How to save tennis

[Lew II]

If winning is so easy we will soon have some new Big4 to cheer for

 

[winstonlim8]

Based on the way tennis has been developing to date, I would think that the best way to save it (from what I infer to be the reasoning of Those-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed) is to make 237-stroke rallies compulsory and end all games in two hours. If the game is unconcluded at the end of that time, the winner will be decided by spinning the racquet like they do to determine who serves first. Most importantly, any player who hits a winner before the mandatory 237 strokes automatically loses the point!

These changes would -
a. get rid of servebots (everyone hates a player with a good serve, no?)
b. guarantee the long exciting rallies which everyone seems to want so badly
c. allow spectator participation, since they would be encouraged to join the countdown on every point
d. solve the problems raised by weird strings and oversized racquets.
e. allow sponsors the best air time for their products
f. a definite winner and a nailbiting finale even if the players can't complete the game
g. avoid too-long games and make scheduling a breeze for organisers, sponsors, spectators and TV stations

 

[van_Loederen]

Faster balls end story.

Fast courts + light balls = job done

lol, that would first and foremost enhance the serve.
as if there were not already enough servebots marching towards the top of the ranking list.

 

[racquetreligion]

lol, that would first and foremost enhance the serve.
as if there were not already enough servebots marching towards the top of the ranking list.

Read it again like I said no will mind a servebots winning once in a while but
pushers dont like faster balls or conditions eg. Nadal at ATP Finals.
Serving consistently for 5 sets in a Slam is not that easy even for a servebot
vs todays racquets which favor returns and passing shots to a higher degree

 

[van_Loederen]

Read it again like I said no will mind a servebots winning once in a while but
pushers dont like faster balls or conditions eg. Nadal at ATP Finals.
Serving consistently for 5 sets in a Slam is not that easy even for a servebot
vs todays racquets which favor returns and passing shots to a higher degree

only the big 3-4-5 prevented the servebots so far, but last Wimbledon Anderson and Isner made the semis.
i have no issues with using the terms 'servebot' and 'pusher' lighthearted, but
there are simply a lot of tall guys with competent movement and a big serve, who don't attract a wider audience.
looking at Nadal as a 'pusher' is ridiculous
and if you use the term only for his YEC or so, then i have to ask you: who are the pushers? what is the problem?

 

[The Shape-shifter]

there are simply a lot of tall guys with competent movement and a big serve, who don't attract a wider audience

But only very few have serves like Raonic. A serve like Del Potro or Berdych serve is largely returnable even on fast courts.

 

[Tennisbg]

-Women play in bikinis

I am looking forward to seeing Serena and Barty match

 

[junior74]

Make the top 500 earn okay money

If the council should work for anything, this is the one thing that matters.

I'm afrad they'd rather eat cake.

 

[van_Loederen]

But only very few have serves like Raonic. A serve like Del Potro or Berdych serve is largely returnable even on fast courts.

most of the promising younger players have a game that is centered around the serve
and almost all of them possess at least a strong serve.

making the balls lighter across the tour would not make tennis more attractive, but the exact opposite.
the other poster probably believes that it would bring volley game back, but it would do that only very small scale.
it would first and foremost make the serve even more dominant.

 

[sredna42]

lol, that would first and foremost enhance the serve.
as if there were not already enough servebots marching towards the top of the ranking list.

Karlovic has an unplayable serve as is, yet hasn't won anything

 

[van_Loederen]

Karlovic has an unplayable serve as is, yet hasn't won anything

could you please add the rest of your thought. i seem to be unable to fill it in myself.

 

[sredna42]

could you please add the rest of your thought. i seem to be unable to fill it in myself.

The rest of my thoughts are all of vicky stark fishing on youtube

 

[van_Loederen]

The rest of my thoughts are all of vicky stark fishing on youtube

i had such a hunch.

there are even worse servebots than Karlovic out there.

 

[sredna42]

i had such a hunch.

there are even worse servebots than Karlovic out there.

Who?
Isner.
Kanderson.
Raonic maybe?

Not exactly taking the world by storm like vicky is.

 

[Devilito]

cancel clay

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Tennis only seems to need 'saving' when Nadal and Djokovic are winning all of the slams.

 

[van_Loederen]

Make the top 500 earn okay money

that's what the ATP is already trying to do since the beginning of the year.

Tennis only seems to need 'saving' when Nadal and Djokovic are winning all of the slams.

damn, and i was really wondering how somebody can suggest to use lighter balls.

 

[tennisjedi]

10 seconds between serves.
Only one serve is allowed.
Only ball bashing and serve and volley is allowed.
No rally beyond 5 shots is allowed.

