare breeds in modern tennis.

[@JoppJoll]

Mistcha Zverev was the last S&V player.

[@junbermas4208]

He is not the goat, sorry

[@Soundwave-Renaissance]

The changes in string technology killed it more.

[@chdori117]

​@@JoppJollGillies Muller, Ivo Karlovic and Dustin Brown were also Serve and Volleyers active around the same time as Mischa Zverev. Maximum Cressy also plays a serve and Volley game currently

[@blu1806]

Spotty Fed. but always a pleasure to watch. thank you Raz

[@emanuel82]

Stefan Edberg and Pete Sampras where two of the best serve and volley ever.

[@uncletony6210]

Going in, Rog was 1 and 6 vs Henman. after that, and including this match, Roger won their next FIFTEEN sets, only one of which required a 7 to win.

[@jasonjansen9831]

Title doesn't really make sense considering Fed was actually a very good S&V guy

[@youngjinno695]

The team's volleying skills were among the best in the world, but the strokes required to easily finish with volleys were slightly below Federer's level. It is considered that the issue was the lack of a strong forehand and backhand to effectively finish with volleys.

[@Marekxxk]

Actually he did not end the SV era but the change in surfaces did. And that time the only great volleyer was past-his-prime Henman who was never a great champion. He didnt have the champion’s mind, he didnt have a real weapon in his game.

[@GustavoFranzetti]

Extraño ese tenis la verdad, era hermoso ver jugar a Tim, te atosigaba yendo a la red, y tenía unas voleas increíbles, de las mejores. Los Wimbledon en esa época eran de lo mejor.

[@Folkstone1957]

There is no “serve & volley” era. This is a silly tittle for a video.

[@Dreamdancer11]

The slowing of the courts ended the Serve and volley era....not a single player...

[@boctok76]

On a fast 90s court, with light balls and with a primitive tennis racket a prime Djokovic would have absolutely no chance against a prime Sampras.

[@raylopez99]

In the first and only live tennis match I ever saw, I saw Sampras win in LA when he was unknown. Good times. I recall he was a 'baseline' player I believe it's called, stand back and blast the ball using your height leverage advantage. Tennis is not my game btw, chess is.

[@chdori117]

​@@raylopez99That's right, he even had a two handed backhand at one point that he dropped before he went professional, which explains why he never developed a stronger one handed backhand.

[@dewman7477]

Especially on Wimbledon in the 90s, no one is returning Sampras serve and even if they somehow do, it’s followed by a driving forehand or volley and bounces low too. Sampras’ second serve is even lethal too. I mean Djokovic and Nadal and even Federer are lucky they benefitted from the change

[@jollymolly2521]

As much as I love my GOAT - saying Roger ended the S&V era is ridiculous. S&V had been on the decline for nearly a decade at this point and pretty much ended when Sampras retired in 2001. Guys like Courier, Rios, Muster, Agassi, Hewitt, Moya, Safin, Kuerten, Kafelnikov, etc, did all the hard work. By the time Roger started dominating in 2004 there were only a handful of top 50 guys who still played a majority S&V game. Henman, Phillipoussis, and Ivanisevic were probably the last ones to see the writing on the wall. Then again, they didn't have many options because their ground games were shizz.

[@warriorson7979]

Tim Henman was the original Andy Murray...😌😏

[@RavlR]

It's October two thousand and FREE 👏🏻

[@francescovalente1963]

Beautyful game, beautyful players: elegant attacking tennis, one hand backhand. I am sorry but today's players don't give the same vibes

[@andrewgreener]

Blame the tennis administrators, not the players for bringing an end to 'serve and volley'. The decision was taken to extend the length of points.

[@ליהלי-צ8נ]

The one and only

[@Mr-pt3yl]

Simply the goat... Roger

[@RealisticAndTrue]

Henman had a front row seat for Federer transformation from a promising talent to Greatest Player of All Time. All he could do was put a smile in 2006. For those who watched tennis back then know what im talking about 😎

[@wassamhashmi]

Are you talking about that backhand winner from Roger ..US open 2006

[@RealisticAndTrue]

@wassamhashmi First front tweener, then putting it away with laser backhand 😎. All the man could do was smile for being the part of legendary moment. That tweener he did... he didnt even let the ball bounce... crazy

[@wassamhashmi]

@@RealisticAndTrueyup i remember that buddy .. yes crazy indeed

[@RealisticAndTrue]

@@wassamhashmi Yea... Roger Federer... 2004-2008... everything he did back then was crazy

[@keatingaaron]

And then along came Novak.

[@TomBonham-l3z]

Henman was a seriously good player!

[@padshardbank]

I'm halfway through the video and I still don't know what a serve and volley is, or how Federer ended it

[@joemarshall4226]

Both Henman and Pat Rafter had winning records against Henman. Sampras played Fed once, when he was past his prime, in the fifth set at Wimbledon. It was Djokovic, Nadal, and Murray who really gave the serve and volleyer a tough tim, although Ivo Karlovic, the last of the S and V breed, had a winning record over the joker, and came within two points of beating Rafa in straight sets.

