Shorten men's matches, says former Player Council head

Goatios said:
Grand Slams are the only times of year most people watch tennis. In Australia, people watch "the Tennis" when the open comes around in January. Some fraction of those stay up late to watch Wimbledon, but only big fans actually watch any other international tournament. Slams need to be exciting to increase interest in the sport the rest of the time. Yes, everyone loves an epic Fed vs Nadal, but a 4 hour #37 vs #52?
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That just means people have short attention spans and it may well be getting shorter. If exciting means quicker, more intense, and flashier then sorry but tennis isn't always going to be like that. Most of the lure of tennis is through playing any way, I played tennis before I started watching it. Tennis won't appeal to many people but to me it is already exciting and interesting because I love playing and watching the game.

Slams don't need to be more exciting, not every match is gonna be full of fireworks and tennis will attract those (smart people) who understand and love the game.

No wonder the guy OP is referring to is former head of player council.
 
no need to mess with the scoring format. ad scoring creates drama. best-of-five creates drama, especially now that it's basically been confined to the slams. there used to be a time when the masters tourneys were best-of-five. the tour and the players did away with that. now best-of-five makes the slams that much more unique.

over the last 20+ years, the tour and the players themselves have managed to kill every nuance in the game. if the sport is dying (tv and marketing-wise), they only need to look at themselves. there was a time when the sport had variety; variety of surfaces, variety of playing styles. certain times of the year favored certain players and their styles. even when the australian open was still on grass, it varied from the grass at wimbledon. you had the grass favor the attackers. you had clay favor the baseliners. you had hardcourt as the "leveler", where both styles could succeed. the great advantage that someone like chris evert had at roland garros was nullified at wimbledon. even she knew she had to find her way to the net. the surface could not sustain her sitting back and engaging in 20 stroke rallies. conversely, the big serve and volley of sampras which made him almost unstoppable on grass was almost completely negated on clay.

players were forced to adapt to surfaces back then. the surfaces ranged from one extreme to the other, and you had to adjust your game depending on the surface, whether you liked it or not. it's what made someone like bjorn borg seem godlike. the fact that he could win at roland garros and turn around and win at wimbledon seemed unreal, even moreso by the 1980s and 90s. by then it was almost inconceivable.

fans got the pleasure of watching evert win the french hitting winners and passing shots from the baseline, and of watching navratilova at wimbledon come to the net every chance she got to punch those volleys away. bruguera, kafelnikov, kuerten, muster . . . you knew those topspin baseliners had the edge on clay. sampras, cash, edberg, becker . . . the servers had their way on grass. the us open was a friggin' toss-up. fans got long rallies and sliding and moonballs on clay. they got aces and angled volleys and grass stains on grass. they ooh-ed and ahhh-ed when courier hit pinpoint groundstrokes just as much as they did when becker threw himself around to reach those dive volleys of his.

all of that is gone.

and that's not me being nostalgic. it's a fact. serve and volley, low unpredictable bounces, fast courts, one-handers, approach shots, short points . . . all rarities. 20 years of creating a tour that supports only one way to play and win: from the back. and every year, the players get bigger, stronger, faster, fitter. their racquets and strings get better. and the "winning" strategy becomes universal for them all.

and so we arrive at today's tour. a homogenized tour. points that go on forever, from january til december. nice, high bounces all year long for everyone. longer and longer rallies and longer and longer matches. and players that are breaking down from that wear and tear.

it's a self-inflicted wound. a runaway train. a monster . . . created by the atp.
 
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skip1969 said:
no need to mess with the scoring format. ad scoring creates drama. best-of-five creates drama, especially now that it's basically been confined to the slams. there used to be a time when the masters tourneys were best-of-five. the tour and the players did away with that. now best-of-five makes the slams that much more unique.

over the last 20+ years, the tour and the players themselves have managed to kill every nuance in the game. if the sport is dying (tv and marketing-wise), they only need to look at themselves. there was a time when the sport had variety; variety of surfaces, variety of playing styles. certain times of the year favored certain players and their styles. even when the australian open was still on grass, it varied from the grass at wimbledon. you had the grass favor the attackers. you had clay favor the baseliners. you had hardcourt as the "leveler", where both styles could succeed. the great advantage that someone like chris evert had at roland garros was nullified at wimbledon. even she knew she had to find her way to the net. the surface could not sustain her sitting back and engaging in 20 stroke rallies. conversely, the big serve and volley of sampras which made him almost unstoppable on grass was almost completely negated on clay.