 

[blablavla]

But only very few have serves like Raonic. A serve like Del Potro or Berdych serve is largely returnable even on fast courts.

right, that's why breaking Del Potro is so easy

 

[blablavla]

10 seconds between serves.
Only one serve is allowed.
Only ball bashing and serve and volley is allowed.
No rally beyond 5 shots is allowed.

what's the penalty if the rally went over 5 shots?
are both players penalized or only 1, if 1 then which one?

 

[racquetreligion]

only the big 3-4-5 prevented the servebots so far, but last Wimbledon Anderson and Isner made the semis.
i have no issues with using the terms 'servebot' and 'pusher' lighthearted, but
there are simply a lot of tall guys with competent movement and a big serve, who don't attract a wider audience.
looking at Nadal as a 'pusher' is ridiculous
and if you use the term only for his YEC or so, then i have to ask you: who are the pushers? what is the problem?

No homogenization has prevented servebots winning slams consistently
I like Mahut, Stuff and also enjoyed Muller, Stepanek and Llodra for they
are the opposite of the baseline tennis I play and forced to play.
Although I could not play the way those guys wether they win or lose
it was always fun to see their mastery getting to the net more often.
Nadal vs the likes of Thiem, Davydenko or Federer on HCs is definitely
on pure counter punch mode, choosing to defend and draw errors.
He is not the whole scene but most players have no other choice.
Risk tennis is no longer rewarded on HCs as it used to be before the
ATP LTA homogenization changed the game and yet yet Nadal still
cant win at the YE finals period.

most of the promising younger players have a game that is centered around the serve
and almost all of them possess at least a strong serve.

making the balls lighter across the tour would not make tennis more attractive, but the exact opposite.
the other poster probably believes that it would bring volley game back, but it would do that only very small scale.
it would first and foremost make the serve even more dominant.

No the selfie gens dont have the consistently strong serving of the top guys

I would not suggest using lighter but heavier balls like compounds used in Korean events
when Groth, Roddick and many others were serving 250kmhr + with little accuracy
as heavier balls are harder to guide correctly and accurately vs lighter balls.

 

[jarko111]

Save tennis??? Live tennis is on tv every day from multiple events. Tennis channel is cool like that. I’ve seen four different events from both tours this week. They show them until last ball then replay them all night. I don’t think tennis needs saved.

 

[I Am Finnish]

10 seconds between serves.
Only one serve is allowed.
Only ball bashing and serve and volley is allowed.
No rally beyond 5 shots is allowed.

 

[Lleytonstation]

Well yeah, it forces the guy hitting the 5th shot to have to go for a winner. If the other guy gets it back the the point is over.

I mean 5 shots is good enough. After 5 strokes, I know who will win the point regardless the length of the rally.

 

[I Am Finnish]

Well yeah, it forces the guy hitting the 5th shot to have to go for a winner. If the other guy gets it back the the point is over.

I mean 5 shots is good enough. After 5 strokes, I know who will win the point regardless the length of the rally.

Nah i like long rallies

I do like the 10 sec between the serve and no 2nd serve

 

[Pmasterfunk]

Why are people complaining about servebots? How many big tournaments have been won by servebots in the last 10 years? (an actual response would be interesting)

Oh, and no towel between points.

 

[deaner2211]

Well tennis is doing great because of the big 3, but after them , i dont know, there are no exiciting players. But atp is guilt on this. I think they wanted to create superheroes that win in every surface so they killed the features of which surface, you cant win wimbledon by serve and volley anymore! What i think they should do:

- Grass and hardcourt should comeback to be faster again , not hugely fast, but where news type of plays can work , like agressive baseliners , serve and volley etc . We only see pusher etc but it is not their fault , if they do something different they will lose, we need more variety . Clay we can leave as it is high bounce and slow as clay should be.

- to prevent servebot to thrive , we should create limitations on the racket technology , maybe limitation on the size and the polystring used, i think formula 1 they have these kind of rules, so it is not unfair. So create rules about rackets it is not far fetched.

- we need to discuss length of the game. As the game is more and more physical , 4 hours plus can destroy a player body, mayer and nishikori played 5 setters in this FO and
They were detroyed in the next round, and we have seen a lot of injuries in players , even youngers players. I know it is tricky but we could change the deuce rule (40-40 the next point closes the game) or 6-6 normal tiebreak in the 5th set. It is hard to call new fans saying well , you need 4 hours to watch this match. ( And of course enforce the serve clock rule)

I think we need mostly more variety ,not a bunch of grinders or a bunch of servebots but we can reach a middle ground .

