Wimbledon Grass Petition

[Insider]

Hello all,

I think it would be in the best interests of Indian tennis if we all signed this petition to speed up the Wimbledon courts!

http://www.petitiononline.com/fastgras/petition.html

[gbelday]

I've tried to look up to see if any of the "traditional" grass court players complained about the speed but haven't found any articles.  The traditional claycourters must be certainly happy but I haven't seem many protests from the non-clay courters.  Wimbledon may have done this so as not to alienate the european players (remember Lendl's "grass is for cows" comment?). 

[Kumar]

The main problem is not the speed.. but the bounce.. The bounce on wimbledon courts is much more truer nowadays and bouncing much higher than usual... hence the baseliners can play all day from the baseline without worrying about the bounce. 

[PKBasu]

Thanks, Insider, for bringing that petition to our attention. I have signed it.

Wimbledon has made a terrible error by making such a huge effort to make its courts play like clay or hard courts. The whole point of the Slams is that each one requires different skills to succeed. Tennis was originally meant to be played on grass courts ("lawn tennis"), and it is ludicrous that even Wimbledon is trying to get away from that fact.

[Rajiv]

thanks insider
already signed the petition and pray next year common sense prevails and we donot get to see another unadultrated claycouter like nadal or nadal himself dominating the tournament.

[S_K_S]

The BBC used hawkeye to measure the difference between the speed at which the ball was getting to the receiver as far as Federer was concerned. The conclusion was that the surface was 8mph slower this year when compared to 2003.

If I can be the devil's advocate is the slowness really a bad thing? I mean haven't we just seen the greatest match ever on the "slow" surface?

[suresh]

I wonder if Lendl would have won a Wimbledon title on this surface.

[Prashant]

I don't know about Lendl, but Agassi would have won more, and Ivanisevic wouldn't have won any...

[Marcel]

I don't think it is necessary to change anything. There will always be player who like Wimbledon better than the French Open for example. It requires the player's talent to adapt to the new ground, but that's just my opinion.