Why don't they just play all the tournaments on clay?

A slower hardcourt tends to favour the heavier flatter hitters. The top 4-5 are good on any surface, but expect players like Tsonga and Del Potro to benefit whereas someone like Fish might be weaker. I wish it played like Cincinnati.

I still really wish the disparity among surfaces was maintained. The US Open was the only GS that had fast courts and now it seems like that will not be true for much longer.

"It's great for tennis, but I'm not sure if it's really what the game needs."
I don't get it...? If there is point in this sentence...I don't see it!
OK...my English is rusty ( speaking French last 9 years, since living in Geneva) but still... hmmmm...?

I thought the same thing, Zare...um...what is Federer talking about? :D

I think what he means is that it's good for the spectators that are there watching the tennis, i.e. longer rallies make for more interesting viewing. But in the long run, it's not good for the sport for all surfaces to be made too similar to each other.

^^ That is exactly what he meant. But I'd love to see big servers and big hitters reaping rewards too, can make for exciting viewing - e.g. Roddick vs Murray Wimbledon 2009. Slowing down surfaces just takes certain types of players out of the equation.

Federer is contradicting himself, he says it's good for tennis but it will turn people away. We are seeing the same reaction after Rafa won Wimbledon, all of a sudden Wimbledon was slower - Not.

I know what he means... "Game is me"...just replace "game" with "me" and you will gat real Fed's message... lol...

...or he simply has forgotten notes, that Mirka prepared for him...
hmmmm...I am feeling nasty today :)

His uncle doesn't prepare notes for him unlike......

novak has been asked the same question during his presser (niland match) and he replied that his feeling was that the court played the same like last year.

Of course the courts play exactly the same as last year...does anyone think that under the economic crisis in the US the organizers were investing additional moneys to slower the courts?! Why in Earth would they want to do so? The truth is: the courts are the same just Maestro feels a bit slower himself...:)

The commentators were stating that the organisations had resurfaced the courts and now they are a little more grainier which contributes to its slowing down. I got the impressionm that they were suggesting that perhaps the US Open had gotten the mix wrong, but this issue has been discussed.

As for you natashao (above post)............lol!!!

definitely he is right as the courts are playing slower and he is also right that its not good for the game but it is good for andy murray and djokovic and wimbledon was also slower actually tennis is growing as a sport and people want competition unpredictibleness so beforehand federer and nadal won everything but now djokovic and murray has more chances but djokovic has lifted his game as well and slower surface will favour nadal as well and federer is calling the point because it is to his disadvantage but he is right in which us open have we seen this much breaks..........................

well federer has won 16 majors and all other top hundred have collectively 14 so i think people should give some respect to the man who is responsible more than anyone to lift the sport till this level and all those people who speak one or two languages can never know this i know six languages so i can tell you atleast that you cannot speak all with fluency

Federer speaks his mind and here they go... the usual suspects. Complaining and bitching about TMF. STFU
The two biggest crybabys in tennis complaining about the long and winding road are Novak and RAFA. So when Federer makes a stand on the courts and hoiw they play he is entitled to that. And yes tennis as supposed in the matches themself should be great fun. But Tennis in as a sport needs more variaty. If you do not understand what he meant then that is really heartbreaking. Buit I think there is more to it when it comes to critice Fed. You just try to make him say things he clearly did not.

".".... dot.... You heard of it? ...or maybe ","

"two biggest crybabys".... LOL... when Exfed's possessed fan is speaking about crying that's really tragicomic.... rofl....
...and STFU you!

Listen Bitches,
The Courts are def SLOWER!
Let's see what they can make of it....
Semper Fi!

^^^^^^ Thanks Murray fan for stating the truth.....that others won't admit.

The USO is s definitely much slower. I can't remember exactly when PMac spoke about the slowness, but it was discussed. Also, the cold, night air, makes it difficult for the serve to be effective and the groundies to be driven through the court. As I write this, i'm watching Roddick play and it's obvious that the court is playing slower tonight.