[@RodrigoCampos-t1n]

Kuerten and Hewitt had already did the job, guys.

[@MichaelLu8]

Fed didn’t end it in this match. That game style faded away by itself

[@touching_infiniti]

Three grunts in a row from Fed @ 4:00. He was absolutely DIALED in this one!! Great upload Raz. Cheers from Texas 🤙

[@RazOls]

Federer wanted revenge! Never lost to Henman again 😊 thanks man! Merry Christmas

[@touching_infiniti]

@@RazOls And a happy new year 😄

[@ProfessorOfClips]

he understands it now

[@AgataCorsaro-s7z]

Great. Roger so misses on courte 💞

[@HarkoretoDaBone-nf7ff]

why are things in the past always better?

[@paulofrantz3697]

Not alone!

[@stevep4384]

It was not so much Federer as changes made in tennis around 2002; an layer of felt added to the balls, slower surfaces, new grass at Wimbledon that makes the ball bounce up higher.. Add in the evolving changes in rackets and strings at the time. Plus players improved their passing shots.

[@MrVoodemar]

I've recently watched their Paris '03 meeting, Federer was applaying more S&V than Henman

[@ChriChri-f7v]

He just ended Henman but Fed was S&V!!!!!

[@Alvysingereragiàpreso]

Why did they play at the best of 3 in a master series final in 2004? I knew all of them were at the best of 5 at that time, but now I checked and discovered that also Cincinnati and Canada Open finals were played at the best of 3 that year.

[@rebecalinares5393]

Not at all; it was that they ordered to change the speed of the courts, and with the polyester strings and the more powerful raquets it became impossible to serve & volley. Federer would have won 40 Grand Slams if conditions would have stayed the same. Nadal would have won 10 maybe, all just French Opens. This is why its impossible to compare the players : Federer would the best fast court player ever. (2000 - 2007 conditions) Djokovic would be the best semi - fast court player ever. (2007 - 2024 conditions) Sampras would be the best super - fast court player ever (1880 - 2000 conditions) but we have to consider that super fast were the courts since the lawn tennis origins, in the late 19th century, all through the first years of this century. For more than 120 years, super fast was the sport. Thats how tennis was played, thats how the tradition started and evolved through time. Tennis grew and became popular all over the world as a SV game, in super fast court conditions. Tennis must get back to that.

[@raylopez99]

Clay courts anyone? I dunno, chess, not tennis, is my game.

[@divicospower9112]

And Novak would not have won any Wimbledon in the 1990'.

[@rebecalinares5393]

@divicospower9112 probably not, who knows, possibly 1. If Agassi did, Novak could have also.

[@dewman7477]

@@rebecalinares5393maybe 1 or 2 but not 7 like he has now. Nadal would have 0 I think. Maybe Federer can challenge Sampras on 90s grass as his serve is amazing but Sampras takes it close like 7 Wimbledon titles to 6 or something for Federer

[@rebecalinares5393]

@@dewman7477 In the nineties, Federer and Sampras would have shared the Wimbledon glory yes.The same as Becker /Edberg, Cash and McEnroe shared it in the 1980s.

[@qb0]

Federer did not end S&V era. The change of the balls did, by slowering the games.

[@robertsullivan6246]

Same thing happened to Sampras towards the end of his career. The pace of the ground strokes became too fast for S&V to be as effective.

[@astrahcat1212]

Henman also could play some hard hitting baseline tennis if he chose to

[@pauldavey422]

Henman sometimes practiced at a club i worked at, i watched a few times hit. his serve & forehand was really heavy & his volley was a joke. Just never came over the backhand enough, the slice was excellent but he could get bullied in the bhand corner, a bit like tsitipas

[@raylopez99]

Wikipedia: "Highest ranking No. 4 (8 July 2002)" - you have very high standards my friend, lol. Age adjusted I'm sure he could beat most serious tennis players his age even today.

[@ChakkravutChinalai]

One does not simply end serve and volley. I'd like to see McEnroe prime or Sampras prime adapt to modern tennis

[@MalekAhmed-kz3zu]

It was Hewitt who puts an end to the serve & volley era by defeating Sampras in the 2001 US Open final so easily, 7-6, 6-1, 6-1

[@MichaelMartin-lv6fs]

Serve and volley is great to watch. Never ending rallies not so much.

[@mdr8615]

Luxalon polyester strings ended the s&v game. The added topspin makes the balls drop below the net, almost impossible to volley. Look up the masters' final between Sampras and Kuerten as proof.

[@JoppJoll]

Federer knows it clearly that future tennis is all about baseline. That's why he ended S&V.

[@felixy23]

weak era champ Djokovic couldn't survive in this surface

[@DanielCaskey-k4y]

Least Fed wasnt in the form to compete if he beat Stako but then again my friends thought Fed was done early wimbledon 2016. Yeah he choked to Raonic, but even on one leg he was a threat for the title. He'd have beaten Andy I say, especially after 2015 SF.

