There is no way in the World that a tennis player requires a towel handed to them after each point by a poor little ball kid who actually signed up to chase tennis balls and not a pro who keeps pointing to his towel. How did this ridiculous habit even start and who let it happen ? ! Talk about pampered indeed.
I watched Groth ( who does sweat profusely ) sometime ago ask for the towel at an Australian tournament after each point he played and one thing occurred to me, it was a habit not a necessity. Let me elaborate. Groth asked for his towel after being aced after towelling off just moments earlier at the end of the previous point.
Sure he won't stop sweating once he's started if he is that sort of person however a sweat band surely can do the job on the ace points as opposed to asking the ball boy to keep running the towel his way.
To me it does nothing for the sport, in fact it gives it a prima donna type of aura as sweating and sport go together, it's like bacon and eggs. I don't see the big guns like Murray, Federer, Rafa and Novak going for the towel after each point. Sure Rafa has his funny habits however getting ball boys to run a towel to him after each point is not one of them.
Roger simply uses his sweatband to wipe away the flow from his brow. McEnroe used to use his sleeve, Cash had a towel on his hip and Borg, well I don't believe he sweated at all, he was from another planet.
Let ball kids do their jobs, let them chase tennis balls and let the pros chase their own towels. If that means that they use all their time in between points risking a time violation then so be it but don't give other professional sport people the ammunition to call tennis a sport for the pampered......
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