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From the July/August 2002 issue of TENNIS Magazine

The only thing I love more than Wimbledon is tennis. I love the way tennis is such a vivid, full-bodied demonstration of thinking and moving, planning and reacting. A good match is physical and mental, a nonstop shifting of plot points highlighted by a variety of rallies and tactical adjustments.

Too bad we won't see much of that in the men's draw at Wimbledon this month. The culprit: grass. It's time to get rid of this anachronistic surface and replace it with a cushioned hard court or synthetic grass that slows the ball down. So long as Wimbledon is played on natural grass, the event will continue to stagnate as a snap-fire snooze. Wimbledon's ruthlessly short rallies are repetitive and boring. As one service game after another flies by, the diversity in playing styles we witness at every other men's event vanishes. (Although the women's game isn't nearly as dreary on grass, it, too, is more fun to watch on an even-handed surface.)

At no other tournament are matches decided by such minimalist ball striking. As pleasing as it was to see Goran Ivanisevic break through last year, it's a sad testimony to Wimbledon's place in contemporary tennis that he could scarcely win a match anywhere else. It's like letting a kid skip math class all semester, then giving him a top grade because he memorized a few square roots.

Grass is a poor reflection of the global tennis community. All over the world, players build their games on clay and hard courts. Why must the sport venerate a surface no one regularly plays on?

In order to keep the action entertaining, other professional sports have broken with tradition. Case in point: This year, Augusta National-site of the Masters, American golf's most hallowed tournament-lengthened a number of its holes so that power players like Tiger Woods would need more than a pitching wedge for their second shot on a par 4.

Wimbledon's dated surface also hurts tennis when interest in the game is at a season high. Many casual fans tune in just for Wimbledon. And what do they see? A serve, maybe a return, a volley if they're lucky.

"It's a lottery surface, which makes it ridiculous," says John Lloyd, a former pro from Britain. "Wimbledon is our No. 1 event. The quality of tennis should be the best there is. There should be good all-court rallies. Instead, we get crap-shoot tennis."

Some blame the powerfest on contemporary racquets. But once Jack Kramer, the dominant player of the 1940s, established the serve-and-volley attack as the best way to win on grass, engaging all-court play became as rare as a rain-free fortnight. Besides, the racquets the pros use today (most weigh more than 12 ounces) aren't drastically different from the wood ones of yore. The power game results from the natural evolution of tennis athletes, who are bigger, stronger and faster than ever.

This evolution has produced huge servers who dominate on grass. But it has also forced players to improve their returns. "Hardly anyone serves and volleys these days," Lloyd says, "but that still doesn't mean we're seeing many good rallies." No question, there are far fewer net-rushers than there were even a decade ago, probably because the serves are so fast that returns comes whistling back before the server can get to the service line. Even with the likes of Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt hovering near the baseline, an inordinate number of points are random and staccato.

"No other tournament has so many boring matches," Lloyd says. But what about Wimbledon's tradition? I, too, love the way the ivy curls around Centre Court. Each year, walking the grounds, I cherish the sense of past, present, and future harmoniously linked by British order, ritual and pageantry. Even if the surface changes, all of that could stay forever. Of course, it would be an aesthetic challenge to get used to, say, DecoTurf on Centre Court.

Over the years, though, Wimbledon would gain a greater range of playing styles and more engaging matches, creating an even more glorious history.