Sienna, don't sweat the small stuff. I agree with you, that there should be variety in the GS surfaces and speed. I also think the MS should have the same variety. If everything is slowed down then tennis will become extremely boring. Some fans don't want to see serve and FH winners, they want to see long, grinding rallies. I personally, can't stand the long rallies. anything over 15 strokes, is boring, but that's just my opinion, and I believe, I'm entitled to it.

Well the Masters 1000 series already have the variety of surfaces: IW/Miami -slow; Canada/Shanghai-medium; Cincy- fast; Paris-very fast indoor; WTF- medium indoor. Madrid-very fast clay; Rome-fast clay; Monte Carlo/RG - medium clay. ( the old Hamburg Masters and now a 500 event was on slow clay).

I think they have slowed down the AO hard court, quicken up the RG clay court, slowed down the Wimbledon grass court. As to the exact timing of the changes, I've no idea, I just understand that Wimbledon was being slowed down since 2002, well before Fedal's time at the top of the game and both of them won Wimbledon on the slowed down surface. I think the weather this year does play a part in affecting the surface conditions at the USO. I do notice there are many long rallies, in that Murray/Somdev and the Roddick/Russell match(es).

I like natashao's idea that Fed may be feeling that the surface is slow because of his own 'slowness'. Ha ha!

Fed would be feeling that the surface was fast if his "slowness" was the cause :P

Anyway, the courts at Flushing have definitely gotten slower, Wimbledon was made slower and truer in 2001 (so you could say Fed benefitted too), the Australian is slightly faster although the major change is that its a lot easier to move on the new surface since 2008, and the courts at the FO seem to have gotten faster over the years, although this is mere speculation on my part.

Points to one thing: the surfaces are getting homogenous and so is the game. To me, that is not a good thing.

Before Fed Fans get too Paranoid about the court speed.
Keep in mind that the court  has been slowed probably due to an incorrect mix up of the resurfacing paint, not some grand plan from the ATP illuminati.
It should also get faster as the paint wears and the tournament progresses.
Unlike Wimbledon CC that got even slower & played almost like a clay court @ the end...

well i am not a fed fan but if a man who has won the whole thing 5 times should know the court better then the one posting on this site that"s for sure

Well the Masters 1000 series already have the variety of surfaces: IW/Miami -slow; Canada/Shanghai-medium; Cincy- fast; Paris-very fast indoor....

The Paris Indoor Court are hilarious, as they are lightening fast & SO much faster than everywhere else,
Most of the players were initially completely out of sorts and all over the place, like a plethora of Bambis on ice!
Even Fed to some extent.
M Bear resorted to S V in order to cope & it's a shame that other tournaments are not forcing players to come up with a wider variety of solutions nowadays....

^^ Its funny, Paris used to be one of the slower surfaces in the 90s. I remember watching the entire tournament in 1997, when the commentators were going on about how it was slower, the balls were heavier there and how the ball sat up.

Btw, ATP illuminati? :P Hilarious.

@sampracilla

Really?

The past is a 'foreign land where they do things differently' as they say...

lol, there are some very nervous people on this site...look, when Nole as No1 tennis player says the court plays the same I BELIEVE HIM..:) So what can you all do about it? Why should I trust more what Fed has to say? After all he is ONLY No3...:)

Yes, Sosueme, that is not to say the surface was slower than the one they have now. I remember a particular match at Bercy between Sampras and Muster where the length of the rallies was considered crazy at the time; particularly since it featured Sampras.

Mr. Arrogant is whining again... court is wrong.... on Wimby... balls were different... he ofc... is still perfect but everything else is wrong!
"Why I can't win something... ohhhh .... I could win.... I want more...."

"Yes, Sosueme, that is not to say the surface was slower than the one they have now..."

So it was due to the rackets and balls then?
As I thought the surface texture would be the key to how slow/fast any court was...

