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I remember watching Wimbledon, and a typical point would go like this: serve, return, volley. That's it. Now, the points are longer and much more interesting and exciting. I wonder what led to this change? Is it that players serve and volley less? Or did Wimbledon change their courts or the balls?
I think it's a combination of a lot of things:
1. Players are stronger and more athletic than ever, and they don't necessarily need to volley every point.
2. The racquets and strings these days allow for even more power, which translates into baseline tennis.
3. The grass at Wimbledon itself has changed a lot over the years. Patrick McEnroe was talking about when he played (early 90's I believe) how you basically had to throw the ball against the ground to bounce it back up just to serve. He compared that to today and said that you can basically just drop the ball and it will come back up to hip height. Now I'm sure he is exaggerating somewhat, but they do use different seeds nowadays.
Yeah, players now are so much better and stronger and have much improved equipment. This makes repeated serving and volleying a very bad idea - it would almost always end in defeat. Watching the matches from the 70's is almost painfully slow for today's fans. Today's top high school players could probably beat Borg from the 70's.
It definitely is more exciting. Things are just faster and there is a wider range of player's techniques. Except the women's. It soiunds terrible to say it but it is so boring.
I believe a lot of credit needs to go to Andre Agasi. With out him the art and study for the return of serve would still be in the dark ages.
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