Latest URL: When people mention clay and hard courts, they can tell the difference at a glance. There are obvious differences in the entire style, type, and style of play.
Even a layman who knows nothing about tennis can draw conclusions about the difference from the most basic physical principles by looking at the materials of the two courts.
However, when people mention grass and hard fields, they are somewhat ambiguous, some are similar but remain different, seemingly simple but actually complex.
It's hard to say.
Of course, the difference exists objectively. After all, the material of the court is still different, just like football, playing on grass is different from playing on concrete—
Among the three venues, the grass has the lowest bounce, the fastest ball speed, the least friction, and the weakest spin. Overall, this is the fastest venue; but in terms of play tactics, it is not far behind the hard court. No, if you have to talk about adjustments, it seems that there is no need to be so serious.
Serve plus forehand, speed plus power, isn't that all there is to it?
If you think so, you are very wrong, and you will know that you are a layman as soon as you hear it.
No advice is needed, players just need to go on the court and experience it for themselves. If the hard court style is applied to the grass, they will definitely lose miserably. One defeat after another pays for ignorance.
A little tip:
In the past, the grass court was recognized as the fastest court; but now, the indoor hard court at the end of the year has completely surpassed the grass court, and the speed has risen to a higher level; later, even some players thought that the ground speed of the US Open court had surpassed the grass court, which also triggered Hot discussion among professional players —
So, is the ball speed on the grass slowing down, or is the friction of fast hard courts under the influence of modern technology continuously decreasing, resulting in an increase in ball speed?
The cognition brought about by this prompt is:
Grass isn't just about friction and speed.
In fact, taking Wimbledon as an example, the setting of the venue every year, from grass seeding to cultivation to care, requires professionals to work. If you change the grass seed, you also need to go through experiments and research; if the lawn length and thickness Changes can have an impact on batting as well.
Over the years, Wimbledon's own ball speed has also been changing. Some years are faster, some years are slower; So that the bouncing rules of hitting the ball change relatively.
In other words, on hard court, the overall performance is average and stable, with small fluctuations; on clay, there are variables all the time; and on grass, it is in between, even closer to clay, because of the relationship between the lawn, the fluctuation value is always It exists objectively, and speed is just an appearance.
If you only look at the difference between grass and hard courts based on the difference in ball speed, it is not only biased, but also superficial.
So, what the **** is going on with grass?
If you don't need to switch styles like clay courts, but you can't continue to play hard courts, what should you do?
Or, does Wimbledon have an official guide that explains it?
For a long time, considering that the grass court season is only a short month, many players choose to be lazy and rely on practice and competitions. Anyway, it is a month, usually two, and at most three events. It's really a bit of a luxury to start training.
Those low-ranked players can’t even hire a coach, let alone find a coach specifically for grass; but the same is true for many high-ranked players, who often don’t train specifically for the grass season and rely on their talents and abilities to complete the game. It is also enough.
However, after experiencing a painful lesson, the players realized that if they just muddled through their preparations, then there is no problem. Grass and hard courts do have many similarities, and they don’t need to change their game as drastically as clay courts. Weekly events are no problem at all.
But if you want to go further, try to break into the second week of Wimbledon, or even compete with the top players, then relying on yourself is not enough.
However, the grass season is only one month long, and hiring full-time professional coaches to start training seems to be too motivating, and it is difficult to directly proportional to the investment and harvest.
Later, the top 50 and 30 top players in the world summed up their experience one after another, and they chose to hire a "specially invited coach" in June:
This coach followed him for a short period of one month, and was in charge of the grass season. He gave professional advice on the grass, made some detailed adjustments within his own tactical framework and style of play, and looked forward to improving his competitiveness in Wimbledon. Then Wimbledon ended and the cooperation ended.
As it turns out, this is wise and, at the same time, very necessary.
So, what is so special about grass?
From a purely technical perspective, the difference between grass and hard courts is not as different as imagined. The real difference between the two lies not in speed or friction, but in—
bounce.
Of course, the details of speed, friction, force, movement, rotation, etc. are all slightly different, but the essential difference is still the bounce.
On the grass, the height of the rebound of the tennis ball is very low, very low; from the physical point of view, it can be seen more clearly:
Assuming that, under the same incident angle, the difference in the angle of refraction will also determine the position of the tennis ball rushing to the player. Among them, the angle of refraction is the largest on clay, followed by hard ground, and the smallest on grass.
That is to say, the same serve/shot, on clay, might bounce toward the player's shoulder; on hard court, it might bounce toward the player's chest; Position bounce.
In the basic technical movements of tennis, the most comfortable position for forehand and backhand hitting is from the chest to the waist. UU Reading www.uukanshu.com can imagine that hard courts are the most comfortable and easiest for players. The shot can be completed without adaptation and adjustment; also because of this, when the player encounters Nadal, facing strong topspin, he suddenly has to hit the ball at the shoulder position, and the discomfort is particularly strong.
On clay, although the angle of refraction is high, there are more and more players on hard courts. The ball basically has no rotation and cannot fully utilize the characteristics of clay, so the rebound height often does not reach the shoulder position. Therefore, when adapting to clay, Foot movement is more important than hitting point.
Grass is different. When the player executes hard court tactics and pursues power and speed, the impact of the court is very direct and the refraction angle is very low. At the same time, the greater the power and the faster the speed, the faster the tennis ball hits the player's knee. The faster you go, the more difficult it is to hit the ball.
Similarly, it is precisely because of the low refraction angle that the direct impact of speed, strength, and friction is more obvious, and the time of foot movement is compressed, and the entire reaction time is compressed. The direct impression/illusion is:
"So fast."
(end of this chapter)