Alexander Zverev is bored with sluggish arduous courts, and he’s not shy about admitting it both. The third-ranked German expressed his views on the matter after his win over Valentin Royer in Shanghai.
He even pointed his finger on the two-headed monster on the prime of the ATP rankings, insinuating that excursions are tailoring court docket velocity to the strengths of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
“I hate when it’s the identical, to be sincere,” Zverev famous. “I believe the match administrators are going in direction of that course as a result of, clearly, they need Jannik (Sinner) and Carlos (Alcaraz) to do nicely each match, and that’s what they like.
“These days, you may play virtually the identical manner on each floor. I don’t prefer it. I’m not a fan of it. I believe tennis wants totally different recreation kinds, tennis wants a bit of little bit of selection, and I believe we’re missing that proper now.”
Fascinating to credit score Alcaraz and Sinner with duty for a development that has been in movement for a couple of a long time. Wimbledon slowed its enjoying surfaces within the early 2000s, switching to a distinct seed that allowed for a better bounce, in an effort to introduce extra rallies into the grass court docket recreation.
The general public’s love affair with the grinding rallies of the Nadal-Djokovic rally, additionally performed a task. Serve-and-volley tennis has been on the out for some time now, and shot tolerance has turn out to be the brand new buzzword within the sport.
Maybe Sinner and Alcaraz’s rise provides the powers that be another excuse to delay the development by maintaining court docket speeds slower however, as Sinner says, it isn’t as much as him what velocity every match chooses for his arduous courts.
Sinner was requested about Zverev’s feedback following his 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Daniel Altmaier.
“Me and Carlos, we don’t make the courts,” he mentioned. “It’s not our determination. We attempt to adapt ourselves in each state of affairs. I really feel like each week remains to be a bit totally different. I’ve performed some nice tennis even on quicker courts. However I’m not making the courts, so I simply attempt to adapt and play my greatest tennis, and that’s it.”
