You're allowed to make 5 (realistic) changes in tennis - what are they?

[boredone3456]

since everyone here has tackled the ATP tour, I'll give some for the ladies

Rule one- Any "Grunt" over say...50 decibels is penalized by a point penalty, no more of this 90+ decibel noise that is allowed to go on because no one wants to do anything about it
Rule two- add a 5th, possibly a 6th premier mandatory however mimic the ATP system where you can throw your worst result out. So there are 5 but the 4 best results count. Promote Cincy to Premier Mandatory as it seems the obvious choice, that or the Rogers Cup. This would help deal with IW/Miami fatigue

Change 1- 3rd set tiebreakers at all the majors.
Change 2- monetary bonus's for maintaining a 1st serve % above a certain % or holding serve a certain % of the time, the womens game is way to return centric
Change 3- either allow the on court coaching everywhere or get rid of it everywhere. All or nothing, stop the wishy washy nonsense

 

[Mac33]

15 second service rule - go over its a fault

One serve only

No towelling off during any game

No lets on serve

 

[ZiggyStardust]

-Shot clock on serve. Violation counts as a service fault.
-No MTO's before your opponent's service game. If you must take one, you forfeit the next game.
-Grass court master's event on fast grass. Speed up the grass at Wimbledon.
-Separate events for WTA and ATP everywhere (like the NBA and WNBA). Pay for each event to be decided from the tournament purse.
-WTF finals played over 5 sets.

 

[the green god]

More spandex.

 

[2nd Serve Ace]

1. At least put the air back into the ball at wimbledon.
2. Make Davis cup every two years.
3. Give some real rankings points to Davis cup and Olympics.
4. Make Shanghai masters Grass surface.
5. Make all matches at WTA finals best of five and give it the same weighting as a major.

Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk

 

[Thorondor]

-Make finals of masters 1000 and all WTF matches best of 5
-15 second service rule with shot clock
-5th set tiebreakers at all majors
-Add a grass masters 1000 (replace a hardcourt masters)
-Speed up WTF and a couple hardcourt masters

 

[WhiskeyEE]

Get rid of warm-ups and deuce.

 

[Inanimate_object]

16-seed tournaments, final-set tie-breaks no matter the context, no more "quiet-on-the-court" routine, no MTOs period and no warmups.

 

[InsideOut900]

1)I would drop Paris Masters altogether and obviously replace it with a grass Masters; one Masters on indoors is enough

2)Swap WTF/indoor M1000 location between Shanghai and O2, so one year it plays fast, the other year plays slow(no complains about court speed not being right this way); also make WTF final BO5, but only that one, not the Masters too

3) Get the court speed right in Slams: speeding up AO made no sense, in reality the problem should be solved by speeding up Wimby and USO and revert AO back to 2016 level

4) No shot clock, but less tolerance with the time wasting; rules should be the same for all players and yet we are humans and should understand that the two players need maybe a few seconds more after a brutal rally and not give them a warning right away

 

[bjk]

No warmup. Eliminate the week between Paris and WTF (not that it matters much but season could be shorter). Blue clay to see the ball better. Develop a hard clay that plays like a hard court. Turn WTF doubles into pros vs. singles players to add a little interest (Peers/Kontinen vs. Murray/Zimonjic or whatever is not a good draw. Get Sock and other singles players involved). Ten point tiebreaker at majors instead of a fifth set. Rotate mens/womens between cities to spread tennis around (like Montreal/Toronto rotate each year.) Have players cross sides on tiebreakers on side opposite from their seat (to prevent the long banana/water breaks) or else switch it up. Time warning after the serve (time warning always comes at crucial break point). Have LL on call to prevent walkovers like Fed/Kyrgios.

 

[NEW_BORN]

1. All tennis matches must be broadcast during prime Australian Eastern Standard Time (ie. 7:30pm AEST)
2. All tennis matches must be made available for download or online viewing within 1 hour of match completion.
3. All tennis tournaments are made non-mandatory.
4. All tennis draws are made non-random.
5. Abolish the doubles alley, even for doubles matches.

 

[jaggy]

Cincy takes over from Flush as the official American slam
Davis cup no tie breaks
No coaching in game on WTA
NCAA gets rid of no-ad
Way less hard court tourneys

 

[Shaolin]

Cincy takes over from Flush as the official American slam
Davis cup no tie breaks
No coaching in game on WTA
NCAA gets rid of no-ad
Way less hard court tourneys

Just wondering what you have against no ad.

