Roland Garros doubles winner Olga Morozova told that modern tennis players differ from players of past generations in technique, recovery and match preparation.
Morozova won Roland Garros doubles in 1974, the same season she made the singles finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
— What changes do you see in players compared to the end of the last century and the 2000s?
— Technique and movements on the field are evolving. I will surprise you: the basic technique, established in my time by the coach of the USSR national team Sergei Sergeyevich Andreev, was of the same type as today. The main changes are player preparation for the round and incredible recovery. Previously, it never happened that you had 10 people traveling with you, one feeding you, another giving you water, the third doing massages and physiotherapy. The same Novak Djokovic plays at the highest level because he has a phenomenal recovery team after matches. This is a very important point. Many people cannot afford it financially and suffer as a result.
One more point: before, Roger Federer or Marat Safin had technical errors, but today’s players have practically none. When Andy Murray worked with Ivan Lendl, they developed huge player stats. It is incredibly difficult to react at a speed of 200 km/h. You have to use your intuition based on knowing the statistics about who submits where. Based on this, you and your coach develop a playing style. In our time, collecting such data was very difficult due to the lack of technology. It was in the USSR that Anna Petrovna Skorodumova started doing it.
In terms of talent, Safin, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andrei Chesnokov were not inferior to Rafael Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. Our guys could have been more talented. I remember well how Roger spoke of Marat’s talent. All the journalists said that Safin and Kafelnikov were the most talented on the tour, while Nadal and Federer were already playing. But the Big Three players prepared and recovered differently. The same Andre Agassi, in the last years of his career, spent a minimum of energy on the field, was not physically gifted like Safin, but the swing and punches of the American with a minimum of energy gave him maximum results. We could learn from him in this regard. However, there is the correct biomechanical technique of the game that Agassi taught us. “I admire how Djokovic improves his technique every year,” Morozova said in an interview with .
Source : MatchTV
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