Tennis has known a golden generation, but not a golden age

It is established wisdom in boxing that styles make fighting. The best battles involve opponents of contrasting skills and abilities. Classic rivalries like Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier and, recently, Tyson Fury against Deontay Wilder, boxers (technicians who depend on boxing ships) against punchers (street fighters who depend on punching power).

What applies in the boxing ring also applies to the tennis court: much of the greatest tennis rivalry also includes players of strikingly different styles. Bjrn Borg v John McEnroe, Chris Evert v Martina Navratilova and Pete Sampras v Andre Agassi all have a serve and volley player against a base liner. This rivalry went deeper than the proximity of their matches. They presented two fundamentally different tennis philosophies.

A golden age?

We have been told that this is one golden age for tennis. In many ways, this is easily understood. Tennis athletes have never been fitter, rivalry has never been more intense and four players of this era Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams have the legitimate claim to be the greatest of all time. This has really been a golden generation of tennis players. But it hasn’t been a golden age for tennis.

The ethics of how sport can develop and what should count as progress are central to my academic research in the philosophy of sport. A golden age for a sport should demonstrate the full spectrum of skills and abilities of excellence that make the sport possible.

In this tennis era, on the other hand, the spectrum has narrowed, so that all viable playing styles are fundamentally anchored to the baseline. Serve-and-volley tennis is gone, and all of the realistic Grand Slam title contenders are some kind of baseliners. The sport is more uniform in the way it is played than at any other time in the professional era.

This narrowing of excellence is a problem because it limits how a player can express himself. Sports are obstacles players have to overcome by using their skill, deception, tenacity and physical ability. Restrictions caused by the rules and by the opponent place obstacles in the way of scoring, shooting a basket or hitting an ace.

The demise of serve-and-volley tennis in the past two decades has led tennis players to choose from a small group of playing styles, effectively excluding those whose skills do not fall within the smaller cluster of excellence that remain relevant in the sport. Reducing the spectrum of viable strategies reduces sport not only as a way to test and present different excellence, but also as a way for self-expression.

Serve-and-volley tennis

Serve-and-volley tennis is inherently confrontational. It reduces the physical space between opponents when approaching the net, it speeds up the exchange of shots and it is challenging to hit past or through me. The best serve and volleyball players are relentless and return to the net point time and time again, resigning the same challenge.

The beauty of this style lies in the lack of surprise. It was completely predictable that Pete Sampras or Martina Navratilova would attack the net after their storage. Everyone, especially their opponents, knew this. And they knew their opponent knew this. But they did it anyway. Like a football goalkeeper, they challenged their opponent to brave the odds and find that little spot out of their reach point after point.

Netspel is now a dying art. No server and volleyball player, male or female, has won a grand slam since Samprass last US Open victory in 2002. Lighter, more powerful rackets, polyester strings and the introduction of slower track surfaces and balls have shifted the odds greatly in favor of the base liner and against the net plane.

Polyester strings in particular have made it easier than ever for players to generate a huge spin. This spin, in turn, allows the baseliner to dip the ball sharply over the net at the volley feet and find previously impossible oblique passing strokes. The sight of Djokovic or Williams trying to tense every tendon to reach the ball and then, in full length, making a sharp corner-fit shot to a clean winner is perhaps the defining image of modern tennis.

Achieve a balance of excellence

Each complex sport must allow different playing styles. Within the possible arrangements of the rules, there is an ideal balance and equipoise that offers a variety of styles a realistic perspective of success. When a sport such balance of excellenceone style is not preferred insofar as others have become superfluous.

However, tennis authorities have allowed equipment development to anticipate reflection on their effects so that one of the fundamental sports styles has become a historical curiosity, not the basis of a serious game plan. Approaching the net is now used as little more than an occasional surprise game. Stewards have failed to manage their evolution, so that all the excellence that determines the game is preserved.

Serve-and-volley tennis was not a feature of the sport from the start and only came to the fore in the 1950s. However, it was a truly innovative way to explore the geometry of the field. Such an innovation should not be sent to the scrap yard.

This is a golden generation of tennis greats who have brought the base game to a perfect point, but this era has remarkably little diversity in playing styles. Maybe we went too far for a recalibration, but swimming has banned 100% polyurethane suits for the whole body and golf has banned the anchored putting technique, so why not reconsider tennis rackets, strings, tennis courts and balls, giving net rushers another chance fight?