The surface used to be carpet back then, not sure what it is now. The racquets and balls made the game considerably slower, sure - but Paris as a surface was slower than the likes of Cincy, the US Open, and quite a few hard court tournaments at the time, and was definitely much slower than the grass at Wimbledon. I remember watching a match from the same year when Sampras beat Rafter in Davis Cup and that surface was deadly fast, would make many players go down on their knees and beg organisers to slow things down.

I just watched a video featuring some points from Paris 1997, and it doesn't show that the surface from then is slower than the one they have now at Bercy. But it was slower than a lot of places at the time. Here's the link: you might want to mute the music :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW2tyIHd6mc

Gotta love the colour of the court too.

Ha-Ha, thanks for that..
Wow!
It looked like it required 3D glasses to view it properly (death metal was a strange soundtrack choice too)!
Fuchsia!
That was definitely pretty fast but it wasn't exactly gun slinging ..
Pete and Thomas were moving well and there were many rallies too,
Most under 10 shots of-course...
Maybe this could be seen as something of a transitional match slowly sliding  from one era to another,
I would think, however, that most players from the 90's would not be able to cope with how slow most of the courts are nowadays, if they were transplanted directly via time machine...movement is so important now....

well someone with 16 grad slams and some one with 3 ............. only 3 grand slam titles cant be compared 3 x 5 = 15 still 1 less so djokovic needs a lot of hard work before reaching anywhere near federer

well and djokovic has been not on tour for half the time federer has been so may be we can rate his comments higher once he spends more time or wins like 17 slams (but federer might win 1 2 more ) so something like 19 slams
well he might but .................... i will be very happy even if he can win 10 in his entire career

The djokovic fans who are mocking Fed and bashing him, will be crying, whining, and moaning come next year's AO, and afterwards, when he has to defend the points he accumulated this year. Oh, I forgot, he'll have the eto keep him reinvigorated with it's biogenesis enhancements. His egg-shaped head will be shrunk to the size of an M&M.

I mean egg instead of eto.

isfand... did you ever heard of " . "?

zare :))

no and neither am i in

interested to listen anything from you as you seem to be a very biased person in favour of djokovic

and otherwise keeping bias aside there are many people other than federer who have confirmed that courts are playing slower including players commentators and game's experts and we have never seen so many breaks before and we can see for ourselves that the courts have been playing slower

OK, isfand whatever you say... I am glad to find that you are enjoying in my posts :)

well zare i kno u like djokovic and he is having an amazing year and may end this year as the best year by any player ever and he might win so much more and might become even a greater player than federer some day but you should not ridicule other players specially the likes of federer nadal they are the ones tennis is where it stands today

My friend I am not biased by Fed... but some Fed fans can be a real pain in a..s...
They have a full mouth of Nole's eggs :)
So basically ... you are right, but ppl can be provoked sometimes. As I saw even you commented about stupid statements that some so called tennis fans are writing here :)

well 6 0 6 0 zare i hope u r enjoying something because its not tennis

well berlocq is lamenting why he won the first round lollllllllllllzzzzz

The fool thinks he can go toe to toe with Novie B behind the baseline,
NEXT!

I'm with Roger in this one...

The ATP is destroying the sports. All the surfaces, all the matches are being played in the SAME EXACT way. It is really frustrating and boring for the real tennis fan.

I really miss the 90s, where you really had different tennis, different styles, different moves in each tournament.

well berlocq has broken djokovic llllllllllooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllzzzzzzzzz though he still has to hold his serve though lolzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So he has,
Oh well DONE dear!
keep up the good work, it shall be over soon!
Poor guy,
Ha-ha-ha

yes emiliano federer is right there is no point in having 4 slams then we can settle for one then and it is making tennis boring

djokovic broken again this is hilarious berlocq has still to hold his serve though

...and now go and ask NY crowd were they enjoying.... standing ovations... lol... and berlocq got a part of it!!!
ajde noleeeee!!!!
JUST KEEP ON GOING!!!!! BRING ON THE PAPA FED!!!!!

CVAC beat up on a poor qualifier. tremendous win. Take a look at the players Fed has playd vs. those CVAc has played, then let's talk.