Followers of tennis know that the big servers and serve-and-volley type players have an advantage at Wimbledon. Wimbledon has grass courts, which are supposed very fast; i.e. the ball bounces faster off of these courts than hard or clays courts.
Is this the case with all grass courts, or just particular to Wimbledon?
Also, why would grass courts be faster than hard courts? Wouldn’t the grass and soil absorb some of the speed of the ball like a clay court does?
Before somebody who knows what they are talking about answers…
I think it is because balls bounce less on grass. Less of the ball’s energy is converted to bounce so it slows down less. Something like that.
It would be the case with all grass courts, not just Wimbledon. The grass gives the tennis ball a low bounce and because of this, the players usually use short strokes without much preparation, so the tennis is much quicker and the rallies shorter.
I’ve been playing on my neighbors clay court a whole bunch recently and it has definitely taken some getting used to. The mental game comes much more into play as you try and position the ball and your opponent. It is much easier on my knees though.
Never played on grass, but it makes sense that the amount of “give” in the surface would be reflected in less bounce.
Correct. Hardcourts are faster than grass, but the ball bounces higher. (There are different kinds of hard courts, and they give different kinds of speed and bounce.) On grass, the advantage to the hard servers is that they can slug the hell out of the ball and it won’t bounce very high. That can keep the returning player from hitting a good shot.
I imagine you could design a hardcourt to give less bounce than grass, but the advantage to servers is not specific to Wimbledon. If you watch Wimbledon from start to finish, you see that the grass around the baseline (especially in the middle) gets really chewed up, and then it starts to play more like a hard court because the grass is dead.
I imagine it does, to an extent - just to a smaller degree than clay does. Clay gives higher bounces and slows the ball down, which is why a big serve doesn’t give you much of an advantage on that surface.
Yeah, nice, isn’t it?
The fastest service now being used on the pro circuit is carpet.
A generation or two ago, some matches were played on wood, which could have been even faster.
The footing is better on hard services than grass and the bounce is more predictable, so even if they were actually the same speed, grass might seem faster.
There are great variations on the “speed” of hard services and they can be made to play nearly as slow than clay or as fast than grass.
LOL - surface not service.