We stopped teaching the slice and it shows on grass every June

A generation coached to hit topspin off both wings arrives at Wimbledon without the one shot the surface most rewards.

Junior coaching made a decision somewhere in the last twenty five years. Topspin off both sides, early contact, big swings, and the slice treated as an emergency measure for balls you cannot get to properly. It has produced extraordinarily good hard court players and it has quietly removed a skill from the sport.

The slice does something no topspin ball can do. Backspin plus a low trajectory means the ball skids on contact with the court rather than gripping and rearing, and on grass, where the surface is already fast and low, a well struck slice can stay under knee height across the whole court. Against a player with a western grip and a high contact preference, that is close to unplayable. They have to bend, generate their own pace from nothing, and lift the ball over the net without the incoming topspin they normally borrow from.

The response I usually get is that the slice is a defensive shot and the modern game punishes defence. That is true when the slice is floated, and a floated slice is a gift. It is not true of a driven one hit flat and low with the racquet moving forward rather than down, which arrives quickly and gives the opponent nothing to work with. The difference between those two shots is technique, and technique is exactly what a generation has not been taught.

There is a second and less obvious use, which is tempo. A rally of heavy topspin exchanges settles into a rhythm, and both players are tuned into a particular ball speed and bounce height. One slice breaks that rhythm entirely. The opponent's timing has to reset for a single shot, and errors cluster on the ball after the slice more than on the slice itself.

I would put the blame partly on how juniors are assessed. Coaching pathways reward the players who can hit hard and consistently in a rally at fourteen, because that wins matches at fourteen. The slice is a shot whose value shows up against tall, high bouncing opponents on fast surfaces, which is to say, later.

Then June arrives, the tour moves to grass for three weeks, and half the field looks like it has never seen a ball skid.

They mostly have not.