The ITF needs to do something to help the volley because, at the moment, it has died. The attacker has no chance. Pat Rafter or me, at our best, would get smashed out there. The balls they use here are soft and they fluff up after three games. After a few games it’s almost impossible to hit a volley for a winner. They should just take the US Open ball – end of problem and it would be a much fairer tournament. It’s almost impossible for the volleyer to exist in the game of tennis. Something has to change. You can’t have a slow court and slow ball, coupled with the string technology which means the ball is coming off the strings quicker and with more spin. The rallies are going longer, there’s more injuries because of the longer rallies and nobody has done anything about it. You see all the injuries that the guys and also the women are suffering on hardcourt as a result of that. There’s three issues that we’ve seen develop in tennis that’s restricted the volley and therefore the variety of the game. One’s the strings, another is the pace of the court and the other is the ball. The US Open have a fastcourt, similar to here, but with a faster ball. They also have a women’s ball and a men’s ball. The men’s ball is slower than the women’s which is quite often why you see Venus Williams serving almost as fast as the men. But the men’s ball at the US Open is significantly faster than here. To me, the way to fix it is obvious – just take the US Open ball.
Pat Cash