Don't bring back the wood racket

By Howard Brody, Special to SI.com

Every year, as the outdoor season rolls around, there is a cry (particularly by a certain TV commentator) to bring back the wood racket in order to slow tennis down to the game it was 30 or 50 years ago. There are complaints about the speed of the game, the shortness and rareness of rallies, and the dominating serve on the fast grass courts of Wimbledon. Recently there have been requests to limit the size of tennis rackets to the dimensions of the frames used in the wood-racket era (new frames are much bigger). It is claimed that larger rackets encourage a new style of stroking that supposedly allows the players to put a great deal of spin on the ball. This results in rallies that last too long on the slow clay courts of Roland Garros.

If rallies are too short on fast grass courts and too long on slow clay courts, maybe tennis is just where it should be. But some people still clamor for a change back to the "good old days."

There is no doubt that the new graphite-reinforced composite rackets, with only between half and two-thirds the mass of wood rackets, allow you to generate more power (rebounding ball speed off of the head). This is not because the new rackets are inherently much more powerful, but because they are lighter. These lighter rackets can be swung at a much higher speed, which allows you to generate more pace. If you swing the racket 10- to 20-percent faster, you will get 10 to 20 percent more ball speed. Because of the weight-to-strength ratio of wood, it is very difficult to make a light wood frame that will not break under the pounding of a tennis ball. It is also very difficult to make a large-headed wood racket that is light enough to swing easily. With new space-age composite materials, it is possible to make a racket that is very stiff and has a large head, yet weighs a great deal less than a durable wood racket with comparable characteristics.

It is also clear that the new lightweight, oversize, extremely stiff frames have a bigger sweet spot in that they allow you to miss-hit the ball a bit more without severe penalty (in other words, they are more forgiving of player error). You can now afford to swing a little harder and not worry too much if the ball misses the center of the head.

There is general agreement that the new racket technology has allowed the game to change. Beginners find it easier to learn to play tennis. They reach a level of competence at which they enjoy the game sooner, rather than give up in disgust because they think the sport is too hard to learn. The average recreational player seems to get more enjoyment out of tennis when playing with the new equipment because it allows them to play better. The women's professional game is now an exciting, hard-hitting sport. These improvements in tennis are things we do not want to give up.

Then what is the problem that is bothering Mr. McEnroe and others? It seems to be centered around the men's professional circuit, particularly on fast courts, such as the grass at Wimbledon, some indoor carpets, and certain acrylic surfaces, such as used at the US Open. People claim the professional game is getting too fast, and this often means that it is becoming serve dominated with rallies being rare. Is this true? Has the pro game become faster or more serve dominated over the years? This was a question the International Tennis Federation (ITF) asked and the ITF Technical Commission attempted to answer with a research project reviewing decades of Grand Slam data.

It was hypothesized that if the serve were becoming more dominant in the men's professional game, then the rate of tie-breaks would be increasing and this rate should depend on the surface being used. It was also hypothesized that none of these tie-break correlations would appear in the women's game, where the serve is not as important. The four Grand Slam tournaments were chosen for analysis since they have four different court surfaces, have both men and women competing, and probably have the least turnover of players from tournament to tournament during a given year.

The results of the analysis of the past 30 years of Grand Slam events (over 90,000 sets) showed a strong correlation of rate of tie-breaks to perceived court surface speed for the men and no correlation for the women. Among individual men playing on the grass at Wimbledon (a very fast court surface), there was a strong correlation between tie-breaks played and both average first serve speed and maximum first serve speed. There was also a slow but steady increase in the rate of tie-breaks over time at all four Grand Slam tournaments for the men, but no such trend for the women.

This clearly shows that the men's game is getting faster and becoming more serve dominated. Is this a problem? That is a matter of opinion. If this trend continues for 10 or 20 more years, will it harm the game of tennis and will spectators begin to lose interest? There is some chance of this happening. Will people want to see the serve and volley game at Wimbledon become a serve ONLY game? Tiebreaks are exciting, but if more than half of all the sets played end up in a tiebreak because players rarely have their serve broken, is that good, exciting tennis?

Having done the research, the ITF Technical Commission had to see what it could do to control the speed of the game, if it became necessary in the future. A number of possible means to slow the game down were carefully analyzed. Many of the ideas suggested (like take some air out of the ball), when subjected to scientific scrutiny, were discovered not to be effective. Other means, such as changing the dimensions of the tennis court, were considered too expensive, since there are over 100,000 tennis courts in the world. Many possible solutions to the perceived problem would have adversely impacted the recreational game of tennis (The ITF wants one set of rules for the game - both professional and recreational). The solution adopted after several years of testing and analysis was to allow (not mandate) the use of a larger (6% in diameter) tennis ball. The use of this larger ball should slow down the game and reduce the serve dominance, and at the same time probably improve the quality of the tennis played by the recreational player. In addition, due to its increased cross-section (12%), the larger ball should play better at high altitude than a standard size ball. In addition, a somewhat harder ball was approved for use on slow clay courts.

The ITF at its 2001 annual general meeting approved the use of these new types of balls for use on any surface in any tournament or match, recreational or professional. The "old" standard ball is still allowed to be used in any tennis match as well.

The return to wood rackets may sound fine on television, but when it comes to drafting the rules of tennis, there are some problems with the suggestion. Exactly what is a wood racket? The so-called wood racket in use 40 years ago was often a frame made of wood and glue, but reinforced with fibers and other materials. In other words, it was a COMPOSITE, just as today's rackets are composites. Would the International Tennis Federation (the group responsible for preserving the basic character of the game of tennis and enforcing the rules of tennis) have a rule saying the frame must be 75% or 90% wood? Would graphite fibers and epoxy be outlawed, even if the remaining 90% of the frame were wood? How would the ITF enforce any such rule? Would they have to take apart each and every racket model from each and every racket manufacturer and do a chemical analysis of the composition? This does not look like a promising solution, particularly for the 99.9 percent of the tennis players who do not play on the pro tour. The game of tennis would not be as enjoyable to the overwhelming majority of players if wood rackets were mandated.

That is why the ITF has opted for a different solution, matching different types of ball to different types of surface rather than changing the rule on tennis rackets.

Howard Brody is an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of the book The Physics and Technology of Tennis.