To me it would be great for the pro tour. Speeds up matches and more pressure situations that are fun to watch/play.

 

[smoledman]

One thing I'd do for sure is force the players to immediately challenge. None of this staring at the court for 5 seconds and then challenging. Or asking the umpire if it was good. You either immediately challenge or STFU and get ready for the next point.

 

[jaggy]

Just wondering what you have against no ad.

To me it would be great for the pro tour. Speeds up matches and more pressure situations that are fun to watch/play.

having watched it now for a couple of years in college it makes it a crap shoot.

 

[Nashvegas]

I'm not sure lowering the net for women is feasible: most errors come from hitting long or wide - service aside... Apologies, if those that suggested it were being flippant

I was serious. Wouldn't mind seeing it tried. And wouldn't a lower net have an effect on errors hit long?

Maybe the women's game gets a bit more violent. Maybe a little more variety could result. It's been pretty dull lately.

 

[Shaolin]

having watched it now for a couple of years in college it makes it a crap shoot.

Yeah I can see your point. Still I think the better player is going to find a way to prevail.

 

[-NN-]

1. No lets.
2. Greater variance of conditions.
3. Change YEC format and surface as to force qualifiers to adapt to something they haven't dealt with in the season, or to pair YEC with Paris and make them both very fast which in turn brings balance to the tour schedule at the top level regarding surface speeds, which ties in with 2.
4. Ban almost all on-court coaching...
5. But each player is allowed one "time-out" in which they can talk with their team for 3 minutes.

That last one is random as heck but hey it just came to mind.

 

[6august]

Ban polys.

/list

Fed's only started to win Slam after switching to Luxilon+gut, FYI.

“I felt like I was one of the first guy who really used a lot of topspin,” Federer said in 2010. “That’s why I had to move from Pete’s racquet to a bigger-sized head racquet back in 2002. And they also then started changing the string back in 2002 with the switch of the head size, because I was just shanking the balls too much, especially on windy days, and because I was brushing the ball that much. And I think it’s definitely helped me.

“Agassi and I think Guga were some of the guys who started moving away from sort of the all gut early on, and I followed and then I became No. 1 in the world, and obviously many other players started using stuff like that, too, because, you know, you see what’s going on in the locker room. And I think I was definitely one of the first with some obviously other guys to change the string and stuff.

“But now you see much more guys with extreme grips, you know, and I think the string has definitely helped those guys, because that before wasn’t possible to come through a shot that was low and hardly hit. You couldn’t hit it with an all-gut, you know, racquet, get a short angle, almost. You know, that was almost impossible, especially with the wooden racquet. Obviously there was no chance.”

In other words, even Federer benefits alot from poly, no one knows what he would achieve through-all his career without poly.

You'd better stop complaining about string and racquet.

 

[Deleted member 716271]

Fed's only started to win Slam after switching to Luxilon+gut, FYI.

“I felt like I was one of the first guy who really used a lot of topspin,” Federer said in 2010. “That’s why I had to move from Pete’s racquet to a bigger-sized head racquet back in 2002. And they also then started changing the string back in 2002 with the switch of the head size, because I was just shanking the balls too much, especially on windy days, and because I was brushing the ball that much. And I think it’s definitely helped me.

“Agassi and I think Guga were some of the guys who started moving away from sort of the all gut early on, and I followed and then I became No. 1 in the world, and obviously many other players started using stuff like that, too, because, you know, you see what’s going on in the locker room. And I think I was definitely one of the first with some obviously other guys to change the string and stuff.

“But now you see much more guys with extreme grips, you know, and I think the string has definitely helped those guys, because that before wasn’t possible to come through a shot that was low and hardly hit. You couldn’t hit it with an all-gut, you know, racquet, get a short angle, almost. You know, that was almost impossible, especially with the wooden racquet. Obviously there was no chance.”

In other words, even Federer benefits alot from poly, no one knows what he would achieve through-all his career without poly.

You'd better stop complaining about string and racquet.

