More lip service from the clay warrior.
Now I have heard everything.
He says slower balls are needed.
Why don't you get out of your retirement and go work on your game and your fitness.
It just gets more and more ridiculous with each passing week.
Objective fans can see this is ridiculous lip service and more excuses for his lack of fitness and decline.
The blind adoring irrational fans will believe every word from him and his camp General.
It is one of the most preposterous proposals I have heard from Team Nadal. And their reasoning is even more ludicrous.
If anyone at a site like MTF suggested it, I would normally say it is trolling of the highest order, but in team Nadal's case it is just more excuses for Rafa's decline and lack of fitness/effort to improve.
It is right up there with the idea of raising the net so that serves can't go in so fast so that players having trouble with returns don't have to be like football goal keepers facing a penalty shot.
It's more of the same "Pim Pam Pum" Uncle Toni drivel.
The real problem is that his return game has declined. His movement, footwork, and reflexes have declined. He is getting wrong footed because his game style has always been prone to that, but he can't play his retriever defense now because he doesn't move as well and isn't as fit as he once was.
Over the last 15 years the game has played slower than ever. There are no true fast conditions (Court Pace Rating > 45) remaining, and there are very few medium-fast (CPR 40-44) conditions left, though there have been some recent attempts to speed up conditions at some venues in Australia. The top players are so used to playing on clay and slow and slow-medium hard courts that a medium-fast court like Cincinnati seems fast to them. The balls used for men at Wimbledon are as big and heavy than ever. Shanghai is also a medium-fast court, but they also use slower balls to compensate. There is no fast carpet.
Rafa needed to stop complaining and get more fit if anything. He is a shadow of himself. Anyway, it is likely too late for him. He has played too many matches and has lost speed and power. He can no longer camp in his backhand corner running around his backhand and still get to balls wide on his forehand side without spraying them everywhere.
Slower balls and courts are for amateurs with lesser talent and physical ability that need a lot of time to get to their shots and get them in the court. At a professional level, they make the game slower, extend rallies so that the error wins the point later, rather than a winner winning the point sooner. This is what causes more injury. Hitting behind players has always been a sound tactic against players that run their heads off to get to every ball like Murray, Nadal, Djokovic. He simply wants to destroy the tactic, by making the game so slow that he and every other defensive player can get to every ball.
If anything the conditions need to speed up and balls be lighter to reduce injuries. Heavier balls cause more injuries.
Here is an excerpt from a
racquet science article talking about ITF ball changes just after the turn of the century:
The Effect of Heavier, Larger, or Softer Balls
To slow down the men's game, and thus hopefully to increase its entertainment value for the unsophisticated, the rulers of tennis want to change the balls.
Particularly troubling is the lack of prior consultation with the pros who will be using these balls. Which of them are in favor? True, it is rare to find any touring pros who might be called formally educated, so naturally they must expect their opinions to be ignored and their objections overruled. If they don't want to play, there are plenty of ambitious youngsters eager to take their place. However, even though there might be no reason for courtesy or compassion, wouldn't it be economically prudent to prolong the careers of the marquee players, and not to increase the already alarming rate of injuries among the recreational players?
The ITF has authorized a ball with a 15% greater diameter to be used "on an experimental basis." The intention is that the bigger ball will meet more air resistance, therefore play will be slower. Fluffing the nap (felt covering of the ball) will increase diameter and drag, but apparently the intention of the ITF is to require ball manufacturers to mold a larger rubber core. See the diameter test for the "slow ball" in Appendix 1 to the Rules of Tennis -- fluffed nap will not keep the ball from falling through the bottom hole of the testing apparatus.
The larger diameter of the rubber core, even if the weight of rubber remains the same, will result in a higher rotational inertia for the ball. That means a "heavy" ball because players will be able to impart a lot of angular momentum (spin). Angular momentum is the product of the rotational inertia and the rotation speed, and the higher rotational inertia permits a much "heavier" ball at the same spin rate. High angular momentum of the ball on impact will aggravate Torsion (screwdriver twist on the handle), causing more stress on the arm of the receiver.
Another problem with bigger balls: they will radically change the game in the same way that the "spaghetti string" racquet did, by giving junkballers an edge. The ITF banned (retroactively) the spaghetti strings which imparted such extreme spin. The same reasoning should ban these balls.
Yet another problem with bigger balls: if the same ball weight (57 grams) is to be maintained, the rubber of the bigger ball must be made thinner to stretch over the larger surface. Thinner rubber means that the air will leak out easier, and higher air pressure will be needed to maintain the same ball bounce. These balls will go flat faster. They will also be less bouncy in actual pro-level play because of higher hysteresis loss from more air being compressed. These will be soft balls.
Presently, for professional tournament play, a ball must bounce more than 53 inches and less than 58 inches when released from a height of 100 in. That means that the coefficient of restitution for the ball itself (apart from the racquet) is between 0.73 and 0.76. It should be noted that the 100 in. drop height does not approximate the speed of a pro serve, so for testing the hysteresis loss from the bigger ball this test would be inadequate. Using softer balls, having a bounce at the low end of this range (low c), means higher Shock, Shoulder Pull, Work, Shoulder Crunch, Wrist Crunch, and Elbow Crunch for the players.
As you can see from the formulas, heavier balls (high b) means both higher resultant forces from impact (Torque and Impulse Reaction), and higher Shock, Shoulder Pull, Work, Shoulder Crunch, and Elbow Crunch. With heavy balls, the game becomes more painful and less accurate. See the formulas.
Club players can take a lesson here, especially those who play on clay, where the balls get heavier as play goes on. Change balls often to protect your arm. Tennis balls are a bargain, so leave them on the court.
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Rafa and his team are simply very desperate, and has to come up with something to explain away his lack of fitness, movement, and power.
It is just more lip service and everyone can see through it.
He wants to only have to work as hard to get to balls in singles as he does in doubles.
Respectfully,
masterclass
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