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http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=186368

I’ve been wondering for a while now about the different court speeds and the above table pretty much sums it up. In the table the court speed is determined by the percentage of points won on serve, which I think is pretty accurate. As expected Paris is number one and is probably the only event on the list which is still conducive to serve-and-volley play. Interestingly Paris has probably been Roger’s worst Masters Series event. Last year was his best result yet where he made semis and lost to Monfils after having match points. I think it shows that he hasn’t really worked that hard on his attacking game over the years. Last year when he joined up with Annacone he started to work more on coming to the net which could be why he had his best result yet in Paris. I wish Roger gave more attention to his net game over the years.

When Wimbledon was still fast he was right up there with the best serve-and-volley players. Then as the surfaces became slower he became a base liner and his net game basically died. I think that hurt him especially against Nadal. He was too stubborn and wanted to dominate Nadal from the base line. I don’t think it was as much the slowing down of the courts that hurt him against Nadal as his stubbornness to go to the net. Now that Annacone is helping him to be more attacking it is at a pretty late stage and a lot of the damage has already been done. To get back to the table, I’m a bit surprised that Wimbledon is still in second spot. Wimbledon has been slowed down some, but I think it is mostly the height and consistency of the bounce that has changed, which have helped someone like Nadal. The surface itself still seems to be pretty fast.

Cincinnati is high up as expected. Cincy has been one of Roger’s best Masters Series events especially of late, having won it the last two years. This to me shows that he does enjoy the faster surfaces, coupled with the fact that he has done so well at Wimbledon over the years. Canada is also pretty high up, although I’m not sure if the stat is conclusive since they alternate between Toronto and Montreal. Anyway Roger has won it twice and made two finals. It’s also quite interesting to see the US Open having about average speed, but I suppose that’s more or less expected. The US Open have been slowed down along with all the other courts, but is still a surface which Roger loves to play on. Then it’s quite surprising to see a clay court event ahead of Miami, Indian Wells, and the Oz Open.

The altitude in Madrid obviously has a lot to do with it but it also shows how slow some of the hard courts have become. Indian Wells, Miami, and the Oz Open are classified as slow hard court. In Indian Wells and Miami Roger was doing really well earlier in his career, while the results have dropped off a little of late. And this year at the Oz Open he lost in straight sets to Djokovic. In that match it looked like the slower courts really got to him because he was unable to penetrate Djokovic’s defenses. Finally at the bottom of the list we have Roland Garros and Rome, which is to be expected. It is worth noting that Roger beat Djokovic on a slower court than the Oz Open when he beat him at Roland Garros this year. How could he not get through Djokovic’s defenses at the Oz Open but was able to do it at the French?

“Walking to the net, I’m certain that I’ve lose to the better man, the Everest of the generation. I pity the young players who will have to contend with him. I feel for the man who is fated to play Agassi to his Sampras. Though I don’t mention Pete by name, I have him uppermost in my mind when I tell reports: It’s real simple. Most players have weaknesses. Federer has none.”

http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=154414

Since I was ‘let go’ at my previous job and will start my tennis coaching career only on Monday, it gives me some time to make up to you for the period when I wasn’t blogging much. I found the above excerpt from Andre Agassi’s new and controversial book at Men’s Tennis Forum. It seems like the Agassi book will be a stimulating read, and hopefully I will get my hands on it soon. The quote from Agassi’s book apparently pertains to the 2005 US Open final, where Roger beat Agassi in four sets. If you read the comments of the poster who started the thread, you will see that he also refers to their meeting in 2004, where Roger won in five sets. But of course as a Sampras fan, he conveniently leaves out the fact that there was a gale force wind blowing that day, which is the ultimate equalizer.

He also says that in the 2005 final Agassi was 35 years old and that he had played three five set matches to get to the final, and still gave Roger a run for his money. But again he fails to mention that if a player gets through close matches like that, they often become very confident. It just goes to show that people will always change the facts in a subtle way to make the player they support look like the best. I don’t need to change any facts to show that Roger is better than Sampras. Anyone with half a brain can see that. And if you don’t have half a brain, then I’ll point out to you that Roger has won more grand slam titles than Sampras, as well as the career grand slam which Sampras couldn’t manage. And on top of that Roger is not finished with his career.

You will also see that this genius of a poster made the thread title so that it makes Roger look bad again. Now this post of mine is not about debunking some clueless Sampras fanboy, but the things he wrote gives me a good place to start at. Again he conveniently leaves out the fact that more than half of the meetings between Roger and Rafa have been on Rafa’s favorite surface, just because of the fact that Rafa is not good enough to make it far enough outside of clay to meet Roger on a regular basis. We saw it again this year at the US Open, where Rafa was crushed 2, 2 and 2 by Delpo in the semi’s, while Roger kept his end of the bargain again by being in the final for the sixth consecutive year. If Sampras and Agassi had met more then half of the time on clay as well, I guarantee you Agassi would have led the rivalry as well, but only five of their thirty-four matches was on clay.

The Rome Masters was an interesting event and since I haven’t blogged a lot of late I wanted to make one more post before the French Open draw comes out. There is an exciting time ahead in the tennis world and there is a lot more to be said.

I have already made it clear what I think about Djokovic’s week in Rome as well as the others for that matter. But I want to go into some more detail here because I didn’t say everything I wanted to say. A lot has been made of Djokovic’s ‘bizarre’ week in Rome.

I think there has been a certain amount of overreaction from fans. I admitted in my last post that he had a bizarre week but I also made it clear that he did what needed to be done. He could not have done any better under the circumstances.

This must be clearly understood. Someone commented on my last post that Djokovic not only had a brutal draw but he also had a tough schedule by playing at night and then having to play the final with less than 24 hours of rest during the day.

It was reminiscent of the French Open last yeat where Djokovic had to play the semis and the final over three days after the semis against Murray were delayed due to rain. It proved to be his undoing because he was not fresh enough in the final.

OK so it’s time to update this page since this it’s not Ru-an’s Federer Blog anymore but Ultimate Tennis Blog. Tennis has always been a big passion of mine. I started watching tennis at a young age. The first match I remember watching was the 1985 Wimbledon final when Becker had that historic win. I remember watching Edberg, Lendl, Wilander, Mcenroe and all those legends too. The first time I picked up an old wooden racquet was around the age of 8 years and it was love at first shot. I spent hours just hitting against the wall and acting out imaginary matches in my head. Strangely enough, I started out with a one-handed backhand. That’s right. I never had a two-handed backhand! And, in general, I tend to be a fan of one-handers

Anyway, to skip ahead a few years I tried playing some professional tournaments for a while, beat some players with ATP points, but that was as far as it went. I never had an ATP ranking myself. I don’t think I reached anything close to my full potential, but then again I probably wasn’t talented enough to make it anyway. I’ve tried some tennis coaching since but for me that love was always in playing and competing. I have however found something which I enjoy quite a lot which is writing about tennis. In the past it was more like a hobby I did on the side while I did other full-time jobs. But I didn’t find anything I was really passionate about so I want to try and make writing into something more full time.

I love following the very best in the men’s game, writing about it, and interacting with my readers. I hope you join us!