Welcome to "Serve and Volley: The Generations"

 I love it when OGs and CGs (Current Guys) get into generational beefs. Mainly because you can't really resolve them to anyone's satisfaction.

And so I give you Nick Kyrgios vs. Boris Becker, brash Current Tennis Guy and Old School Tennis Guy, who got into a war of words last week because of something Kyrgios told The Athletic.

What Kyrgios said was, today's tennis players would mop the court with OGs like Becker, squeegee the mop dry and then mop the court with them again.

"The game was so slow then," Kyrgios said. "I’ve watched Boris Becker and I’m not saying they weren’t good in their time, but to say that they would be just as good now, it’s absurd.

“A big serve back then was like 197 to 200 KM/H. People like me, we serve 220 consistently, to corners. It’s a whole different ball game."

To which he added "Neener-neener-neener." OK, he didn't, but I bet he was thinking it.

This prompted the expected OG response from Becker, something along the lines of "What does this punk know about anything?" And so on, and so on.

What the Blob says about this is it's nearly pointless, and thus hugely unfair, to compare athletes from different generations. You have to factor in so many variables -- training methods, facilities, equipment, scheduling, even playing styles -- that judging one generation against another comes down to mere supposition. Empirical evidence to support one opinion or another becomes almost impossible to find.

Of course, we all have our prejudices, and as an OG, I readily confess to mine. And so what I'd say to Kyrgios is, yeah, what does this punk know about anything?

What I'd say to Nick is, of course the game was slower then. That's because no one in Becker's era -- and I'm talking the era of Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, et al -- were wielding those trampolines players wield now. 

Connors used the fabled Wilson T-2000, one of the worst racquets ever made (I know because I had one once). Borg and McEnroe and a whole lot of others were armed with wooden racquets that look like relics from the Battle of Hastings today. And of course the racquet heads were microscopic compared to today's; think the square mileage of Lichtenstein versus the square mileage of, say, Russia.

Hand Kyrgios one of those antiques and see if he can still deliver a 220 KM/H serve to the corners. Good luck with that, bud.

I'm thinking if you gave the OG greats from Becker's day everything Kyrgios and the CGs have now, no one would be mopping the court with them. McEnroe, for instance, not only was playing with that tiny little wooden thing, he used to joke that he trained on Haagen-Dazs. Can you imagine Kyrgios or Nadal or Federer or Djokovic saying that?

I can't.

I also can't imagine anyone will ever be able to win this debate.

But ain't it fun tryin'?