Word: wimbledon
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...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...
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...
...test the durability of different varieties, technicians at Britain's Sports Turf Research Institute put a tennis shoe on a massive hydraulic ram and then stomped patches of turf intermittently for 13 days, mimicking the conditions of the Wimbledon fortnight. The hammer was calibrated to two different weights: that of the average female and average male...
...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...
...There was a time when clay-court [specialists] wouldn't even make the trip [to England]," Bjorkman said after losing to Nadal at the Artois Championships, a warm-up event for Wimbledon. "Now they hardly even need to adjust their game...