Grass is now greener at Wimbledon

The tennis played by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in Sunday's Wimbledon final was as competitive and compelling as any I've seen.

It was, by any measure, a match for the ages.

It was, many might argue, the greatest men's final ever played on the All England Club's fabled Centre Court.

So please understand: I don't mean to diminish Nadal's rousing and deserved triumph, or detract from the champion's heart Federer displayed in defeat. Nor do I wish to dampen an all-too-rare moment when tennis became the talk of the sports world.

But as much as I was engrossed in that memorable match, my eyes glued to the TV screen for all those rain-interrupted hours, I also was bothered by much of what I saw.

And didn't see.

For nearly five hours, we saw the world's two best tennis players trading blows from the baseline, producing riveting rallies in which the drama grew with each stroke. More often than not, points were won by spectacular shot making.

Nothing wrong with that -- at the Australian Open, or the French Open, or even the United States Open.

But at Wimbledon? On grass? In the men's final? What happened to serve and volley? What happened to chip and charge? What happened to getting to the net and not risking the bad bounces that were as much a part of Wimbledon tradition as manicured grass courts, predominantly white attire and the Royal Box?

I'll tell you what happened: Those stodgy, usually unshakeable folks in the purple-and-green suits panicked amid media criticism that the new, more powerful rackets had transformed their genteel tournament into a serving contest.

And in 2002, after a string of victories by the big-serving likes of Pete Sampras, Richard Krajicek and Goran Ivanisevic, they did the unthinkable.

They changed the surface.

The courts are still made of grass, but the lawns are thicker and coarser, and the ground is harder.

The result? The new surface plays noticeably slower and the bounces are far more predictable. That change, combined with the switch to slower tennis balls in the late 1990s, has neutralized the grass-court game.

Wimbledon no longer favors the big server, nor does it require mastery at the net. The world's most important tennis tournament is now played on what is essentially a hard court with hair.

And, really, that's a shame.

It's a shame because tennis, now that there is too little difference in the surfaces on which the four Grand Slam tournaments are played, has lost something.

The pace of the hard courts in Australia and New York is now almost identical. The French clay is playing faster. The Wimbledon grass plays slower.

Tennis' major championships have been homogenized. And so has the tennis played at them.

Only at Wimbledon, though, is the change so obvious. Only at Wimbledon does it seem so wrong.

I miss the rush to the net.

I miss the crazy bounces.

I miss those brown patches at the service line T, where the grass was worn from players stopping to hit their first volleys.

Funny, but I didn't really notice the change until this year, even though Lleyton Hewitt won the Wimbledon title from the baseline in 2002. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I was so enthralled by Federer's all-court genius.

But it jumped out at me this year. I couldn't help but notice that the courts were worn only at the baseline, that nobody was charging the net and that the game was being played almost exclusively from the baseline.

And, yes, it bothered me.

I can only wonder how much it bothered Ivan Lendl, a two-time finalist who lost on the slick courts to Boris Becker and Pat Cash. Or Mats Wilander, a baseline hugger who in 1988 won the other three majors but never played in a Wimbledon final. Or even Andre Agassi, who won the All England title in 1992 but lost to Sampras in the 1999 final.

On today's surface, Lendl surely would've won -- at least once -- the only major championship that eluded him. Agassi, with his piercing return of serve, probably would've won more than once.

And it's fair to wonder if Sampras, who owns seven Wimbledon trophies, would've won as much as he did on those hallowed lawns.

We'll never know.

Nor will we know how Nadal would've handled Federer on the Wimbledon grass of yore.

They played a tremendous tennis match Sunday, one of the great bouts in Wimbledon history.

But something was missing -- something that made Wimbledon different from everywhere and anything else in tennis.

And I'm afraid it's gone for good.

Just like those brown patches at the service line T.

(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com or on the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)