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Andy Roddick and Jim Courier debated over court and ball conditions throughout the 2022 season on the Tennis Channel.
Andy Roddick said that tennis balls should not be slow all year and should bounce higher at times:
“I think this is right. I don’t think that it should always feel like a medium slow situation. Balls should be bouncing up and away, higher some weeks, faster through the week. It’s different than what we see most of the year."
Jim Courier, on the other hand, admitted that he had mixed emotions about the change because he played during a time when the varying extreme conditions forced him to modify his strategy multiple times during the season.
“I have mixed feelings on this and here’s why. I played in an era where we have those extremes, where clay was like playing on mud and on grass you could not bounce the ball the way it normally would, it was so slow so low bouncing and fast. I had to completely adjust my game a couple times a year, as did everyone else,” said Jim Courier.
He remarked that regardless of the surface, he had not enjoyed watching tennis more than in the last 15 years because of the extended rallies.
“What I will tell you is I probably never enjoyed watching tennis more in the last 15 years because I have been able to watch longer rallies. I cannot tell you how boring it was to be involved in extremely fast conditions. Maybe we just were not good enough like the players are these days to make those conditions look as good as they do these days," said Courier.
"In Turin for example, they are very quick courts and they are playing long rallies. I would say that tennis has been unbelievably lucky in the last 15 to 20 years, that the players have been so consistent and we have had all these rivalries,” he added.
"If I was king for a day, I would bring a little more synergy to the type of tennis ball" – Jim Courier on debate over court and ball conditions with Andy Roddick
In the same discussion on Tennis Channel, Courier said it's not ideal to alter the weight and pressure of tennis balls, and that the consistency should be taken into account.
“One thing that I think worth considering however is consistency of the tennis ball. Changing tennis balls all the time to different weights of the ball and different pressure is not ideal on the players, and I think there could be some more consistency in here,” said Courier.
Andy Roddick concurred with Jim Courier in saying that players' elbows might be impacted by changing balls over tournaments.
“There is no question. You would play a different ball in Montreal and Cincinnati, get used to it, then you next week you would have to switch balls and it affects your elbow in a different way,” said Andy Roddick.
Courier concluded by saying:
“If I was King for a day, I would bring a little more synergy to the type of tennis ball at Wimbledon, on the grass, we’re going to play one ball for the whole grass season on the clay, one ball, period. At least makes sense of the seaons we have with the tennis ball."