players were forced to adapt to surfaces back then. the surfaces ranged from one extreme to the other, and you had to adjust your game depending on the surface, whether you liked it or not. it's what made someone like bjorn borg seem godlike. the fact that he could win at roland garros and turn around and win at wimbledon seemed unreal, even moreso by the 1980s and 90s. by then it was almost inconceivable.

fans got the pleasure of watching evert win the french hitting winners and passing shots from the baseline, and of watching navratilova come to the net every chance she got to punch those volleys away. bruguera, kafelnikov, kuerten, muster . . . you knew those topspin baseliners had the edge on clay. sampras, rafter, edberg, becker . . . the servers had their way on grass. the us open was a friggin' toss-up. fans got long rallies and sliding and moonballs on clay. they got aces and angled volleys and grass stains on grass. they ooh-ed and ahhh-ed when courier hit pinpoint groundstrokes just as much as they did when becker threw himself around to reach those dive volleys of his.

all of that is gone.

and that's not me being nostalgic. it's a fact. serve and volley, low unpredictable bounces, fast courts, one-handers, approach shots, shot points . . . all rarities. 20 years of creating a tour that supports only one way to play and win: from the back. and every year, the players get bigger, stronger, faster, fitter. their racquets and strings get better. and the "winning" strategy becomes universal for them all.

and so we arrive at today's tour. a homogenized tour. points that go on forever, from january til december. nice, high bounces all year long for everyone. longer and longer rallies and longer and longer matches. and players that are breaking down from that wear and tear.

it's a self-inflicted wound. a runaway train. a monster . . . created by the atp.
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I didn't read all of that but good point about drama, cause drama creates interest and interest = more views. Problem f'ing solved. Keep BO5 cause it creates drama (and keep Fabio Fognini)
 
I would like to see at all four slams:

*Tie-break at the fifth set in men and third in women.

*Start on Sunday instead of Monday(get rid off middle sunday rest at Wimbledon).

*Towel only at the changes of sides.(I mean they have wrist bands)

*Reinforce the rule of time between points to 30 secs max.
 
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I think speeding the court is needed. No question about that. May be the initial round matches should be made short. For example Murray's 3rd round match was so boring to watch. We all know the result even before the match was played that his 34 year old opponent cannot win Murray after his 5 setter 2nd round match. Even Murray knows it. He kept playing safe waiting for his opponent to crack.
So initial round can be shortened by bringing small changes. Like 4-0 should end the set. If a lower ranked players who is down 4-0 hardly finds a way to win a set. What is the use of playing next 4 games when both the players are clearly thinking about next set.
5-5 for tie breaker if there is no exchange of breaks in the set so far.
I believe reducing the player recovery time and also keeping thr courts slow is not a good combo. The game is now too much physical and players need time to recover between points..
I think many sports are going through this pahse. Even cricket is going through this. Younger fans are now crazy about t20 game. And only older fans watch test cricket which is true test of cricketing skills and technique. As the older generation fades away cricket has to at some stage think about giving up test cricket or bring more meaning to it.
For those who don't know cricker, test matches are played for 5 continuos days and often results in no resukt. As a fan it is so irritating to watch 5 days with no result. Tennis matches are far better.
 
"Tennis is for intelligent people" is such elitist ********. I watch because it gives me ****ing heart attacks. More heart attack moments = better imo.
 
tennisaddict said:
Tennis must consider shortening matches in a bid to engage with a younger fanbase and avoid losing television viewers, according to former ATP Player Council president and doubles specialist Eric Butorac.

The 35-year-old American, who was succeeded by world number one Novak Djokovic as president, said speed of play is high on the agenda for the new board, which also includes two-time reigning Olympic champion Andy Murray of Britain.

