Why Serve-and-Volley Faded, Coco Gauff's Secret Weapon & More | Q&Andy

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
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**Andy Roddick** (1:06)
Hey, everyone, welcome to Q&Andy. Back, settled, in studio.

**Mike** (1:11)
Air-conditioned.

**Andy Roddick** (1:12)
It's air-conditioned, which is a little luxury. This is the show where I don't know what's coming. So Mike, what are we doing?

**Mike** (1:21)
Yeah, yeah, so thank you to everybody for sending in your questions, going to the website, sending where they need to be sent. They're going to askandy at servepodcast.com, send your questions in there. And this week, we got a couple of videos. Oh. Finally, but we won't start off with one. First, we got Udai Rodis. If you take a side-by-side snapshot of the wear on the courts from 25 years ago to now, the volley area is fresh as day one and the baseline is absolutely chewed up. Firstly, I don't know if that's correct, but firstly, has this kind of extra wear affected how people play at Wimbledon? Second, how do you feel about this era abandoning the net game, serving volley and what is traditionally grass court tennis?
Yes.

**Andy Roddick** (2:04)
One, everything changes over time. Any sport. I don't know. You're going to get the argument from the bruisers from the 80s in the NBA, who are like, just pound the big guy inside. Why is everyone pulling up from 28 feet? I promise you it's not because it's less effective.
The strings have changed everything.
Back when I first came out, when I first played, there was, I don't know, a handful of guys who could hit over a first server turn.
They weren't using Luxelon, you think, but they're like elite talents, right? It's like Safin, Hewitt, Andre. A lot of people went with a chip. If you know someone's going to go with a chip, come in behind the serve. Normally becomes an easier option. Now guys are so strong, they're backing up, and they're able to create these spin mechanisms that land at your feet. And if you're evolving up at someone, it doesn't normally end well. And guys can pass so well, everyone's faster. So the wear and tear on the court patterns is different. It's still pretty good. I mean, it's easier to move on a court when it's worn late in the tournament than it is when it's like lush and slippery at the beginning of the tournament, right? That's when you kind of get the whoopsie falls, which are a little scary.
The bounces are actually really good, maybe except for that little brown patch where people land on their serves, right? So you hit a serve and you kind of land. That one, it's a little dicey. And also, if someone hits a return there, it can sometimes bounce a little inconsistent. And it depends on if it rains during the fortnight or if it doesn't. This one was very dry. My last Wimbledon final was super dry. So inevitably, it's like your yard. It's going to be brown-er if it's drier. But the only real kind of place where you get really, really gnarly bounces is that dirt patch where you land on your serve. But someone sticks a return there anyways. It's not as if you're getting hosed. I mean, they've already kind of, I used to think of it as like if you hit a return there, you've earned your bad bounce. But yeah, it's all different. I don't know that it's coming back anytime soon. You look at Zverev at 6'6 and what he's doing, and Centre finally got that payoff in the final by going 20 feet back on second serves. And you still think that he can hit a winner from there. So that's not a real obvious invite to come in off of a serve or a second serve.