Tennis not as exciting as it used to be: Pat Cash

Abu Dhabi: Former Grand Slam winner Pat Cash has said the slow pace of modern tennis courts has bred a tactically monotonous ethic in today’s top-ranked players.

Talking exclusively to Gulf News during a visit to Abu Dhabi, where Cash was unveiled as the Ambassador for the Mubadala Championships, the former Australian number one, said: “We’re seeing the same type of match all the way through [tournaments] and I think tactically tennis is not as exciting as it used to be. There’s no denying that.”

Slower courts and balls have rendered the serve-and-volleyers like Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, John McEnroe and Cash become a dying if not deceased breed.

With the US and Australian Opens, along with a majority of the ATP Masters Series tournaments being played on medium-paced hard courts and even Wimbledon’s grass court now more suited to baseline play, Cash expressed the need to alter the pace of the courts lest a boring homogeny dominate the modern game.

“With the surfaces the way they are rallies are going on and on and players are playing really long five-set matches at the back of the court.

“I think it absolutely needs to be looked at, but I don’t think it will be looked because I think everybody’s too scared to look at it,” he said.

Current world number 2 Novak Djokovic has been involved in a number of Grand Slam matched famous for their protracted length over the last couple of years.

Most famously, the Serb beat Rafael Nadal in a five-set epic at the Australian Open in 2012 after five hours and 53 minutes in the Rod Laver arena. It was the longest final in Grand Slam history and finished at 1:37 local time.

But the prolonged duration of many of Djokovic’s matches in this year’s Grand Slams have visibly exhausted the Serbian, known for his superior levels of physical endurance, before finals against Nadal (US Open 2013) and Andy Murray (Wimbledon 2013).

And this is a problem, Cash feels. “Players know that if they get into a five set tussle before the final, with the way they’re playing and on these surfaces it’s very, very tough to come back fresh.

“Even Djokovic has now realised ‘I don’t think it’s possible to do this all the time’, he’s found that in the last two grand slams that he couldn’t back up back-to-back and Murray found the same thing in Australia and the US; he couldn’t beat Federer in five and then come back fresh for the final.

“Djokovic did it miraculously a couple of years ago. But I think he’s struggling to do it again. It’s an incredible task on the body. But the court surfaces are such that that’s the only way they can play,” he added.