{"id":230059,"date":"2025-10-16T22:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/230059\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T22:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T22:36:11","slug":"former-grand-slam-quarterfinalist-disagrees-with-roger-federers-controversial-comments-about-court-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/230059\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Grand Slam quarterfinalist disagrees with Roger Federer’s controversial comments about court conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Roger Federer sparked debate recently with his controversial comments about court conditions on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Andy Roddick, Federer suggested that event organizers had changed the surfaces<\/a> of their courts to encourage Carlos Alcaraz vs Jannik Sinner finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what the tournament directors think, \u2018I kind of like [Jannik] Sinner and [Carlos] Alcaraz<\/a> in the finals, you know, it kind of works for the game\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"RogerPhoto by HECTOR RETAMAL\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

World number three Alexander Zverev agreed with Federer<\/a> and had this to say during the Shanghai Masters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate when it [the court conditions] is the same. I think the tournament directors are going towards that direction because they want\u00a0Jannik [Sinner]\u00a0and Carlos [Alcaraz] to do well at every tournament, and that\u2019s what they prefer,\u201d said Zverev<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several other big names have since weighed in on the debate, including a former Grand Slam quarterfinalist, who spoke exclusively to The Tennis Gazette.<\/p>\n

Ronald Agenor doesn\u2019t think the courts are any slower now than when Roger Federer was playing<\/p>\n

Haiti\u2019s Ronald Agenor, a quarterfinalist at the 1989 French Open<\/a>, shared his thoughts on whether the courts have been slowed down to favor Alcaraz and Sinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts have been slowing down for quite some time; this is not new,\u201d said Agenor.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when he [Roger Federer]<\/a> was playing, the courts were pretty slow. I don\u2019t think they are any slower than they were when he was playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RonaldPhoto by Dimitri Iundt\/Corbis\/VCG via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Agenor proceeded to suggest that the court conditions are somewhat irrelevant in today\u2019s game, as everyone plays the same style of tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to academies or you see players training, all they do is hit forehands and backhands all day, and they work on fitness. So, the way that the players train right now, most of them are doing the same thing, and the same in women\u2019s tennis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, if you had more courts that were a little faster, that would help the guys that want to serve and volley, but I\u2019m not sure because on fast courts, players still work the same style of play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 60-year-old believes the death of the one-handed backhand has played a role in the development of the modern hard-hitting baseline game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one-hander has disappeared\u2026 It\u2019s obviously easier for a one-hander to be a purely attacking player than a guy who has a two-hander,\u201d said Agenor.<\/p>\n

ATP RankNameCountryCareer titles8Lorenzo MusettiItaly223Denis ShapovalovCanada424Stefanos TsitsipasGreece1232Grigor DimitrovBulgaria937Giovanni Mpetshi PerricardFrance251Daniel AltmaierGermany\u201369Aleksandar KovacevicUSA\u2013Top 100 players with a one-handed backhand<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the shot that players were using the most to come to the net.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, the volleys, when you had a one-handed backhand, it was easier to volley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agenor understands why the game has changed, but he is hopeful that a more \u2018exciting\u2019 brand of tennis will soon appear on tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have the same format in academies or coaches\u2026 You can only teach what you know. If you don\u2019t know how to use a one-handed backhand, you\u2019re not going to help a young player work on their one-handed backhand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, I think we are going to see some new players doing a little bit of everything, which will be more exciting.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of having the same two guys winning everything. Before it was three, some say it was four with Andy Murray<\/a>, but if you look at all four, they all had a different way of playing tennis; that\u2019s the beauty of the game, there\u2019s more than one way to play the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agenor certainly wants to see the one-handed backhand return, and had an interesting suggestion on how that could happen\u2026<\/p>\n

Bringing back wooden rackets could encourage one-handed backhands \u2013 Ronald Agenor<\/p>\n

The former world number 22 revealed that he has been playing with wooden rackets recently, a piece of equipment that is well-suited to the one-handed backhand.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the last few weeks I\u2019ve been playing with wood rackets again, it\u2019s a joy out of this world,\u201d said Agenor.<\/p>\n

\"AnPhoto By: Universal Archive\/Universal Images Group Via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Agenor thinks changes would need to be made for wooden rackets to work in today\u2019s game, but believes they could aid the revival of the one-handed backhand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, the way they hit the ball, they might break it, but they can reinforce the wood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would bring a little bit more art to the game. Maybe we will get more players hitting one-handed backhands!\u201d<\/p>\n

Frenchman Yannick Noah famously won Roland Garros<\/a> with a wooden racket in 1983 and is the last player to win a major title with that type of racket.<\/p>\n

Whether the stars of the ATP Tour will pick up wooden rackets again in the future remains to be seen, but the likelihood is that we will see the big names stick with modern technology for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Roger Federer sparked debate recently with his controversial comments about court conditions on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[430,4037,128423,99,428],"class_list":["post-230059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-atp","tag-roger-federer","tag-ronald-agenor","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}