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June 28, 2005
Serve and volley not yet dead at Wimbledon
By Reuters
LONDON - Three exponents of the
serve-and-volley game, once thought essential to success on
Wimbledon's grass, believe reports of its demise have been
exaggerated.
Britain's Tim Henman, eliminated in the second round last
week, said he doubted a serve-and-volley specialist such as
himself would ever win Wimbledon again, blaming harder courts
and softer balls.
However, defending champion Roger Federer, equally adept
from the back or at the net, says the problem is the lack of
work put in by modern youngsters at their volleying.
"I think players do not work enough on their volleys enough these days any more. It's as simple as that. When you have an hour of practice, I think I play 40 minutes from the baseline and 10 minutes at the net and serve for 10 minutes," he said after winning his 33rd
successive match on grass this week.
"That's how the practices are now. It makes a big difference to me to know when to come into the net and I can see why you come into the net and then why not. We can cover that even though the conditions have slowed. I think it's got a lot to
do with circumstances and the way tennis has progressed.
"I think if you are brought up, especially as a
youngster, to improve your volleys and become a better volley
player then you definitely can win Wimbledon again. But the way kids are brought up these days it's almost impossible."
American Taylor Dent, who hit the hardest recorded serve in
the first week before he was eliminated by number three seed
Lleyton Hewitt on Monday, said he thought a serve-and-volleyer
could still win anywhere.
"I mean, otherwise I wouldn't be serving and volleying
anymore," he said. "Even on clay, if I'm going out there and I'm
serving well I like my chances against anybody.
"All sports go through waves. You see them mess around with
baseball. All of a sudden they're hitting 10 home runs a game.
"I just think tennis is going to go through waves. Maybe one
day they'll shrink the racquet size."
Federer and Dent were given distinguished support by nine
times Wimbledon women's singles champion Martina Navratilova.
Writing in The Guardian, Navratilova said it was time for
the volley to return.
"The players today are great at moving from side to side but
they're not coming forward," she said.
"That's something the new generation needs. They need to
experiment more. Everyone hits great groundstrokes now, they've
pushed that as far as they can."
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