{"id":220898,"date":"2025-10-17T19:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T19:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/220898\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T19:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T19:11:08","slug":"patrick-mouratoglou-explains-why-roger-federers-idea-for-tennis-would-really-help-ben-shelton-and-alexander-zverev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/220898\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Mouratoglou explains why Roger Federer’s idea for tennis would really help Ben Shelton and Alexander Zverev"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

Roger Federer\u2019s comments at the Laver Cup sparked plenty of debate throughout the tennis world.<\/p>\n

In an interview on \u2018Served Live\u2019 with Andy Roddick during the annual team tournament, Federer suggested that the ATP have slowed down court speeds<\/a> on the tour to help Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a> reach the final at each tournament.<\/p>\n

The Swiss legend\u2019s sentiments were echoed by world number three Alexander Zverev<\/a>, who went one step further and said he \u2018hates\u2019 how tennis has changed to favour the world\u2019s two best players. <\/p>\n

Sinner responded to Zverev\u2019s comments<\/a>, saying neither he nor Alcaraz makes the courts, and insisting the conditions are \u2018a bit different\u2019 every week.<\/p>\n

\"JannikPhoto by Lintao Zhang\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Some agreed with both Federer<\/a> and Zverev, claiming the ATP favour their top stars over everyone else. <\/p>\n

Many challenged the narrative, however, including Serena Williams\u2019 former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.<\/p>\n

In a post on Instagram, Mouratoglou said: \u201cWhat Roger said makes sense, but it\u2019s not new. When Roger was playing, it was already the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2002, Wimbledon decided to really slow down the surface, too. It\u2019s a decision of all the governing bodies of tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWimbledon was probably the fastest surface historically, and now it has become a surface that is sometimes even slower than Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that what we regret is that it killed serve and volley players, but at the same time, it was important because you had guys that were serving too many aces. The game was getting boring on some surfaces. There are always both sides of the coin.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say that it would be interesting to see Alcaraz and Sinner on a faster surface\u2026 yes, it would have been interesting to see Carlos and Jannik on faster surfaces, as it would have been interesting also to see Rafa, Roger and Novak on faster surfaces, which we didn\u2019t see either, so it\u2019s not a new thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had kept the very fast surfaces, the serve of both Alcaraz and Sinner would be much more efficient, but what about the other guys who are huge servers?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a completely different game, and I think it would be really boring, because how do you return Reilly Opelka? How do you return Zverev? How do you return Shelton?<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, you won\u2019t be able to return those guys anymore, and then the game will be very boring. So I personally don\u2019t regret that. Maybe there would have been other options.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe to make the service box shorter or slow down the balls, I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s the decision that has been taken, and we have to deal with it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CarlosPhoto by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU\/AFP via Getty ImagesThe tennis governing bodies made the right decision in 2002<\/p>\n

Regardless of who it favours, the decision made by tennis\u2019 governing bodies to slow down the Wimbledon courts in 2002 was ultimately the right decision to make. <\/p>\n

Wimbledon is the biggest spectacle the sport has, and if casual fans were to tune in every summer to watch short points dominated by big servers, it is unlikely they would stick around the product for much longer.<\/p>\n

Longer rallies are, for the most part, what fans want to see, which is why the clay-court season is many fans\u2019 favourite section of the tennis calendar.<\/p>\n

Sinner and Alcaraz may well benefit from slower courts, but they still dominate on the faster surfaces, with the Spaniard winning Queen\u2019s this year and the Italian emerging victorious at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

It was for the good of the sport that tennis drifted away from the serve and volley days, and into a new, and much more exciting era. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Roger Federer\u2019s comments at the Laver Cup sparked plenty of debate throughout the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[5244,64,63,21693,1520,965,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-220898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-alexander-zverev","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-ben-shelton","12":"tag-patrick-mouratoglou","13":"tag-roger-federer","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}