Sounds a little like baseball in the late 90s…
Basically, the benefit of a homerun and the benefit of a strikeout were both better understood and so the balance of the game changed so those were more common outcomes.
Doesn’t topspin reduce bounce height, and backspin increase it?
No, it's the opposite.
tennis: https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/club/lessons/inen/bounce2...
pickleball: http://applecountrypickleball.blogspot.com/2015/12/spin.html
table tennis: https://www.allabouttabletennis.com/table-tennis-techniques-...
edit:
ok now I am very confused, as I can also find reports of the opposite effect, for example:
https://blog.tennisplaza.com/spin-effect-the-physics-behind-...
Can anyone explain why topspin makes a ball bounce lower (matching my experience and some online reports) and also higher (matching some reports in this thread and online)?
All else being equal, both can't be right. So is there some other variable at play, such as velocity, surface coefficient of friction, etc? Or is someone wrong?
Literally from that link: "A ball with topspin bounces higher than a ball with slice."
Oh, well, that site seems pretty sketchy anyway. It wants to force download multiple files as soon as I load it.
FWIW here's Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topspin#Competitive_utility "On most court surfaces, topspin also makes the ball bounce higher. As a result, it is often used on clay or "soft" court surfaces which have a naturally higher bounce in order to make the ball harder for the opponent to hit. An opponent with a one-handed backhand is especially vulnerable to a topspin shot because it is difficult to hit a high ball with a one-handed backhand."
[EDIT:] Reading that sketchy site more closely, it appears to be a trick question:
> So, if you've been paying attention, you might say, "The question at the beginning of this article was a ruse?" Not exactly. In theory, it is possible to hit two balls, one with topspin and one with slice, that arrive with the same height. But in reality, that won’t happen. You have to hit a slice low over the net, otherwise it will fly long. On the other hand, you want to hit a topspin-ball high over the net; otherwise it will land short or in the net.
What makes all the difference in tennis is that topspin and backspin shots go over the net at entirely different angles. You're not just hitting a flat shot with spin.
"The gym" read as "steroids".
I wish people would stop lying about this ...
Yeah this line was the key for me. But I think it is the opposite. They don't play hard and fast, they play hard and slow. This is why, I think, we do not have a lot of serve and volley players nowadays or one-handed backhands, not like the 90s. Because the baseliner has enough time to return your serves.
I watched the Wimbledon final and although Alcaraz went to the nets, it did not feel it is his style like a McEnroe or a Sampras. It felt like it was a strategy against Djokovic. Barely managed to hold on though.
Anyways, I stopped watching tennis a while ago (except the wimbledon finals), there is too much power and bullying involved, not enough grace and beauty. It feels like, I dare say, when field hockey decided to use astroturf instead of grass. In one stroke, all the flair players that relied on the unpredictability of grass were out and "hard running" and "precision scientific passing" won the day. Field Hockey stadiums are now almost always half-full, the beauty is gone.
Football and Rugby, I hope they stay the same.
EDIT: One other thing I noticed is that, in the 90s and early 00s, you had clay court specialists, hard court specialist and grass court specialists. The 4 grand slams were called the Vivaldi 4 seasons, they were that different. Winning all 4 was exceedingly tough. I think, now they are all the same, hard and slow. The variablility and unpredicatability is gone. You win 1, you can win them all.