WTA 500 Doha 2/13 - 2/18 2023

[ashkor87]

Lol at Coco being a “dim prospect” and not liking “slow courts.” I still maintain court speed on anything other than clay is arbitrary and meaningless.

Btw I didn't say Coco was a dim prospect, I said the fact that courts are all slow make it a dim prospect for her. I have nothing against Coco! I do have serious concerns about everyone making courts lower..injuries will increase, and we will be robbed of variety..

[ashkor87]

Am very impressed with JPeg here. Beat two very diffrent kinds of players, on a court that doesn't really suit her..awesome addptability

[Suliso]

An excellent tournament for Pegula. Sakkari is not an easy opponent on this kind of court. Garcia couldn't break her at all, but Pegula could 8x!

[ponchi101]

Strange score. Very up and down.
My GF showed me a video of Sakkari training in the gym. By now, I have an idea about her. She is indeed an incredible physical person; the level of intensity in the training is off the scale. But somehow, it has not translated into dominance. For example, her training on her upper body is insane, yet she does not have a great serve.
So maybe: do more on court? Drop a bit the gym, extend a bit working on strokes? She is certainly playing very, very well, but there is a little something missing for her to win big titles.

[Suliso]

If one could become a great champion by being a gym rat alone this sport would be very different indeed. It helps of course, but that's not all.

[ashkor87]

Strange score. Very up and down.
My GF showed me a video of Sakkari training in the gym. By now, I have an idea about her. She is indeed an incredible physical person; the level of intensity in the training is off the scale. But somehow, it has not translated into dominance. For example, her training on her upper body is insane, yet she does not have a great serve.
So maybe: do more on court? Drop a bit the gym, extend a bit working on strokes? She is certainly playing very, very well, but there is a little something missing for her to win big titles.

I have noticed she often blows a lead for no good reason .a mental thing, I imagine .

[ashkor87]

David foster wallace String Theory chapter on Tracy Austin is relevant here..that pure Presence is necessary to win and keep winning .Sakkari may be too much of a thinker..don't know her of course, so foolish to speculate..

[ponchi101]

And it seems that, at least for Doha, we will see no evidence that your "slow court theory" is wrong. Iga just bludgeoning Veronika.
Kudermetova won 7 points in the first set. This is ugly.
(Should make Collins feel a tiny bit better).

[Suliso]

Iga not looking particularly vulnerable this week.

[ashkor87]

And it seems that, at least for Doha, we will see no evidence that your "slow court theory" is wrong. Iga just bludgeoning Veronika.
Kudermetova won 7 points in the first set. This is ugly.
(Should make Collins feel a tiny bit better).

Dont blame Bencic for leaving the battlefield either ...a tired Bencic would have been 'golden set' ted twice!!

[Deuce]

All this nonsense about the courts being 'too slow'...
If one considers ALL the factors instead of conveniently selecting only the factors which support one's position, the game is much FASTER today than it was up to the '80s and even the '90s.

Today's racquets and strings make the ball travel much faster upon impact than back then.
Today's players are fitter and stronger than the players of the past, as well.
And so, if the courts are moderately slower today than they were before the '90s, it still does not compensate fully for the increased speed of the ball travel, relative to the '80s and '90s.
The result of all of these factors is the game is significantly FASTER today than it was in the past.

[Suliso]

Both finals are #1 vs #2. That can't be very common.

[ponchi101]

So Iga is in a 500 finals after losing two games.
I know that Bencic did not walk onto the court, but that is still impressive.

Problem with the modern game: tennis has always been spectacularly inept at keeping proper stats. We could easily know if the sport is faster, slower or the same if the stats were kept. Golf, for example, has always kept track about the power of the clubs and the speed of the balls. That way, they can regulate those.
Tennis? We keep stats on service speed (those have not increased in about two decades). But nothing else is found.

[Deuce]

Well, I think that everyone would agree that the newer, larger racquets and the difference in strings - say, from the '90s onward for both - have given the players significantly increased power. This is a large reason cited for the basic elimination of serve & volley (with all due respect to Maxime Cressy)... Serve & volley didn't die because the players were suddenly more precise with their shot making - it died because of the increased power and speed of the game - players no longer have the time to get close enough to the net after serving, because the returns are coming back faster. And even if they do manage to get into a decent volleying position, it's quite difficult to handle a return being hit so hard.

Even any net play (not just s & v) has very significantly decreased since the '90s - again because of the speed with which passing shots are hit with these more powerful racquets. Not to mention that with some of today's racquets, it's also easier to hit excessive topspin. The topspin that Borg or Vilas could achieve with today's racquets would be off the charts.
And today's topspin shots travel faster through the air than the topspin of yesterday, as well.

Finally, I don't think we need statistics of ball speed to know that today's tennis is much faster than yesterday's - all one need do is to watch a clip of tennis from, say, 1985, and a clip from today. Your eyes will tell you that the difference is huge.
In the past, a pro player could get away with not being in great physical shape, because the game was considerably slower than it is today. The increased power and speed of the game since the bigger, more powerful racquets came in has forced all players to get into very good physical shape.

[ti-amie]

I think that they had to slow the courts down to accommodate the "newer" racquets. For me tennis became unwatchable for a lot of the late 90's because there was no intellect to it. It was all serve, serve, and serve with some net play thrown in for the usual giggles. Tennis for me anyway is much more watchable now.