Tennis traditions given the chop

Federer does it, Nadal apparently does it, and Fabrice Santoro is apparently the master of it.

It appears that squash shots are becoming an essential part of a top tennis player's armoury - as an article in the Times last week revealed ...


"If you're dragged out wide and you've got no chance to get a racket on it properly, you can either throw up a lob and most likely watch someone bury it, or you can alter your grip and play a squash shot", Andrew Castle, the BBC presenter and former British No1, explains in the article.

Click on the video above to see Roger Federer employing a squash-type shot to stay in a rally.

The article also included comments from Peter Nicol on squash shots creeping into tennis:

"Yes, they are clearly adopting squash techniques, the use of the wrist shots, especially on grass ... Both squash and tennis have got quicker and quicker and you have to adapt and mix it up. You can't just use the old techniques any more. Federer once said that a lot of his different shots were from his days playing squash."

Watch a clip of Roger Federer using a squash shot to stay in a rally