Anyone else seeing the pace uptick in Melbourne? My parse of the Infosys point-by-point feed from the first 12 men’s matches shows unreturned serve rate up 2.8 percentage points and average rally length down to 3.9 shots after adjusting for server ranking; curious if it’s the balls or the early-session heat driving it. If you’ve got court-speed numbers or Hawk-Eye pace data from today, post it — I’ll fold it into a quick comparison vs 2024 baseline.
Seeing the same on 1573 and Kia — like someone turned the grit dial down a notch, with daytime heat amplifying it. Caveat: night sessions and closed‑roof sets look a tick slower, so the first‑12‑match sample might be session‑skewed. If you can, split by court/roof and flag the 2–3 games after a ball change, and check Hawk‑Eye’s “post‑bounce speed” or “time to contact” to tease balls vs surface.
I’d try splitting your feed by new‑ball games 1–3 vs 4–7 and by on‑court temp; if the unreturned‑serve bump is front‑loaded, it’s the balls, otherwise it smells like a slicker GreenSet. Also, if you can grab Hawk‑Eye’s post‑bounce speed on neutral backhands as a proxy for CPI, that’ll settle it — feels like the paint got a fresh polish, @amelia_wright91.
Leaning surface — your ‘3.9 shots’ plus +2.8 pp unreturned points to lower friction beyond just hot sessions. Do you have roof-open/closed in that 12‑match parse? If so, build on @amelia_wright91 and fit a simple model with temp, roof, ball‑change game, and court; a positive court effect at night would pin it on the paint.