Betcha he won't respond

 

[MLRoy]

1. No on-court warm-up. (Warm-up off-court. Or not.) I find it anti-climactic. You're pros. You'll adapt quickly. If I were playing, I wouldn't want my opponent to get used to any of my strokes during practice.
2. Don't change sides after the first game. It's superfluous indoors, and makes the toss more important outdoors.
3. No sitting till the end of the set. You may STAND and have a drink when changing sides, like they did back in the day. If they could do it, so can you, with your fancy racquets, and strings, and such.
4. No towels on court. That's why God invented "wrist sponges". Wear 'em!
5. If it's really hot, the men may play shirtless, if they wish. I'm no prude.
6. No drug testing. Take what ever you want.
7. Genetic testing instead of drug testing. Start a 3rd league if necessary. It will be.

 

[smoledman]

1. No on-court warm-up. (Warm-up off-court. Or not.) I find it anti-climactic. You're pros. You'll adapt quickly. If I were playing, I wouldn't want my opponent to get used to any of my strokes during practice.
2. Don't change sides after the first game. It's superfluous indoors, and makes the toss more important outdoors.
3. No sitting till the end of the set. You may STAND and have a drink when changing sides, like they did back in the day. If they could do it, so can you, with your fancy racquets, and strings, and such.
4. No towels on court. That's why God invented "wrist sponges". Wear 'em!
5. If it's really hot, the men may play shirtless, if they wish. I'm no prude.
6. No drug testing. Take what ever you want.
7. Genetic testing instead of drug testing. Start a 3rd league if necessary. It will be.

Those huge wrist bands they used to wear back in the 70s/80s don't look cool on camera. Nike/Adidas have an image to keep up. Poor ball kids, having to touch those icky towels.

 

[jackmd57]

rule#1
no more LET serve
rule#2
Bo5 in final of WTF

other#1
Grass master, definitely
by reduce 1 HC master somewhere
other#2
dontt really want something more

 

[PDJ]

I was serious. Wouldn't mind seeing it tried. And wouldn't a lower net have an effect on errors hit long?

Maybe the women's game gets a bit more violent. Maybe a little more variety could result. It's been pretty dull lately.

Whilst I think lowering the net just for women would send the wrong message, I also think it's not practical. For the good of the WTA Tour- they are currently consistently inconsistent- lowering the net would aid the big servers the most, and limit what tactical/strategic play is what's actually needed to improve the women.
Just my opinion.

 

[Bartelby]

1. Lets counted as faults. The server has a special responsibility to place the ball cleanly into court. It is not a rally ball.

re 1: Given that players are habituated to stopping play with a let nothing needs to be relearnt and the change can be made immediately.

2 Allow the referee the right to challenge on the same basis as the players should he or she feel an uncorrected error has been made.

re 2: In reality the umpire would probably use this rarely.

3. Enforce the 25 second rule through an audible beep that immediately stops plays if the ball has not left the player's hand.

re 3: An accelerometer in the handle could trigger the timer that would be set initially by the umpire.

 

[GrassCourtFan]

Speed up the courts to encourage more shotmaking and less grinding.

To go with this, decrease the service box size so that there are fewer one shot points.

 

[limmt]

Making a 1000 on Grass, like it was say many times.


End this challenge non-sense, by deleting the line judges, and use the hawk-eye to call the Fauts everytime.

 

[DreddyTennis45]

1)I would drop Paris Masters altogether and obviously replace it with a grass Masters; one Masters on indoors is enough

2)Swap WTF/indoor M1000 location between Shanghai and O2, so one year it plays fast, the other year plays slow(no complains about court speed not being right this way); also make WTF final BO5, but only that one, not the Masters too

3) Get the court speed right in Slams: speeding up AO made no sense, in reality the problem should be solved by speeding up Wimby and USO and revert AO back to 2016 level

4) No shot clock, but less tolerance with the time wasting; rules should be the same for all players and yet we are humans and should understand that the two players need maybe a few seconds more after a brutal rally and not give them a warning right away

Agree with everything but I think masters finals should be BO5

 

[adil1972]

davis cup 3 matches instead of 5 best of 3 sets matches
join IW/Miami 5th slam
make wimbledon faster

 

[1HBH-DownTheLine]

join IW/Miami 5th slam

 

[EdSWright]

Towels are disgusting. Give the ball boys gloves, at least.

