Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash has waded into the debate over the playing conditions at Melbourne Park, calling them ”a joke, ridiculous and unfair”.
He joins others including Lleyton Hewitt, Roger Federer, Lindsay Davenport and James Blake who have expressed reservations about the rubberised courts used at the Australian Open.
”The worst recipe you can have is either fast courts and fast balls or, as is the case here, slow courts and slow balls,” Cash told the Herald Sun.
”Quite a lot of the guys have complained about it. Guys are having a whinge in the locker room.
”It’s slow out there and suits players who hit a very heavy ball. It doesn’t suit players who don’t have a heavy game.
”So quicken the damn courts up a bit so all players, including serve-volleyers, have got a chance, not just the guys with a heavy game.
”The way the courts are now, it’s a joke, it’s ridiculous, it’s unfair. I think a Grand Slam surface should be unbiased …”
Hewitt, who was knocked out in the second round, has been a vitriolic critic of the surface and demanded they be fixed, saying they were slower than the courts used for the 2005 championships.
But Paul Bull, the technical director of the Rebound Ace company and the man responsible for developing the courts in 1988, said the pace of the surface had not changed since last year.
He said the new Wilson balls, which have replaced Slazenger this year and are said to be fluffier, could be responsible for the perception that the courts are slower. – AFP