"It's too slow," Butorac, who finished his two-year term as president last month, told Reuters at the U.S. Open. "I said to Andy, I would rather you and Novak play for two hours rather than four.

"I’m too busy. I’ve got two kids, I’ve got stuff to do. I love watching you guys play but I don’t need four hours of it."

According to Butorac, who served on the Council for eight years, Murray is not averse to change.

"We need to do some serious research," he said. "We need to look at: what does our fan base want? What does our younger fan base want? Is it too long?

"I said to Andy, I think we could play two out of three sets here (instead of best of five, as played at the four grand slams).

"And Andy said: 'well, is it better to play two out of three or to play fewer games in a set?' That's not a terrible idea."

Murray said he had enjoyed his first meeting of the Council, held on the eve of the U.S. Open.

"The first meeting was four and a half hours long," Murray told British reporters. "A lot of things got discussed. I'm looking forward to doing it.

"How much you can change things, I don't know."

It was the epic Australian Open final of 2012, when Djokovic beat Rafa Nadal after five hours, 53 minutes, that led many, especially television companies, to call for players to speed up between points.

The average length of men's matches through the first six days at Flushing Meadows this year was 2 hours and 31 minutes. That is eight minutes longer than the overall average from 2015.

But 25 matches so far in this year's U.S. Open have gone to five sets and organizers are experimenting with the use of a shot clock in the junior events and collegiate events.

The clock, allowing players 20 seconds between points as per the rules at grand slams, was first used on Sunday but American junior Brandon Holt said he barely noticed it.

"I only looked at it one time and it said 17 seconds," he said. "I don’t think we even got close to it – at the end I don’t think the guy even turned it on.

"Mostly (the juniors) play pretty fast. But the pros, especially in the fifth set, they've got to take a lot of time so I don’t know how that’s going to work.”

Butorac, who played his last professional match at the U.S. Open last week before moving into a role with the USTA, said he knows some people will not want to change but that it might be the best thing to do.

"It’s tough to mess with tradition but at some point we’ve got to make sure we’re putting the best product on the court," he said. "And I don’t always know that more is better.

"It (would be) a powerful movement but if you truly believe it’s best for the sport, then sports have changed scoring before."
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We have to be careful with experimenting on the game.

The changes made around 2003(surfaces,balls,tounrament/seeding/ranking system) created montrously popular top players like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.
But we are gonna have a let down after this generation.
Look how old top players are now.
This slow game and protective system created Federer. And Nadal/Djokovic to benefit next.

We will have aftermath of tinckering with the tradition of the game a bit too much (so called power baseline tennis since ~2003), IMHO.
 
Keep it the same.

Watching Women's Tennis with BO3 makes too many matches too fast. No real stories being created outside of Serena.
BO5 allows more momentum changes and really needs mentally tough players to stay on top. BO5 allows drama. Almost anyone that is down 2 sets, becomes the crowd favorite and there is a drive for more tennis. How many 3 set matches stick in our minds? It's the 4 and 5 set battles that create tennis history.

If anything, should we attack the technology? Is it time to put a limit on racquet head size? Maybe a minimal weight? Mess with the strings?

In the 70's and 80's tennis exploded. Why? I think it was the personalities and not just the tennis. Agassi brought that in the 90s. Roger and Rafa brought some of that to the 2000s. Djoker and Murray are just too much by the book business. The up and comers so far are too vanilla. We need someone who is hungry to win, not someone who is just happy to be out there. I saw a Raonic press conference and it was a snooze fest. It's fine that these guys are nice, but you don't see their fire. Some people love that fire in Serena and others get ticked at her, but it creates a story.

Sports are competing with all the other forms of media--and the best content wins. I don't think cutting your content down to a smaller package makes it better, you need better quality content. Talent and personalities.
 
I think the top players who have been on tour for X number of years are soooo bored of playing the same old lower ranked players in a best out of five in the slams. In the first two or three rounds. They are there physically, but they just aren't there mentally any more.

So year, why not experiment with two out of three for the first two rounds at least.

I dunno, tennis is still pretty good. But more excitement would be good.

Hockey just absolutely refuses to go four on four, even though anyone who has seen four on four in overtime can attest to the fact that it is ten times, the better game to watch. And having played four on four a lot, I can tell you as a player, its 200 times more exciting to play.
 
