What a great article - a cut above most others. I hope an article like this gets a lot of comments rather than the fanboy infighting type threads, but we shall see.

What is the evidence balls have got bigger? Are there any stats available? Can you visually tell? Player comments?

Particularly agree with your last sentence. At the moment Madrid seems to be faster?!

There are other points regarding the string technology but I realise that it teh OP is too long already and tried to keep it short. But one important factor is the elasticity of natural gut string. If you hit a ball flat with natural strings you can hit a ball faster than you woudl with aluminium strings for instance cause the elasticity would had to the pace of the ball if hit sweetly. However if topspinned the ball will tend to skid off the string and lose considerable power. The luxilon string however are pretty stiff and will keep a more even pace whether hit flat and or with topspin. This is a huge advantage for those players like Nadal, Djoko and Nadal who are often retrieving balls 2 meters outside the trameline bu tcan still generate pace and spin to secure a passing and in particular to turn a good serve or even a good shot into a winning passing shot. Doing just that with natural gut woudl have been suicidal. AT that time players had no choice to keep the center of the court and could not afford to be sent to corners. At that time there was no technology to bring teh ball back with pace unless hit flat(ter) and that requires luck, great timing and those were also easier to volley for the volleyer than the dipping spinning shot landing in your feet.

Anyway, questions or arguments welcome!

Excellent analysis Tenez. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCsBXuiFes&feature=related ), you can see in this clip as how the winners are flying.

What is the evidence balls have got bigger? Are there any stats available? Can you visually tell? Player comments?
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Thanks HB. Yes that is the key question to my point. The main source I have is from the Woodies. In 2003-5 (can't remember) Mark Woodford while commentating on a match said that he kept a wimbledon tennis ball every year over his 15 years of playing at Wimbledon and he could measure/see an increase over the years. I have also compared the USO balls of 2006-7 with the current ones and there is a clear increase in size.

But I also suspect the rubber used being softer (more deformation, less pace (or pressure difference as well as the fluff more or less thick. All those affect pace of the ball but more importantly towards teh baseline.

Thanks wow. yes good clip but I suspect federer in 2003 was already using half luxilon strings. You can see his shots are much more secure and loopy than in his 2001 match versus Pete where it was more "a hit flat and hope" tennis. The balls really got bigger in 2002 (they announced in 2001 the use of bigger balls in the future) but in 2003 they may have reverted to faster balls though as teh 2002 final was flop with an even less exciting tennis than with big servers.

for the thoughtful article Ten!
This is a big and important topic for tennis lovers.

There is so much to be enjoyed when watching a game of tennis.

Problem is, when money gets its dirty fingers in a pie, the results are rarely good.

Records need to be broken, prize money increased, more spectators, fuller stadiums, bigger stadiums it never ends...

Once upon a time players were not giants. Everything was fine.
Then came the giants and started serving from the trees. The serve killed the game.

Then the game was resusciatated with slowing down of conditions.

The players became fitter.

Lack of serve killed the game...
In short , but yes, something needs to be done ...AGAIN!

I understanding changing teh conds for teh same of teh watchability, it annoys me a bit more when it's done to favour a particular rivalry.

Yes, that must hurt Federer fans big time.

Nole had the double portion.

It doesn't hurt me one bit for Federer. It however really annoys me to see a moonballer winning Wimbledon and then hear how he "adapts" well on grass" even though it's Wimbledon adapting to him.

Nadal fans get agitated on the term moonballer but is there any other player at present who uses this negative tactics?

It does look vulgar, esp on grass. But once he's gone, I reckon the agony will be over.

Nice article!

Very nice article.

Also think we need balance restored to give attacking players better odds.

I would also like to say that tennis authorities have to play a balancing act here which may not always be easy even with the best intentions.

I tend to prefer attacking tennis but I still have to say that I never found the game as boring as during the mid and late nineties when plethora of matches were being decided virtually on serve alone. At one point back then I followed women's tennis more closely than men's exactly because of that. So I definitely agreed that tennis needed to be slowed down. Of course, the pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction. However, with 5-6+ hour matches becoming more common I expect the authorities may well step in to speed up the game, so I think the future is hopeful.

About changing conditions to specifically promote a "rivalrly":

I am not sure whether or not this was done, but, for the sake of the argument, let us assume so.

As a tennis fan, I would also find it quite annoying. However, looking at it from the perspective or a tournament director, could you really blame them?

They are, to a large extent, in the business of making their tournament popular with audiences. If they know that a particular match-up is

(oops, accidentally hit send button on my mobile before completing my post)

...particular match-up is more likely to attract bigger audience and if they know that - within the rules of the game - they have the means to increase the likelihood of that match-up occuring, is it so clear they should not try to help make it happen? Not totally sure.

Again, as a fan I really do not like the idea, just playing a devil's advocate a bit plus trying to also see it from a different perspective.

good article.

Great article, 5 stars from me

I am not sure whether or not this was done, but, for the sake of the argument, let us assume so.
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Yes SB but you do play the devil's advocate very well! You are providing all the right reasons why this is so. Well the main reason is again money and popularity as those 2 are linked.

It's easier for the crowd at large to appreciate the effort of bringing what woudl be a winner's ball back than the more subtile work, effort and talent requiring to hit SHBH winner down the line.

Some might say it's because I am a fan Federer but for me the best balance between fast pace of the Wimbledon 90s are todays are actually USO 90s (called then the medium pace).

In fact till USO 2006/7 the conditions were really similar of the USO 90s. But the good thing about 2003-2007 is that we had players with great shotmaking ability at the top: Federer (indeed), Nalbandian, Ljubicic, Blake, Coria, and others who are now considered average players cause they do not have the consistency (essentially fitness) of modern players. However just to talk about Nalbandian he was able to make Nadal and Djokovic look toothless on indoors surfaces like Madrid or Paris. The quality of rallies between Federer and Nalbandian is still for me the most impressive tennis I ever watched due the pace at which the ball played yet with minumum UEs and maximum winners.

But again people would prefer watch a Federer Nadal on slow than Nadal Nalbandian on fast let alone Federer Nalbandian...when this latter had still teh belief he belonged to the top.

But the problem with all this is that all the evidence suggests Wimbledon is not interested in commercial success...why don't they sell tickets online instead of an annoying postal system, increasing interest and boosting ticket prices...why don't they have night sessions, easily adding 50% to the revenue at a stroke? Why don't they double the price for the final (it would sell out anyway)? Why don't they bother to advertise tickets allowing them to boost prices? Why do they have such a ridiculously poor ticket system? Why do they not allow ticket applications after December? (By the time most people think to apply, it is too late?)

Doubling the revenue from Wimbledon would be a trivial matter.

They are either not interested in doing so, or are hopelessly incompetent.

And yet they are supposed to be manipulating things more subtly for commercial gain... it doesn't make sense to me.

I can believe they deliberately manipulate the courts, but I think they do it more for tennis enjoyment reasons that finance.

im working there this summer so i shall pass on your questions hb.

When I say deliberately manipulate the "courts" I probably should have said "conditions" to include balls. Sorry about that.

By the way I while back I emailed the US Open and Wimbledon and told them as a fan to speed things up...can't hurt to do the same thing...it will only take you 5 minutes.

Next time you write to USO, HB, tell them to invest in some courts covers.