When the US produce better players which is not likely because tennis is not a top 5 sport in the US and barely in the top 10 at number 10.

 

[deaner2211]

Why are people complaining about servebots? How many big tournaments have been won by servebots in the last 10 years? (an actual response would be interesting)

Oh, and no towel between points.

None because the Big 3 are still playing, the question was after the Big 3.

 

[racquetreligion]

Why are people complaining about servebots? How many big tournaments have been won by servebots in the last 10 years? (an actual response would be interesting)

Oh, and no towel between points.

Gilles Simon pushed his way past Servebot Anderson
Nicolas Mahut used an old style all court game to beat in form Stan the Man

Grass is a great surface, we need more of it but Simon beating Anderson
shows clearly baseline pushery with todays homogenization is the norm.

 

[Pmasterfunk]

None because the Big 3 are still playing, the question was after the Big 3.

Even after the big 3, who are the servebots right now? Isner, Anderson, Raonic? Isner and Anderson are as close to retiring as Nadal or Djokovic, and Raonic is injured so often he might retire before them.

Anyway, Isner has 1 GS SF and 2 QF, and he's 1-4 in M1000 finals. Anderson has 2 GS Finals (how did this happen), and 0 M1000 finals. Raonic has 1 GS F and 2 SF, and is 0-3 in M1000 finals. It's true that the big 3 won most if not all of these matches.

Obviously it's impossible to say who would have won these matches/tournaments had the big 3 not been there, but with some strong optimism let's say the servebots would may have won these matches/tournaments. So the 3 most successful servebots of the past 13 years (Anderson and Isner had their debut GS in 2007) would have - over the course of 13 years - won maybe 4 or 5 grand slams, and maybe 7 M1000. 5 out of 50 GS is 10%, and 8 out of 117 just about 7%.

Are we really going to start complaining about a small group of players winning less than 10% of the biggest tournaments in the world? Had the big 3 not been around, Ferrer would likely have picked up a bunch of these tournaments anyway. As much as I'd rather watch paint dry than see Isner play on TV (in person his game is impressive tbh), servebots' contribution to tennis is completely overblown right now.

 

[van_Loederen]

Gilles Simon pushed his way past Servebot Anderson
Nicolas Mahut used an old style all court game to beat in form Stan the Man

Grass is a great surface, we need more of it but Simon beating Anderson
shows clearly baseline pushery with todays homogenization is the norm.

it has been Anderson's first tourney after a longer injury break,
but yes, grass tennis has become onedimensional.

Simon is an old player and Bautista is past 30 as well.
the only young pusher prospect so far is Boric, or who else is there?

 

[fuzz nation]

Wow, that’s a lot of space behind the baseline..

That's the show court that greets visitors at the Hall of Fame in Newport. Not really for playing matches, but a rather groovy glimpse of a yester-year setting. When the pros are in town to play the little tourney there (right after Wimbledon), the organizers have folks play low speed doubles on that "horseshoe court" for an hour in the morning dressed in old-fashioned garb and they play with wood racquets.

It's actually laid out 90 degrees off of the orientation of the rest of the courts at the facility and I'm pretty sure that both its construction and maintenance are different from the other grass courts there. It's softer and more bumpy, but also quite charming. A pal of mine got married on that court.

 

[van_Loederen]

Even after the big 3, who are the servebots right now?

Raonic , Zverev , Khachanov , Medvedev , Berrettini.

other players with a (very) dominant serve are Kyrgios, Aulassime, Tsitsipas.

the thing is, who are the remaining prospects? Thiem, Shapovalov(?) ...and?

and if only such big servers play eachother in the future, it will become boring.

 

[racquetreligion]

it has been Anderson's first tourney after a longer injury break,
but yes, grass tennis has become onedimensional.

Simon is an old player and Bautista is past 30 as well.
the only young pusher prospect so far is Boric, or who else is there?

A Zverev, Fokina and a few more in the selfi gen but Mannarino vs Thompson was perhaps the biggest push fest of 2019

 

[deaner2211]

Even after the big 3, who are the servebots right now? Isner, Anderson, Raonic? Isner and Anderson are as close to retiring as Nadal or Djokovic, and Raonic is injured so often he might retire before them.

Anyway, Isner has 1 GS SF and 2 QF, and he's 1-4 in M1000 finals. Anderson has 2 GS Finals (how did this happen), and 0 M1000 finals. Raonic has 1 GS F and 2 SF, and is 0-3 in M1000 finals. It's true that the big 3 won most if not all of these matches.