Robert F said:
The up and comers so far are too vanilla. We need someone who is hungry to win, not someone who is just happy to be out there. I saw a Raonic press conference and it was a snooze fest. It's fine that these guys are nice, but you don't see their fire. Some people love that fire in Serena and others get ticked at her, but it creates a story.

Sports are competing with all the other forms of media--and the best content wins. I don't think cutting your content down to a smaller package makes it better, you need better quality content. Talent and personalities.
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Tennis needs Kyrgios to step up and start saying he wants to be the best of all time. Rebel without a cause gets old fast, but if he can match his abrasive personality with some actual ambition then he will save the sport from the personality-free players.
 
Goatios said:
Tennis needs Kyrgios to step up and start saying he wants to be the best of all time. Rebel without a cause gets old fast, but if he can match his abrasive personality with some actual ambition then he will save the sport from the personality-free players.
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I don't understand why people think Kyrgios is the next best thing, dude is athletic and makes shots look easy but he doesn't come across as a tennis player to me. He creates no more excitement than any other player I watch.

I'm fine with vanilla tennis players, we don't need thugs playing our sport. Like I mentioned, tennis is one of those sports where playing is where excitement is generated, not sitting on your fat arse watching TV. Understand tennis more then you will appreciate watching matches and then it will all of the sudden become more 'exciting' to you people.

That's like saying, golf needs to be more exciting, we need less vanilla golf players so I can watch golf all day and get pumped.
 
"you people"... lol. Who do you think you are?

Kyrgios is a poser not a thug. But if he gets hungry and backs his words up with discipline and big wins then he's going to become a star.
 
Goatios said:
"you people"... lol. Who do you think you are?

Kyrgios is a poser not a thug. But if he gets hungry and backs his words up with discipline and big wins then he's going to become a star.
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I am a person that enjoys playing and watching tennis just as it is. Who are you?
 
tennisaddict said:
"I said to Andy, I think we could play two out of three sets here (instead of best of five, as played at the four grand slams).

"And Andy said: 'well, is it better to play two out of three or to play fewer games in a set?' That's not a terrible idea."
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Andy is one of the slowest players on tour.
The average length of men's matches through the first six days at Flushing Meadows this year was 2 hours and 31 minutes. That is eight minutes longer than the overall average from 2015.
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Guess why that is?
The clock, allowing players 20 seconds between points as per the rules at grand slams, was first used on Sunday but American junior Brandon Holt said he barely noticed it.
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Half the top players can't get ready in 25 seconds or more half the time. I've been behind a shot clock for a long time. Let's see them do it.
 
For most matches these days, particularly the ones with the 2 guys on top of the rankings, I suspect instead of going through the 4 hour grinding ball machine session just having a no holds barred fight or even an arm wrestle would make it quicker and more enjoyable.
 
Another thing: people complain about older players. Well, if the sets are shortened and pure endurance is less of a factor, you'll see more older players winning tournaments. What kind of tournaments has Fed been winning the last few years? What kind of tournament did Karlovic almost win this year?
 
Gary Duane said:
Another thing: people complain about older players. Well, if the sets are shortened and pure endurance is less of a factor, you'll see more older players winning tournaments. What kind of tournaments has Fed been winning the last few years? What kind of tournament did Karlovic almost win this year?
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People like older players being competitive, it's more the total dominance of late 20s players and the seeming inability of teenagers or early 20s players to mount a serious challenge anymore.

Shorter matches should flatten out those demands for endurance a little so that both younger and older players have a better shot against those in the middle.
 
Goatios said:
People like older players being competitive, it's more the total dominance of late 20s players and the seeming inability of teenagers or early 20s players to mount a serious challenge anymore.

Shorter matches should flatten out those demands for endurance a little so that both younger and older players have a better shot against those in the middle.
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Add middle 20s to your list. Someone was still hyping Dimitrov in his latest match as a "young player". The fact is that usually you only see older players at the end of tournaments now. And half the time (or more) they do not show matches of the young or young players.
 