 

[PDJ]

davis cup 3 matches instead of 5 best of 3 sets matches
join IW/Miami 5th slam
make wimbledon faster

I think if there were a fifth major then it should at least go to a country that doesn't already have one.
I'm not against the idea of a fifth, but then again I'm not especially hung up on majors being the be all and end all to measure a career given how the status of the French, and especially the AO, have changed over the years. Not to mention Amateur/Open eras.

 

[Russeljones]

1. Go back to 16 seeds;
2. Show more stats (tennis is one of the sport where the most statistical data is gathered but very very little is shared with the fans);
3. Funnel more proceeds to Futures/Challenger level tournaments to bring more kids into the game;

 

[Big_Dangerous]

1)I would drop Paris Masters altogether and obviously replace it with a grass Masters; one Masters on indoors is enough

2)Swap WTF/indoor M1000 location between Shanghai and O2, so one year it plays fast, the other year plays slow(no complains about court speed not being right this way); also make WTF final BO5, but only that one, not the Masters too

3) Get the court speed right in Slams: speeding up AO made no sense, in reality the problem should be solved by speeding up Wimby and USO and revert AO back to 2016 level

4) No shot clock, but less tolerance with the time wasting; rules should be the same for all players and yet we are humans and should understand that the two players need maybe a few seconds more after a brutal rally and not give them a warning right away

Technically Shanghai is considered outdoors since that main show court isn't totally enclosed.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/tournaments

 

[ordinaryh]

1) One serve
2) Tennis shot-clock
3) Standard sized wood racquets
4) Natural gut strings only
5) No drug testing

 

[Shaolin]

1) One serve
2) Tennis shot-clock
3) Standard sized wood racquets
4) Natural gut strings only
5) No drug testing

You forgot playing with roller skates on and a beer helmet.

 

[spirit95]

Test nadal every tournament

 

[ojo rojo]

3. Funnel more proceeds to Futures/Challenger level tournaments to bring more kids into the game;

This.

 

[toby55555]

More Futures and Challenger tournaments in the U.K.
Manufacturers banned from clothing players in the same outfit when playing each other.
All countries to use the same Ratings system.
End all white clothing rule at Wimbledon but maybe no patterns.
Tie break at 10-10 in the fifth set at slams, US keeps 6-6

 

[flyinghippos101]

1. At least one Masters tournaments on grass (for reasons repeated ad nauseum on this forum)
2. Way less mandatory tournaments, or at least more flexibility. Players are getting burned out with such a long season, which hurts the player having to endure injuries/shorten their careers and the fans that see their favorite players less or have to experience less high-quality tennis.
3. Have best of five masters finals. The current model is fine, but at the same time it feels like Masters titles aren't that much more special than 500s beyond having bigger draws. There needs to be something that makes players feel like they "earned" the masters and to set it apart more from regualar tour events
4. Have best of five Grand slam finals for WTA; there's nothing more anti-climactic than a two-set beat-down in a WTA final
5. Better enforce the time in between points, but not necessarily change the rules. I agree that there should be some discretion, and the rules reflect that. But the seriously outrageous time breaks some players take between points really messes with the rhythm of the match for everyone, especially for viewers.

 

[Druss]

Have 1 grass Masters 1000 (perhaps drop Canada or Paris Bercy to a 500 instead).

 

[GreenClay]

1. include a grass court masters
2. use a shot clock on the serve
3. make the serve less dominant by shortening the service box by several inches. In order to still have some net play, this change should coincide with a speeding up of the court surfaces (and/or balls) so players would be encouraged to venture to the net despite having less dominant serves.
(4. and yes, no more extended grunts, of course)

 

[The Green Mile]

No more of this crap.

 

[racquetreligion]

some decent ideas and I hope the tennis big wigs take note.

I dont believe let should be called by the umpire anymore using a silly device!
they should bring back the let guy in and also rid fat and old linespeople.

1. 15 seconds between 1 and 2nd serve is spot on!

2. Reduce prizemoney from finalists and put towards small playoff qualifying events before main event
make it best of 64 players so local talent can have a go and increase the tennis audience as more people
can go to the warm up qualies for smaller entry fees and see their relative slog it out as it builds character in the youth.
We need more youth coming through as the oldies saturate the upper rankings.

