General / Sean Calvert / 11 November 2010 /

Taylor Dent's retirement leaves an ever dwindling band of serve-volleyers in the men's game - a bad thing, says Sean Calvert

Another week, another player calls it a day and after Elena Dementieva it was the turn of America's Taylor Dent to hang up his racquet this time.

The retirement of Dent, although nowhere near as successful as Dementieva, is probably more significant because of the loss of a playing style in the men's game that it represents.

Dent's big serve and volley game is dying out in the men's game and it's pretty much extinct on the women's side with only the likes of Amelie Mauresmo in recent memory adopting that technique on occasion to any great success.

Dent is worthy of huge respect for fighting back from a serious back injury that rendered him immobile for months, but once he returned to the tour he found that the game had moved on.

In 2005, the Californian began suffering his back problems and didn't return fully to the tour until 2009 when he climbed an astonishing 803 places in the world rankings to finish the year inside the top-100.

That was an incredible achievement, given the circumstances and Dent made it all the way up as high as number 70 (his career high at his peak was 21) before realising that with his game style he was unlikely to get much higher at 29 years of age.

This is largely to do with the speed of the courts in the modern-day game.

Paris this week is ironically a rare exception where the speed of the courts would have suited Dent's game, as is being highlighted by Michael Llodra's efforts so far, but other than Rotterdam, Lyon and a couple of others, the courts all lack pace compared to five or ten years ago.

Dent himself explains it perfectly: "In the past, tennis has been cyclical," he said.

"You'd have a wave of guys who stayed back, then a wave of guys who served and volleyed, then a wave of guys who stayed back.

"But lately the technology of tennis is taking the game in one direction. The balls are heavier, the courts are slower, the strings and rackets are enabling players to hit so much harder and with so much spin, it all works against the serve-and-volleyer."

So, the way that Dent sees it, we are seeing the death of the serve-and-volley game and that checks out when you look at how many players in the current top-100 actually still play that way.

We have Llodra of course, who is roughly the same age as Dent, with a similar record and fellow Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, and Ivo Karlovic, but after that you're struggling to find any in the upper echelons of the game.

There are a few, such as Radek Stepanek, John Isner, Robin Haase, Mardy Fish and some others that use the technique when they feel it will be effective, but I can only bring those three to mind that are died in the wool serve/-volleyers.

Looking at the careers of Llodra, Mahut and Karlovic, who are all now in their late 20s or early 30s, there's not much in the way of tournament success really.

Llodra has spent his career hanging around in the top-100 with a high of 28 and five career titles, which isn't too bad a return at all for a player of his ranking.

Three of his wins came on grass, with two others on pacey indoor courts and just one on outdoor hard in Adelaide, while Mahut has reached two grass finals.

Karlovic has probably been the best of the trio in terms of consistency and results, with his career high of 14 and four titles, but he's something of a one-off at 6 feet 10 inches tall.

The bread and butter serve volleyers, like Pete Sampras, Goran Ivanisevic, Boris Becker and Tim Henman have all but disappeared, which is a shame, but surely the powers that be will realise that we need that variety in the game and produce more surfaces like the Palais Omnisports.

If not, the men's game is in danger of slipping into the same pattern as the women's has, which is the tedium of every single match played entirely and predictably at the back of the court.

When Llodra, Mahut and Karlovic are gone, which will be soon, we'll be left with a series of one-dimensional ball-bashers and that would be as much of a shame as it was in the 90's when everyone seemed to be a serve-volleyer.

That situation probably led to the courts becoming slower to counteract the number of big hitters. Surely it's time to act now in reverse and bring back the quicker courts. The game of tennis needs it.

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