Gary Duane said:
Add middle 20s to your list. Someone was still hyping Dimitrov in his latest match as a "young player". The fact is that usually you only see older players at the end of tournaments now. And half the time (or more) they do not show matches of the young or young players.
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Dimitrov is turning into the Anna Kournikova of tennis without the sex marketing.
 
What if the problem was not in the game but in people's attention span? Why do we always tweak the game instead of ourselves?
It's like society has become a spoiled child that yells "I want it/I don't want it" and industry/services/media are the lazy parents that give in to every whim and desire.
No wonder reality TV has triumphed. It's the age-old question: do we want everything spoon-fed or do we want to challenge ourselves (instead of the paternalist "do we want to be challenged?")?
 
duaneeo said:
Rather than shorten the matches, speed up the courts.
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giphy.gif
 
Uhm... I guess then we should also resolve and bring it to a conclusion on whether women should play best of 1-set because otherwise it'd be like both men and women playing 3 sets, which is not fair, some would say...
 
I disagree with the BO3 format in slams. What if someone in the future wins 10+ slams. Do those have the same value compared to Fed's, Nadal's and Nole's who had to win them the hard way?

Absolutely not.

I'm all in for speeding up the courts though.
 
mike danny said:
I disagree with the BO3 format in slams. What if someone in the future wins 10+ slams. Do those have the same value compared to Fed's, Nadal's and Nole's who had to win them the hard way?

Absolutely not.

I'm all in for speeding up the courts though.
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LOL.

Fed's, Nadal's, and Nole's slams already didn't face nearly the hurdles previous generations' slams did. They've utterly eradicated surface specialization from the game and opened up every title on every surface on the tour to anyone with a serve, a forehand, a little cardio, and polys in his tweener.

So let's not go feeling nostalgic about our antique Ikea furniture.
 
TupeloDanger said:
LOL.

Fed's, Nadal's, and Nole's slams already didn't face nearly the hurdles previous generations' slams did. They've utterly eradicated surface specialization from the game and opened up every title on every surface on the tour to anyone with a serve, a forehand, a little cardio, and polys in his tweener.

So let's not go feeling nostalgic about our antique Ikea furniture.
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Nevertheless, they at least won their slams in best of 5 format.

If you say this now, imagine what you would say if future all time greats won their slams in best of 3 format.
 
Markets will determine when is the right time to make the transition to BO3 in early rounds.

It will happen. It is a question of when .

The last thing they will think about is how will players achievements be compared across eras.

The quick formats are here to stay
 
If you wanna make tennis one of the top sports in the world then frankly we need to cut out the 4-6 hour matches. No one has time for that. I coupd watch 3 Formula 1 grand prix's in that time. 4 full football matches. Multiple american football matches. So many other sports take less time and are if not more popular with the public
 
Don't mess with it, game too long for you, stop watching tennis.
Keep the ad point it's one of the many things that make the game.
Drop the let on serve, this is way overdue.
Five sets in slams are a must.
I know that an F1 race or a footie match are over in a shorter period, but they are so boring that a couple of hours of that and you would think you had entered the event horizon of a black hole.

I might concede a championship tie break in the fifth... Might.
 
Question:

If speed of the game and long matches is/was really the issue, shouldn't the doubles matches be getting so much more viewership?

I can see speeding up the "dead time".. that is change overs, time between points. I can even see playing no-ad. I also agree that de-homogenization of the courts would improve the game and game speed. if for nothing else, than it would give rise to more different styles of play.

Letting the coaches on the courts is to talk with players between sets would be interesting... if they players and coaches were mic'd for the audience (maybe just the live/in person audience). But if not mic'd, I am against that in the match too.

