By Martyn Herman
LONDON | Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:13am EST
(Reuters) - The curtain came down on a stellar year for men's tennis on Monday, one that saw four different winners of the grand slams and many unforgettable duels, but Roger Federer believes 2013 could be even better if court surfaces were made faster.
Not that long ago men's tennis was dominated by big servers and natural volleyers such as Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg and even the baseliners like Andre Agassi and Jim Courier had naturally aggressive styles.
Before that John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl all played front-foot tennis with rallies usually decided after four or five strikes of the ball.
Nowadays, baseline exchanges of 20 plus strokes are commonplace, shots that used to be clean winners are coming back and matches are stretching longer and longer.
The year began with a near six-hour Australian Open final between Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal while the U.S. Open final between Andy Murrayand Djokovic was only slightly shorter.
More recently the Shanghai Masters final between Murray and Djokovic went to three and a half hours and that was only a best of three set contest.
Federer believes slower courts and balls, combined with improved fitness levels, may have tipped the balance too far in favor of those for whom no ball is unreachable.
Speaking after his 7-6 7-5 loss in the final of the ATP World Tour Finals to Novak Djokovic in another epic, Federer said there was an easy fix to reward the risk-takers.
"Just make quicker courts, then it's hard to defend. Then attacking style is more important," the 31-year-old Swiss, a free-hitting shot-maker whose defensive skills cannot be overlooked in his 17 grand slam titles, told reporters.
"It's only on this type of slow courts that you can defend the way we are all doing right now.
"I think it's exciting, but no doubt about it, it's tough. What you don't want is that you hit 15 great shots and at the end, it ends up in an error.
"I think sometimes quicker courts do help the cause. I think it would help from time to time to move to something faster. That would help players learn different styles, to realize that coming to the net is a good thing, not a bad thing."
IMPROBABLE POSITIONS
With the U.S. Open, Australian Open and so many of the Masters Series tournaments being played on medium-paced hardcourts, Federer said there was a danger of styles becoming homogenized, especially with Wimbledon's grass now suiting baseliners.
"I've played on all different speeds. But I think some variety would be nice, some really slow stuff and then some really fast stuff, instead of trying to make everything sort of the same," Federer said in London.
"You sort of protect the top guys really by doing that because you have the best possible chance to have them in the semis at this point. But should that be the goal? I'm not sure."
World number one Djokovic is the best in the business at getting back one more ball, often launching attacks from improbable positions.
His fellow Serb Janko Tipsarevic agrees that the modern player's priority is to be able to retrieve rather than strike loads of winners.
"You look at the game of tennis, in my opinion the point which improved or the level that increased in the last 10 years is not the offence, it's the defense," he said last week.
"Even the tall guys like (Juan Martin) Del Potro, (Tomas)Berdych and (Jo-Wilfried) Tsonga are defending incredibly well.
"If you look at Sampras and Agassi, all these guys before, they used to be very aggressive, but couldn't really defend."
(Editing by Mark Meadows)