Wimbledon grass makes some players feel ‘bad at tennis’

Three-time Grand Slam tournament finalist Casper Ruud took a non-traditional approach to preparing for Wimbledon, widely regarded as the most prestigious tennis tournament.

It included attending more concerts with his favorite singer, The Weeknd, than playing actual tennis matches on grass.

It is not surprising that Liam Broady, a 29-year-old journeyman from Great Britain who is ranked 142 in the world, knocked Ruud out in the second round on Thursday. Ruud, number 4 in the world, thought that was fine. “He’s a much better grass-field player than I am,” Ruud said of Broady.

There was a time when many of the best tennis players made success at Wimbledon the focus of their season, and some considered their careers incomplete unless they had won in the sport’s birthplace. Everyone from Rod Laver to Martina Navratilova has said they came to Wimbledon to connect with the sport’s roots.

Today, with the growing prominence of the other three Grand Slam tournaments and the grass season evolving into a quirky detour of about a month from the rest of the tennis calendar, many top players can’t find the time or space to enjoy being good on grass to make it a priority. If it costs them tennis immortality, so be it.

As blasphemous as it is to say, for many players, even great ones, Wimbledon has become just another Grand Slam tournament.

“I don’t know if winning Wimbledon is bigger in my opinion than winning the US Open or winning the Australian Open,” said Victoria Azarenka, the former world No. 1. “They are all very important tournaments.”

Wimbledon is partly to blame. In the early 2000s, with better racket and string technology helping players hit the ball with renewed vigor, Wimbledon began seeding its courts entirely with perennial ryegrass instead of the mix of ryegrass and red fescue it had been using. The switch made the courts more durable and yielded cleaner, higher bounces, making the surfaces look much more like a hard court than a ruddy rink.

Around the same time, the French Open made its courts harder and faster, effectively causing the extinction of the clay court specialist who won in Paris but nowhere else. Within a few years, the game at the four Grand Slam tournaments had become more similar than usual. The same players started winning almost all of them, and the accumulation of Grand Slam tournament titles over the course of a career became the dominant tennis narrative, rather than who could win that August title in front of members of the British royal family in their court box.

Still, it remains true that grass tennis is unlike any other tennis, and the All England Club still has many fans.

Among them are nearly all British players, many of whom grew up chasing tennis balls on grass at their local clubs, and Novak Djokovic, now regarded as the greatest player of the Open Era, which began in 1968. He marks the beginning of his tennis career. living watching Wimbledon on television as a little boy. Frances Tiafoe and Sebastian Korda, both top Americans, said they wish the turf season was longer because it suited their style and was pure.

Bob Bryan, the U.S. Davis Cup captain and winner of four Wimbledon doubles titles, said nothing was more goosebumps than walking through the wrought-iron gates of the All England Club.

“It’s the holy grail of the sport,” said Bryan. “There’s nothing like it.”

Yes, but damn grass – that classic surface that used to be the venue for three of the four Grand Slam tournaments – has all but disappeared from the sport.

Daniil Medvedev from Russia said he had always loved Wimbledon – the flowers, all perfect in color and in just the right place; the food; the luxury dressing rooms. But then you have to play on grass, which can make even the best feel like they are bad at tennis.

“You lose, you go crazy,” Medvedev said. “You’re like, ‘No, I played so bad.'”

Stefanos Tsitsipas spent much of the interregnum between the French Open and Wimbledon posting to social media from luxurious venues with his new “soulmate,” Paula Badosa of Spain, a star of the women’s tour, instead of practicing on grass.

He said a win on clay, especially at the French Open, left him feeling rough and dirty and spent in the best way. On grass, he said, it can feel clean and a little empty, though he looked far from it on that Friday after beating Andy Murray, one of the game’s greatest grass-court players, on Center Court.

There is another problem for men. Djokovic has been so good here for so long, winning the last four Wimbledon men’s singles titles, seven overall and 31 consecutive matches – that the rest of the field sometimes comes into play, what’s the point?

“It looks like he’s getting better,” said Lorenzo Musetti, the up-and-coming Italian who only recently started winning on grass – somewhat to his surprise. He said he struggled there because he could stand anywhere else and whale away on the ball. At Wimbledon, even with the new grass, the ball remains low enough to allow players to essentially squat for three hours using their feet and their calf and thigh muscles to power their movements, like ski racers descending a slope. That may be one of the reasons Djokovic excels – he was an excellent skier before going all-in on tennis – and many tall players can’t handle the demands of grass.

Women struggle too. Iga Swiatek – the world No. 1, who has never progressed past the fourth round at Wimbledon – said her deep runs at the French Open, which she won over the past two years, prevented her from having enough time to rest and enough games to play to get used to the unpredictable bounces on grass. She said she had considered training on grass in the off-season in November and December, but decided that would leave her unprepared for the Australian Open in January.

“Throughout the year, I don’t really think about that,” she said of turf prep.

Alexander Davidovich Fokina, a Spaniard who is promising and dangerous on clay and hard courts, said he struggled with his confidence as soon as he stepped onto grass.

“Only very, very loudly,” he said.

Then there’s Andrey Rublev, another Russian, who described grass as a maddening, terrifying form of tennis, with short rallies and results that could seem illogical.

“You feel so confident, and then you go out on the court and man, he makes four aces, twice back, unreal – out of the blue he breaks you, and the set is over,” said Rublev. And maybe sometimes you feel super tight, like: I can’t move, I can’t put a ball in the court. And then that man makes two double faults, and the ball hits the frame of your racket and goes in, you break it, and you win a set.”

Medvedev doesn’t even think playing the preliminary grass tournaments will make much of a difference, because grass is different in Germany, the Netherlands and the different locations in England. He said the All England Club field courts played extremely fast and the stadium courts were slow.

Will he ever feel at home on the grass? After his second-round win on Friday, he said he might be getting closer.

“Maybe at the door,” he said. “Not inside, but at the door.”

As for Ruud, he said after his loss that he would keep trying, but winning Wimbledon might not be in the cards. Every time he lets loose on his deadly forehand, he feels like he’s going to tumble and get hurt by the way he lands and then have to push off to chase the next shot.

He did participate in the men’s doubles tournament, allowing him to stay on for a while before returning to clay tennis in Europe later this month.

He may have a motivation outside of tennis. The Weeknd was due to play in London this coming weekend.