Word: grassed
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Wimbledon plays to Ivanovic's strengths. The ball moves faster on grass, which will help her monstrous serve. Ivanovic likes playing at the net. Plus, her backhand slice will skid away from opponents on the turf: good luck lunging for it, Ms. Sharapova and Mss. Williams...
...everyone was happy with the new surface, especially those who contend the change may have robbed England of its best chance of crowning a homegrown Wimbledon champion since Perry took the title in 1936. Tim Henman, a serve-and-volley player, made four Wimbledon semifinals, but says the new grass forced him to alter his natural game midcareer. "I remember sitting at a change-over in 2002 in utter frustration and thinking 'What on earth is going on here? I'm on a grass court and it's the slowest court I've played on this year.' " Veteran tour...
Well, maybe. But remember: a decade ago, men's tennis was widely considered deadly boring, mainly because the serve-and-volley exchanges were so brief. Both Bjorkman and Henman admit that the new grass has led to longer, more dramatic points. And they say any grass still presents a special challenge best mastered by players who have a smooth, flowing style and attack with a steady momentum...
...lovers of grass courts, this natural progression of play - one contestant taking the initiative and seeing the point through to its conclusion - has always been the surface's most appealing effect. Points on slower surfaces often have the rambling structure of a poorly written novel; points on a grass court develop like a tightly drawn short story, tense and satisfying. On grass, where he's at his best, Federer seems to perform each point like a set piece, building a crescendo to success. The way a player moves on turf, American tennis pro Andy Roddick told TIME, "is almost like...
...while its appeal hasn't changed, so much else about grass-court tennis has. By tradition, almost everything on Centre Court is painted green during Wimbledon - including the grass, which groundsmen sprinkle with iron to enhance its look. The exceptions are the players' uniforms, which must be white. The scenery, which evokes pristine figures at play in a paradise, is misleading. For as the new type of grass shows, tennis players are more beholden to the earth than that timeless image suggests...