Subtle, Swift, Silent: The Fleeting Joy of the Grass-Court Tennis Season

June is here, summer has arrived, and the rain clouds gather. It has to be the British tennis season!

The all-new Queen’s tournament, in the residential heart of western London, has changed from the brilliant scarlet of its former Stella Artois branding to a cold blue redolent of the business world.

The Aegon Championships, sponsored by insurance and investment specialists, are charging more—for inferior seats—than Wimbledon. Fortunately for spectators, however, the intimate nature of this tournament has been affected not a jot.

The Queen’s Club delivers a compact venue with close-up tennis: rewarding for the fans and perfect preparation for the clay-to-grass transition. Indeed, according to Andy Roddick, this venue has the best grass courts in the world.

And on grass, different qualities come into their own.

Slice becomes a piercing weapon that keeps the ball skimming low over the net and slipping off the ground.

The serve can be a little more penetrating and low-bouncing, which allows the good volleyer to chase the net position more confidently.

And when there, those volleys can be sliced away at an angle, dropped into a dead bounce or driven into the baseline corners.

Roddick gave a perfect illustration of this in his first match against Belgian Kristof Vliegen.

Their ground strokes kept low over the net and bounced low off the court. The backhand exchanges in particular skimmed from side to side, to the gasps of the crowd. It seemed quite impossible that the ball could clear the net once, let alone half a dozen times.

The wide repertoire of shots and styles that comes into play on grass can help to keep rallies shorter and quicker than on other surfaces. This in turn gives a wider range of physical qualities in the players themselves a chance to shine.

The ability simply to keep running, or to keep pounding the ball back into play, is not enough.

Deftness, subtlety and touch—used with confident all-court tactics—can win more points on grass than anywhere else. Light and nimble physiques can stand toe-to-toe with the power-players.

Variety is the spice of life.

So the lowly-ranked, 27-year-old Nicolas Mahut could take on and beat the hugely gifted world No. 13 Marin Cilic.

The Frenchman does not have the reach and speed of the Croatian, nor the power of his first victim Janko Tipsarevic, but he has soft hands that can play deft and creative volleys. He is prepared to rush the net and trust to his razor-sharp reactions in finishing the points quickly.

That won him a semi-final place at Queen’s in 2007, though the huge serving of Ivo Karlovic—doubly effective on grass—deprived Mahut of similar success this year.

Even the base-liner can get more out of grass than any other surface. Andy Murray’s double-hander whips through the court with a flatter and faster line than usual, and his serve has a drop more venom in its delivery.

It’s no surprise, either, that the big game of someone like James Blake shines on the grass. He’s been a finalist in this tournament in the past, and is still progressing well this year.

The most overwhelming impression, sat alongside an immaculate carpet of green, however, is the silence. And this silence reveals the exquisite sound of ball on racket like no other surface.

The noise of sprinting feet is absorbed by the turf. Even the bounce of the landing ball is deadened by the forgiving surface. This throws into sharper relief the ping and the slap of the strings.

Nowhere do the bounce and vibration of a racket head feed back more eloquently to the spectator what spin is being applied. Indeed the caress of a heavily sliced backhand can make no sound at all.

Maybe this is why the British swing brings an entirely different atmosphere to the tennis tour.

The crowds tend to be more hushed. The tournaments resist the music and razzmatazz pre-match and mid-set that so characterise the hot and lively American, Australian, and southern European seasons.

Are they simply reacting to the sound of the tennis itself? Probably not.

In truth, the British are a traditional and restrained lot. But you can bet your bottom dollar that a Murray-v-anyone Wimbledon final would change all that.

London’s grass—and the British public—will come alive!