Obviously it's impossible to say who would have won these matches/tournaments had the big 3 not been there, but with some strong optimism let's say the servebots would may have won these matches/tournaments. So the 3 most successful servebots of the past 13 years (Anderson and Isner had their debut GS in 2007) would have - over the course of 13 years - won maybe 4 or 5 grand slams, and maybe 7 M1000. 5 out of 50 GS is 10%, and 8 out of 117 just about 7%.

Are we really going to start complaining about a small group of players winning less than 10% of the biggest tournaments in the world? Had the big 3 not been around, Ferrer would likely have picked up a bunch of these tournaments anyway. As much as I'd rather watch paint dry than see Isner play on TV (in person his game is impressive tbh), servebots' contribution to tennis is completely overblown right now.

Zverev is a servebot. All he has is a good serve and forehand. He cant move or volley. The younger generation are nothing but a bunch of ball bashers. It is so bad when grass tennis starts to look like clay tennis.

 

[van_Loederen]

A Zverev, Fokina and a few more in the selfi gen but Mannarino vs Thompson was perhaps the biggest push fest of 2019

(Mannarino is +30.)
Fokina may still develop technically, so i'm not fully subscribing yet. probably he won't, but his success is not so clear either yet.
(Thompson i haven't watched yet as i don't watch every 250 event.)

okay let's see what happens next in the battle "Pusher vs Servebots".


Zverev is the worst that could happen to the sport. hopefully he keeps losing early.

 

[Pmasterfunk]

Raonic , Zverev , Khachanov , Medvedev , Berrettini.

other players with a (very) dominant serve are Kyrgios, Aulassime, Tsitsipas.

Apart from Raonic and to a lesser extent Kyrgios, I wouldn't really consider any of these players servebots. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I wouldn't put Zverev in here either, but I don't particularly like his game anyway.

 

[van_Loederen]

Apart from Raonic and to a lesser extent Kyrgios, I wouldn't really consider any of these players servebots. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

you might change your view when they regularly play eachother in GS finals.

I wouldn't put Zverev in here either, but I don't particularly like his game anyway.

noone does!

 

[racquetreligion]

I posted the 2 different final highlights earlier on for the non 250 point event followers
the differences in Berretini vs FAA and Mannarino vs Thompson Finals were night and day

How pathetic slow grass and balls breeds these pushers

vs fast grass, balls and power hitters

W19 will be fast grass for the first week then slow as buggery

 

[Russeljones]

Ummm, because

Your point is?

 

[Lleytonstation]

Your point is?

Some can't handle da booty.

 

[Russeljones]

Some can't handle da booty.

They should stay clear but why hate? Intimidated, more likely.

 

[tennishabit]

Ummm, because

omfg...........is she victim of family violence or something or ufc-ed for fun:?))).............bruises all over her body....................

 

[racquetreligion]

Congrats FLo beat Simon in a strange battle by swapping roles several times.
Simon reached a new chapter by not getting into pushery battles favored at times
by usually baseline error prone Feli! who resorted to pushery to draw errors from Simon.
When Feli finally wanted to win he went back to his attacking game, but not without
Simon also having great success at the net, high FH winners tally and S&V and just missing out.
As slippery as it was for most players, this and Halle seemed to have dream Baseline vs S&V battles.
S&V is not dead for most of events except 1 week grass crourt events and 1st week of Wimby.

Strangely Dr Ivo beat Feli on Clay at RG then Surbiton but went out to Troicki and Ward!
For Feli to lose at RG vs Ivo is almost embarrassing considering he is a mirror image of Dr Ivo
with slice bh but loopy FH that often lets him down on HCs but not on clay.

 

[racquetreligion]

omfg...........is she victim of family violence or something or ufc-ed for fun:?))).............bruises all over her body....................

She practises her poses tucking her stomach in for selfies and friends warn her of click time.
Sure she did have great proportions and sweet face when she was halve her age albeit a little
of Mike Tyson genes making their way on her face but now the blotchy bruised and aweful skin
is like Chernobyl food made its way daily into her gut or was involved in a fight club on the side.

 

[tennishabit]

She practises her poses tucking her stomach in for selfies and friends warn her of click time.
Sure she did have great proportions and sweet face when she was halve her age albeit a little
of Mike Tyson genes making their way on her face but now the blotchy bruised and aweful skin
is like Chernobyl food made its way daily into her gut or was involved in a fight club on the side.

man dat's scary from her chest rib down............only saw those bruises from punch/kick victims or ufc fighters right after the fight.....................