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Nadal's exploits may signal not just a change at the top, but in the nature of the game itself

A quick, wristy forehand topspin, with the racquet splayed open in a loose grip; a backhand flick or jab with the racquet head cocked above the wrist - these used to characterise a table-tennis player's repertoire.

If you tried doing that on a tennis court, you would end up with a sprained wrist, and in any case you could hardly generate enough power without a full flow of the racquet, complete with back-swing and follow-through. That Rafael Nadal is able to virtually play TT on a tennis court, running around the backhand to take almost everything on the forehand, even on the grass of Wimbledon, marks a shift in the game.

Had this been attributable purely to Nadal's muscularity and athleticism, a tennis fan need have no qualms. But if Nadal's amazing feat of dropping a solitary service game out of 30 in almost five hours of play on a surface that does not suit him, against the world's top player, had something to do with changes in equipment and conditions, then we should step back from the euphoria of the "classic, marathon final" to consider where the game is headed.

The first big change in tennis came with the introduction of graphite steel racquets, much more powerful than the wooden racquets in use earlier. These also allowed the strings to be tightened by machine to a tensile strength that would have snapped wooden racquets. What followed was an age of domination by the big serve-volleyers on the faster courts, while the Spanish brigade took over the slow clay courts where they could chase down any ball for a powerful topspin to the back of the opponent's court or a dipping pass at the net.

Only Bjorn Borg seemed to have the skills and physical attributes to use his steel racquet to advantage both on the clay of Roland Garros and grass of Wimbledon, but the fact that most of his opponents were still wielding wooden racquets might have contributed to his all-round success.

It wasn't long before everyone was on to steel racquets, however. The magnitude of the change they brought comes home to you during rain-breaks at Wimbledon when they show the classics. Gone are the deft touches, clever placements and chip-and-charge. Commentators who keep rueing Federer's refusal to chip the ball and charge the net more often on Nadal's serve are probably doing him a disservice. Federer knows Nadal can pass him at will unless his approach shot has the bite to produce a weak response. This he could do with ease on grass with his flowing ground-strokes, powerful serves and skidding volleys until a couple of years back, but not any more it seems.

An improvement in Nadal's serve and his growing familiarity with an alien surface, coupled with a weakening in Federer's game after his illness earlier in the year, offer a partial explanation. But other changes, brought about by equipment and conditions, affect the game in a more fundamental way to the extent that we are perhaps at another inflection point.

First, the ball got softer and fluffier, because the authorities at Wimbledon wanted to reduce the domination of the serve-and-volley game which produced few rallies. The nature and texture of the grass was also changed this year to reduce the ball's skid. The result is fewer aces, outright winners, and approaches to the net. Now a chip doesn't skid off the grass, it sits up nicely for a passing shot; angled forehand and backhand drives can be retrieved; and a player can afford to stand miles behind the baseline to receive the big serves, knowing he will have time to get back into position.

But, more than the ball and grass, the killer change is again in the racquet. Over the years, the steel racquet has gotten more powerful, which explains the growing preponderance of baseline play. But now, material technology has reached a point where somebody like Nadal can opt for a racquet that is both powerful and yet light enough to enable his sort of TT-on-a-tennis-court game on any surface. Earlier, you needed the time to construct a tennis stroke with a backswing, putting the weight of the racquet into the shot; now, the racquet is so light and the strings so taut that racquet speed will achieve similar power and speed, with more topspin to boot.

Why should that matter? Well, if a stylist like Federer, with his abundance of talent, can't get the better of Nadal even on a grass court, and could only take four games off Nadal in the French Open final, then perhaps the future belongs to the Nadal kind of tennis. And that could make the game one-dimensional, because how many variations can you expect of a forehand topspin and a backhand flick, all played from way back behind the baseline? In a few years, every tournament around the world could become baseline slug-fests, just variations of Roland Garros. The next grand slam at Flushing Meadows in the US, which has one of the faster astro-turfs, will tell us if the end of the game as we know it is nigh.

Table-tennis lost its attraction long ago when it became all about the super-rubbers made in China, which killed the variety that Europe used to bring to the game. The ultra-light, power-packed graphite steel racquets may do the same to tennis, by destroying its diversity. Maybe there has been an over-correction after the domination of the giant serve-volleyers. Maybe we should go back to faster surfaces and harder balls that give players value for well-played strokes which cannot be chased down and topspun back, that allow players to get to the net and force opponents to hit the riskier, flatter, more attractive shots instead of relying entirely on a safe short-arm top-spin that clears the net by a wide margin.

c_sumit@dnaindia.net