3. limit time spent online for young players after hours with atp in charge of public tennis festival or events where players
of all rankings on a daily basis have dinner in a group with disabled, sick and other kids not as fortunate.
If they are there for a week then they must have dinner with them unless sick by doctor certificate or sponsor gigs.
This will always make them appreciate their time on court will build compassion and stronger hearts.
Todays kids are mainly selfies, recent research shows their empathy is nose diving thanks to increased online activities.

4. any racquet head size for social players but professionals limited to 93 sq inches max for 183cm and over
with shoes on, up to 95sq inches for players below that height. More like strict racing car rules eg. F1 or Le Mans etc

5. Racquet smashing or abuse should be fined a minimum 50,000usd no less and contribute to hotel, flights and
other costly areas awarded to players with the fastest ranking rise throughout the year in the top 80-800 area.

 

[BTURNER]

I'd like to turn this thread more towards doubles because that is where the serious help is needed, Using the OP standards, please pick your rule changes for doubles.

 

[MLRoy]

Towels are disgusting. Give the ball boys gloves, at least.

Or those 3' long tongs or "grabbers" they advertise in catalogs. They're great if the remote falls between the sofa and end-table, or under the coffee table. They were made for sweaty, snotty, scummy towels. They should start tipping those poor kids. They don't even get paid!

 

[Vanilla Slice]

1. Add a grass masters and make the grass season a little longer.

2. Enforce time violations on serve.

3. Give points (and credence) to the Olympics.

4. Make the Davis Cup played over two separate weeks (one at the 1/3 mark of the season and one after the WTF) and make WTF final Bo5.

5. Streamline the entire calendar ...

• I.E. all events up through Miami should be hard court and Slow/Medium speed
• The Clay Season stay slow like it is (though each masters can be slightly different conditions obviously)
• Next is the grass (just grass) season made to be the fastest part of the tour
• Then events from Montreal through Paris be made medium to fast hard courts both outdoor and indoor
• Lastly a WTF that ROTATES SURFACES during the tournament so that each round robin match is on a different surface and the higher seed selects his semifinal and final surface!

 

[MLRoy]

I'd like to turn this thread more towards doubles because that is where the serious help is needed, Using the OP standards, please pick your rule changes for doubles.

The only improvement on the tie-breaker for a 3rd set (And thank you for that, pro-tennis. You were bound to do something right, eventually.), would be a pro-set match. Doubles is fun to play, but not watch. Not like the old days when the best players played doubles and knew how to volley.

What do you think would help it, BT? One serve, instead of two? I can't think of anyway to really improve it other than better players. Wonder what it would be like using the singles court for doubles? Too "crowded"?

 

[MLRoy]

oops

Those are the before and after surgery pics, right? May I have that surgeon's number...?

 

[xFullCourtTenniSx]

1) Masters 1000+WTF finals are Bo5.
2) Tournaments (not just masters) must have a fair distributions of surfaces throughout the tour. This means ~30% grass events, 30% clay events, and 40% hard (or 33/33/33, whatever is convenient when it's all figured out). This means that if there are 9 masters tournaments, 3 should be grass, 3 should be clay, and 3 should be hard. At the very least it should be 25/25/50 to match the distribution we have in the majors. Scheduling of tournaments will be shifted around to accommodate, and priority for choice of surface goes to highest financial commitment (meaning if nobody of the top 6 want to hold a grass tournament and you want to stay a masters 1000 event, you better start laying grass).
3) The court surface inside the service box must be slowed down, while the surface in no man's land is sped up slightly. (This will reduce the advantage servers have while also hitting purely defensive play.) So for Wimbledon, you'd bring back the old grass for no man's land and use the current design for the service boxes. If you get a deep ball, you better expect bad bounces. Yeah, this one's a bit funky, but there's no good way to lower the server's advantage without giving the receiver an enormous advantage. It's this or additional limits to racket specs or changing court dimensions, and none of the three are satisfying.
4) There should be a limit placed on grunting. As is, it's too much. The WTA have gone so far, they crossed the line and back at least 3 times over. But the ATP is also pushing it. The longer we leave it alone, the worse it'll get.
5) Bring spaghetti strings to the WTA. Maybe THAT will make it interesting. Oh, but I guess a serve clock would be more important than fixing the WTA, so that works too.