Rolling in the deep: why tennis players are backing off against serve

As Alejandro Davidovich Fokina took to the court last month to face his fellow Spaniard, Albert Ramos Viñolas, at the Madrid Open it soon became clear he had a slight problem.

Between the lines, all modern tennis courts measure the same, but the distances beyond them vary dramatically. The outside courts in Madrid had very little room behind the baseline and were narrow, a problem for a player such as Davidovich Fokina who enjoys returning serve from deep on clay. His attempts to return serve left the linesmen diving out of the way and led to numerous near misses with the back fence.

Afterwards, Davidovich Fokina, the world No 34, shook his head and laughed as he acknowledged the challenge of playing on such small courts, particularly against big servers: “You have to change the plans a little bit. Or maybe you have to go the day before [to the referee] and say: ‘I want to play in stadium courts,’” he says, smiling.

Players retreating so far behind the baseline to return serve has been one of the most notable recent trends in men’s tennis, particularly on clay courts, as players attempt to effectively neutralise the opponent’s serve. “It’s a joke,” says Daria Kasatkina, the women’s No 9, of the Madrid courts. “I was watching a few men’s matches and it’s impossible; they’re touching the wall with the rackets on the return. It’s too small.”

Casper Ruud is one of the more prolific deep returners on clay: “You feel like you can’t hit your ball when you have the line umpire like just half a metre behind you. You feel sort of like in a cage. It’s sort of our own fault because we choose to stay that far back,” he says.

During his fourth-round loss in Madrid to Aslan Karatsev, Daniil Medvedev was so incensed by his placement on