The enormous power and spin provided by hi-tech modern rackets are eliminating subtlety from tennis and sapping the sport of its popularity, leading figures said on Monday.

While a return to wooden rackets would mean a backward step for the sport, players wielding smaller weapons could be the key to the future of tennis.

A plea by a group of former champions to address the problems facing modern tennis was made by a number of former champions during the Wimbledon championships earlier this month.

On Monday the sport's governing body, the International Tennis Federation, said it would address the issues endangering the modern game's popularity, in particular the increase in power in the last decade due to advances in tennis racket technology.

"We must conserve the game ... the integrity of the game," ITF president Francesco Ricci Bitti said at the International Congress on Tennis Science and Technology in London.

"We want to work with the manufacturers to work out what can be done. This is an issue for the future."

CURB POWER

Former player and current television commentator John Barrett is championing the campaign to curb power and spin in the sport.

His call has been backed by former greats including John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Boris Becker and Stan Smith.

On Monday, Barrett said c"Variety is the spice of life," the former British Davis Cup player said. "Diversity is what makes tennis such a wonderful sport.

"The baseliner against the serve-volleyer ... that is what people want to see.

"But these days what I see is a rather monotonous sport with rallying from the baseline. Something must be done if we are going to restore balance."

Barrett and a panel of experts from universities around the world agreed that increased racket head size was what made hitting top spin so easy and it was the use of exaggerated spin which was killing off the art of serve-and-volleying.

OLD DAYS

"In the old days, with the restrictions of making a racket out of wood, a racket head nine inches wide was about the maximum you could make.

"That stayed the same for about 100 years and was perfect.

"You could still hit topspin -- nobody hit a backhand topspin passing shot like Rod Laver," Barrett added, referring to the Australian who won all four Grand Slam crowns in the same year in both 1962 and 1969.

"The difference was you needed perfect timing then. Now, with the wider racket face, anybody can hit it."

One solution could be for professionals to use modified, smaller rackets while amateurs could still use the larger models.

"There is a history of this in other sports," guest Professor Howard Brody of the University of Pennsylvania said.

"In the U.S. in baseball there are different rules. Professionals are permitted to use only wooden bats while amateurs can use the more powerful aluminium versions."