Roger Federer has urged tennis to embrace more variety in court speeds after claiming that some tournament organisers are deliberately creating slower conditions to increase the chances of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner meeting in the final.
The retired 20-times grand-slam champion from Switzerland has long been an advocate for a mixture of court speeds across the tour. During his own career he was adept at adjusting to different surfaces and conditions because of a multi-dimensional game style.
Speaking during an appearance at the Laver Cup event in San Francisco on Saturday, Federer expressed some frustration at the modern-day consistency of slower courts regardless of the venue. He suspects that those in charge of running tournaments are allowing this to help facilitate popular matches between Alcaraz and Sinner, who have contested five finals against each other since the start of May.
Federer says slower courts mean players can beat Alcaraz and Sinner only if they hit “extra amazing shots”
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“I understand the safety net that tournament directors see in making the surface slower,” Federer, 44, told Andy Roddick’s Served podcast. “For the weaker player he has to hit extra amazing shots to beat Sinner, whereas if it’s quick he can maybe blast a few at the right time and he gets past.
“That’s why the tournament directors are like, ‘Oh I kind of like to have Sinner and Alcaraz in the finals.’ It kind of works for the game.”
The speed of courts has changed drastically since the 1990s when serve-and-volley tennis was far more commonplace because of faster conditions. Tournament directors collectively realised the benefit of gradually slowing the courts down in the mid-2000s to reduce the dominance of the serve and allow for more entertaining baseline exchanges.
Since the retirement of Federer and Rafael Nadal, the matches between Alcaraz and Sinner have forged a new leading rivalry in the men’s game. This year they became the first pair in the open era to contest three grand-slam men’s singles finals in the same season, at the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.
Federer said he had allowed a slower court at the Laver Cup
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“We need to have not only fast courts, but what we would want to see is Alcaraz or Sinner figure it out on lightning fast and then have the same match on super slow and see how that matches up,” Federer said.
“Now everybody plays similar. It’s because the tournament directors have allowed it with the ball speed and the court speed that every week is basically the same. That’s why you can just go from winning the French Open and Wimbledon and the US Open just playing the same way.”
Federer even suggested that returning a serve is no longer as challenging as it once was. While admitting that he was complicit in the problem by allowing a slower court at the Laver Cup at the weekend — the Ryder Cup-esque team event between Europe and Team World is his brainchild — he expressed sympathy directly to the big-serving Reilly Opelka.
“I feel like they [players] return so easily nowadays,” Federer said. “I don’t know if the conditions are a bit slower or they are just better at it. Making returns was hard. Now, they stand there.
“I told him [Opelka] it’s not OK and I fault myself because I’m part of the decision-making of the court surface here. It can’t be that he’s kick-serving on the ad side [a serve hit with spin that bounces high up off the court], indoors against Casper Ruud who actually can go back.
“He even has that option indoors to return Reilly’s serve, arguably one of the best serves in the game right now, from hip height and just hit a cross-court passing shot on the return on break point. I feel it should be a little bit more difficult to be able to do that.
“I think that’s why we as tournament directors need to fix it.”