Dumbing down tennis
The ATP (Association of Professional Tennis), the organization that runs the men's tennis tour, has set about to ruin the game of tennis, at least insofar as doubles is concerned. Under a proposed rules change that will go into effect following the U.S. Open, matches will feature no-ad scoring, with tiebreaks at 4-4, rather than 6-6.
The elimination of ad-scoring in all women's matches has also been proposed by tennis legend Martina Navratilova, and it is the worst idea she has ever had. What would be the point of watching tennis without the ad point?! Every time a game goes to deuce, a new drama unfolds. The more it goes to deuce, the more drama there is for fans.
Eliminating the ad point and requiring fewer games to get to a tiebreak would make the matches shorter, which is another bad idea. But the point seems to be to sell tennis to non-tennis fans--people who might buy a ticket, but who don't want to waste their time watching high-quality, tension-filled matches while they wait for a glimpse of Maria Sharapova or Roger Federer.
The elimination of ad-scoring in all women's matches has also been proposed by tennis legend Martina Navratilova, and it is the worst idea she has ever had. What would be the point of watching tennis without the ad point?! Every time a game goes to deuce, a new drama unfolds. The more it goes to deuce, the more drama there is for fans.
Eliminating the ad point and requiring fewer games to get to a tiebreak would make the matches shorter, which is another bad idea. But the point seems to be to sell tennis to non-tennis fans--people who might buy a ticket, but who don't want to waste their time watching high-quality, tension-filled matches while they wait for a glimpse of Maria Sharapova or Roger Federer.
posted by Diane at 8:23 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
We have become the country of the two-hour attention span. All athletic contents (other than golf, which can only peripherally argued to be called athletics) are patterned, complete with commercials, to be finished within that time-frame. Heaven forbid we should be asked to expand our sensitivities to include *real* emotions beyond the grunts and squeals provided by the sound-bite editors of the event.
Soon, I expect to see the ceremonial coin toss at the net to determine the winner of previously tied games, after all, fifty percent of the time they'll be right.
By
Anonymous, at
12:07 PM
This seems completely ridiculous to me. Hardly any doubles matches are televised now, so are they trying to make them short enough so they can be shown during rain breaks or something? As for doing it with WTA, that just screams marketing idiocy. People aren't going to watch women's tennis only because of an under-2-hours guarantee.
I only started watching tennis 6 years ago, mainly because I came home between classes and the only thing on was the US Open, and I kind of got interested. So I'm not pretending to be an expert by any means, but one of the easiest things, at least for the players and probably the fans, would be to shorten the season. I mean, if you asked your average Jane or Joe, would they even know if/when the offseason is? I can't even imagine any other sport having basically a 10-month season.
And Diane, I hope you and your family cum cats are okay after Katrina.
By
Anonymous, at
6:24 PM
I think they're just trying to sell more tickets. The whole thing makes me feel ill.
Thanks, Jennifer. We're in central Louisiana right now--all 4 of us--and we don't know what we'll come home to. We're not in a flood zone, and we're not in the tornado zone, but high winds could do damage.
By
Anonymous, at
7:05 PM
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