I don't think a 5-set vs 3-set is going to change viewership positively. In fact, there are times I wish the women's game was 3/5 for majors as well.
 
skip1969 said:
no need to mess with the scoring format. ad scoring creates drama. best-of-five creates drama, especially now that it's basically been confined to the slams. there used to be a time when the masters tourneys were best-of-five. the tour and the players did away with that. now best-of-five makes the slams that much more unique.

over the last 20+ years, the tour and the players themselves have managed to kill every nuance in the game. if the sport is dying (tv and marketing-wise), they only need to look at themselves. there was a time when the sport had variety; variety of surfaces, variety of playing styles. certain times of the year favored certain players and their styles. even when the australian open was still on grass, it varied from the grass at wimbledon. you had the grass favor the attackers. you had clay favor the baseliners. you had hardcourt as the "leveler", where both styles could succeed. the great advantage that someone like chris evert had at roland garros was nullified at wimbledon. even she knew she had to find her way to the net. the surface could not sustain her sitting back and engaging in 20 stroke rallies. conversely, the big serve and volley of sampras which made him almost unstoppable on grass was almost completely negated on clay.

players were forced to adapt to surfaces back then. the surfaces ranged from one extreme to the other, and you had to adjust your game depending on the surface, whether you liked it or not. it's what made someone like bjorn borg seem godlike. the fact that he could win at roland garros and turn around and win at wimbledon seemed unreal, even moreso by the 1980s and 90s. by then it was almost inconceivable.

fans got the pleasure of watching evert win the french hitting winners and passing shots from the baseline, and of watching navratilova come to the net every chance she got to punch those volleys away. bruguera, kafelnikov, kuerten, muster . . . you knew those topspin baseliners had the edge on clay. sampras, cash, edberg, becker . . . the servers had their way on grass. the us open was a friggin' toss-up. fans got long rallies and sliding and moonballs on clay. they got aces and angled volleys and grass stains on grass. they ooh-ed and ahhh-ed when courier hit pinpoint groundstrokes just as much as they did when becker threw himself around to reach those dive volleys of his.

all of that is gone.

and that's not me being nostalgic. it's a fact. serve and volley, low unpredictable bounces, fast courts, one-handers, approach shots, shot points . . . all rarities. 20 years of creating a tour that supports only one way to play and win: from the back. and every year, the players get bigger, stronger, faster, fitter. their racquets and strings get better. and the "winning" strategy becomes universal for them all.

and so we arrive at today's tour. a homogenized tour. points that go on forever, from january til december. nice, high bounces all year long for everyone. longer and longer rallies and longer and longer matches. and players that are breaking down from that wear and tear.

it's a self-inflicted wound. a runaway train. a monster . . . created by the atp.
Click to expand...


extremely lucid post
 
skip1969 said:
no need to mess with the scoring format. ad scoring creates drama. best-of-five creates drama, especially now that it's basically been confined to the slams. there used to be a time when the masters tourneys were best-of-five. the tour and the players did away with that. now best-of-five makes the slams that much more unique.

over the last 20+ years, the tour and the players themselves have managed to kill every nuance in the game. if the sport is dying (tv and marketing-wise), they only need to look at themselves. there was a time when the sport had variety; variety of surfaces, variety of playing styles. certain times of the year favored certain players and their styles. even when the australian open was still on grass, it varied from the grass at wimbledon. you had the grass favor the attackers. you had clay favor the baseliners. you had hardcourt as the "leveler", where both styles could succeed. the great advantage that someone like chris evert had at roland garros was nullified at wimbledon. even she knew she had to find her way to the net. the surface could not sustain her sitting back and engaging in 20 stroke rallies. conversely, the big serve and volley of sampras which made him almost unstoppable on grass was almost completely negated on clay.

players were forced to adapt to surfaces back then. the surfaces ranged from one extreme to the other, and you had to adjust your game depending on the surface, whether you liked it or not. it's what made someone like bjorn borg seem godlike. the fact that he could win at roland garros and turn around and win at wimbledon seemed unreal, even moreso by the 1980s and 90s. by then it was almost inconceivable.

fans got the pleasure of watching evert win the french hitting winners and passing shots from the baseline, and of watching navratilova come to the net every chance she got to punch those volleys away. bruguera, kafelnikov, kuerten, muster . . . you knew those topspin baseliners had the edge on clay. sampras, cash, edberg, becker . . . the servers had their way on grass. the us open was a friggin' toss-up. fans got long rallies and sliding and moonballs on clay. they got aces and angled volleys and grass stains on grass. they ooh-ed and ahhh-ed when courier hit pinpoint groundstrokes just as much as they did when becker threw himself around to reach those dive volleys of his.

