Word: grassed
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...winning style engendered plenty of speculation. Players argued that Wimbledon had surreptitiously introduced slower balls; some commentators heralded a new generation of players so adept at returning serve that they made serve-and-volley tactics ineffective. But the biggest change at Wimbledon, of course, was to the grass...
...Wimbledon tore out all its courts and planted a new variety of groundcover. The new grass was 100% perennial rye; the old courts had been a mix of 70% rye and 30% creeping red fescue. The new lawn was more durable, and allowed Wimbledon's groundsmen to keep the soil underneath drier and firmer. A firmer surface causes the ball to bounce higher. A high bounce is anathema to the serve-and-volley player, who relies on approach shots skidding low through the court. What's more, rye, unlike fescue, grows in tufts that stand straight up; these tufts slow...
Ivanisevic and Rafter were able to blast their way through the new grass because an exceptionally rainy two weeks had kept the courts soft. But the ground eventually dried, and baseliners have excelled since; in men's tennis, Roger Federer, who serves and volleys only around 10% of the time, has reigned supreme. And while women have always been more inclined to play from the back of the court, big-hitting groundstrokers such as Maria Sharapova and Serena and Venus Williams have all but shut the door on the serve-and-volley style ushered in by the now-retired Martina...
Head groundsman at the All-England Club, Eddie Seaward, says the new grass was developed because the tournament needed a plant that could withstand the wear of the modern game. Grass surfaces that could put up with lightfooted gents in trousers - like Fred Perry, the Englishman who dominated Wimbledon in the 1930s - couldn't as easily endure the exertions of, say, 6-ft.-6-in. (1.98 m) Max Mirnyi, a.k.a. the Beast from Belarus...
...needed a grass that could hold up for two weeks and not splinter into patches, which is what causes bad bounces," says Seaward. "That was our goal." Any change in the pattern of play, he insists, "was just a natural byproduct of being able to keep the soil firmer...