[@huzcer]

Henman owned Federer 6-1. Then federer vultured 30+ Henman in his dotage to scrape it 7-6.

[@RazOls]

So you mean there’s a certain age advantage that younger players have over way older players? Interesting, because certain fan bases refuse to acknowledge that.

[@strojzabelu]

@huzcer, are you insinuating that Henman was a better player than Federer 😂😂

[@87crimson]

Kinda like Djokovic did to Federer right?

[@ВиталийЦаль-ч7я]

So what? There are certain h2h's between players that depend on certain factors. For instance, Davydenko is 6-5 against prime Nadal, yet he is 2-19 against prime Roger, how is that?

[@huzcer]

@@RazOls 😂 Fedthards fell for it hook, line and sinker.

[@mtklaric]

what a dumb video....Sampras, Henman, Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Rafter, Edberg, Becker would demolish todays pushers....

[@johnrenehan7406]

Here here

[@geza1014]

I’m a fan of old school tennis but that was the most ignorant comment on KZbin. Clueless even

[@ivantriebriemen0]

A likely story

[@dostufph]

The courts becoming slower killed serve and volley

[@nbaclassicsish]

What did Fed do in that game he won vs the other two he lost that was different? Thanks for the content but you cannot just provide a clickbait title like that without actually explaining what Fed did differently.

[@moonpoon69gg71]

I think Federer just had trouble against serve volley in general. My favourite player is Pat Rafter and he’s 3-0 on Fed. Tough for Federer to dictate in the rallies he’s much less comfortable for sure

[@lszujo]

it was slow hardcourt though...Agassi had success against Pete in Indian Wells

[@teluguserialactress7163]

This Indian Wells court was slow as hell. Henman outperformed Federer in RG 2004.

[@willm3539]

Henman looks like the sort of person to find a cheap way to win. hahaha

[@austinbond2527]

Sorry, Hewitt ended the serve and volley era when he destroyed Sampras at USO 2001

[@lethor9203]

Tim isn't even playing S&V full-out, only in a minority of his serves, so Roger wasn't killing it in this match. The reason was the slowing of the courts, one of the worst decisions in tennis. Roger did well by adapting from S&V to baseline tennis, but he wasn't the one killing it - definitely not in this match.

[@guyvernon9796]

Nadal beat federer at Miami the week after . How mad is that .

[@derrick031072]

And then the ATP decided to slow the courts and balls… Longer rallies, better for tv viewers… commercials… In short better for business.

[@zedalive4764]

it wasn't fed. ATP and ITF ended it with their 'heavy duty' tournament balls and slower surfaces

[@TKKT-e6i]

Henman was not an out and out serve and volleyer.

[@aligboyakasha]

a bit of a weird jump in conclusions here. obviously tim would have more success on indoors than outdoors

[@jansnauwaert1785]

Federer didn't end that era. Henman was simply not the best S&Ver (although good).

[@niceguy1774]

Thank God this archaic, overly serve-dependant style was forced into extinction by the very next generation, who immediately eclipsed every record S&Vs best player ever had. Several times over. Serve and volley fans probably thought Sampras would be in the GOAT discussion for a decade or more. Whoops!

[@tennisfan599]

Federer brought in the boring baseline play of today. He couldn't win wimbledon until it was as slow as clay.

[@pauljohnson6019]

Mr 40-15.😂

[@khinrunite]

As soon as I see this I knew there'd be "that guy" in the comments who would go on about how "Henman got old". Damn Roger just doesn't deserve all the achievements he had, does he? 😂 Opponents too old for him to claim glory, yet the same couldn't be applied to him. What a laugh 😂

[@cakecrook3311]

What a terrible conclusion to draw from this match

[@nemanjamilosevic1370]

Tennis is so much better because S&V ended.

[@divicospower9112]

Not at all. Djokovic/Nadal is the stupidest/most boring thing to watch. That's why I ended watching tennis. This sport is dead now.

[@PlayMoreGolf-RipOff]

Dildo trophy

[@Lecia-lithium]

If only fed hand wavrinka backhand he would have 27slams

[@87crimson]

Wawrinka backhand swing was too long to be good in grass a d fast courts. Kinda like Kuerten.

[@Lecia-lithium]

@87crimson fed lost at least 5 slams from his weak driven backhand. His slice is the goat though

[@conilmionomecripto]

I use to be the classic guy who live in the past remembering these old fights like the best tennis ever, as I see now and compare for today Sinner or Alcaraz or still djokovic, i clearly see that 20 years ago top players were way weaker than today. It’s a fact.

[@andrewgreener]

​@@Lecia-lithiumI would say Fed lost a few grand slam finals against Rafa and Novak as they had the mental edge over him. Definitely Wimbledon 2008 (Rafa) and 2019 (Novak).

[@andrewgreener]

​@@conilmionomecriptoIt's very hard to make that call because the equipment is so different. How would Alcarz, Novak and Alcaraz cope without the powerful strings and with a faster tennis ball?