all of that is gone.

and that's not me being nostalgic. it's a fact. serve and volley, low unpredictable bounces, fast courts, one-handers, approach shots, shot points . . . all rarities. 20 years of creating a tour that supports only one way to play and win: from the back. and every year, the players get bigger, stronger, faster, fitter. their racquets and strings get better. and the "winning" strategy becomes universal for them all.

and so we arrive at today's tour. a homogenized tour. points that go on forever, from january til december. nice, high bounces all year long for everyone. longer and longer rallies and longer and longer matches. and players that are breaking down from that wear and tear.

it's a self-inflicted wound. a runaway train. a monster . . . created by the atp.
Click to expand...

Great post, congratulations.
 
Goatios said:
Ad is a point of interest and creates tension. Makes the inside of a game more varied and dramatic. It's the amount of games and sets that needs changing IMO, not the points.
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No Ad would create more tension IMO. Game point for both players at once is way more exciting than just one player. And the game would speed up as an added bonus.
 
csmoove899 said:
They day they change slams to BO3 is the day people will stop watching them lol
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The problem is those who start watching it then will continue watching. You can basically disfigure any sport on the basis that those who aren't old enough to have a memory will adhere to the paradigm they were born into.
 
Resurfacing slow hard courts would cost more money as you have to mix the paint with sand and also add soft cushioning layer underneath the surface.

The harder the surface the less maintenance it needs and can save us more money. Just make all surface from pure concrete and pure shiny acrylic paint.
 
No Ad (where receiver picks side) definitely adds more drama and stress. It is an all important point, and it shifts some of the server advantage to the receiver (because they pick sides) rewarding receiver for pushing the server. This puts more pressure on the server's earlier points, to avoid that situation.

But in general, I like the way the game is now. I personally can't get enough tennis. And football games with pre-game, halftime, etc takes almost 4 hours per game. Just as long a commitment.

I again will say, if speed of the game and the points where the only issue... then doubles would be more popular on TV. I mean serve/volley the players always bump something between points.. no ad. But doubles is rare on TV, singles is where it is at. This suggests the problem is not the game speed or length of matches, more likely it is an issue with the viewers and/or tennis in general. Perhaps tennis is becoming a less popular sport in the US as their are more sports competing for the same players.
 
duaneeo said:
Rather than shorten the matches, speed up the courts.
Click to expand...

Agreed!
The reason why men have 5 sets instead women's 3 sets is that the points were a lot shorter back in the day for men when the courts were a lot faster (i.e Serve & Volley, all court game).

However, the men's game has changed with slower courts leading to long and boring one dimensional baseline bashing. I agree that because of the slower courts, tennis has become more of a fitness contest than a shotmaking contest. Back in the day, I loved watching Sampras and Rafter!
 
Shaolin said:
No Ad would create more tension IMO. Game point for both players at once is way more exciting than just one player. And the game would speed up as an added bonus.
Click to expand...
I guess what I should have said was, Ad scoring can create multiple ups and downs in tension within a single game. Tension at __-AD, followed by momentary relief at 40-40, followed by either tension again or excitement at AD-__. Ad scoring creates more tension overall because you get more of those tense moments where the score keeps going back to 40-40 or __-AD. Whereas with no Ad scoring, the game would be over in a flash with little of the nail-biting up and down.

Plus, it meshes well with the larger theme in tennis of, you have to have more than a 1 score advantage to prove you're worthy of victory. (which doesn't extend to sets, thank god)
 
meltphace 6 said:
You don't have time? Your problem - leave tennis alone.
Click to expand...
Problem with arguments like this (and there are many in this thread) is that eventually only the fans who post on tennis message boards will be left to watch the sport, and the players they'll be watching will only be shadows of those who came before them.
 
You don't get enough drama through momentum shifts in 3 set matches relative to 5 set matches. I don't tend to watch tennis matches from start to finish, whether they're 3 sets or 5, most tennis matches I tune into and out of depending on what's happening at a given time.
 
No games, no sets, player with the most points after 1 hour wins, unlimited ball bouncing before serves but allow the returner unlimited ball throws at the server during this time (direct hit changes server)
 
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