'RULE CHANGE AT LAST'

The following is part of an article posted on the ATP site and personally, I think it's a ripper.
I wrote a Post just recently titled 'Time to Spice it Up' on this site as I believe that tennis rewards fitness robots and not shot makers, the latter draws crowds in. Fitness robots tend to put the crowd to sleep after 4 or 5 hours of rallying.
Guys like Rafa 'own' clay court events due to their ability to 'stay out there all day'. Watching paint dry can be more entertaining. It's why Rafa has won on that surface an 'obscene' amount of times.
Introduce the new rule and you will see as much variation in singles winners as there has been lately in doubles.
Check the recent events if you don't believe me, no team dominates doubles anymore due to the spice up in the rules.
If it's good enough for doubles then it's good enough for singles, there should be no discrimination between the formats.


ATP Announces Trial Of Rule Changes & Innovation For Next Gen ATP Finals In Milan


'The ATP has announced a series of rule changes and innovations set to be trialled at the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan this November. The season-ending tournament will see the world’s top 21-and-Under players of the season competing for total prize money of US$ 1.275 million from 7-11 November.
The rule changes, aimed at creating a high-tempo, cutting-edge, and TV-friendly product, are geared towards attracting new and younger fans into the sport, while at the same time retaining the sport’s traditional fan-base. The following rule changes will be applied in Milan:
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-    Shorter Format: First to Four games sets (Tie-Break at 3-All), Best-of-Five sets, with No-Ad scoring

•   Shorter set format designed to increase number of pivotal moments in a match, while the best-of-five set format does not alter the number of games required to win a match (12) from the traditional scoring format. No-Ad scoring will be played (receiver’s choice).

-    Shorter Warm-Up

•   Matches will begin precisely 5 minutes from the second player walk-on, leading to a reduction in down time before the beginning of matches.'

So there you go, just part of an article recently written on the ATP site.

In all other sports you don't have to win by TWO. In tennis, well for some reason you have to win by TWO.

Golf ? One shot is plenty. Soccer ? A goal will do. AFL ? A point will be plenty to claim the match.

You see the pattern ?

Tennis is above all other sports with it's ridiculous scoring system, a system that is in desperate need of change to move with the times, to keep the public interested. Forget the 'traditionalists' of the game, most are no longer with us, time to move on.

At the end of this post I will repost part of an article I published last year .

GT has been on to this idea for a while now.

Seems the ATP is also starting to realise that the sport needs a facelift for the good of the game.

Black and white television is a thing of the past, so is the current tennis scoring system. Do I practice what I preach ?

Ten years ago I 'invented' a new tournament to the local tennis calendar here in 'Sleepy Hollow', went down a treat.
Different scoring, no lets on serve, etc, etc, all the bells and whistles, was easy to see way back then that tennis scoring needed a tweak.

All of a sudden Tennis Australia introduced 'Fast 4' and the ATP introduce this 'new' idea.

'Blind Freddy' could see years ago that this 'new' scoring system was in desperate need of being introduced, finally others have.

Changing my name to 'Fred', I saw it...........