On Tennis
Wimbledon is on at the moment. No, not the Wombles, the tennis! There are a few things about tennis that annoy me, let me list them…
The Scoring
0, 15, 30, 40, A. EH? Last time I checked numbers went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! Then there is the whole match break, game break thing. Why not just make it best of 5?
My solution to this:
- Keep the same rules as to when the ball is in/out etc.
- One point for each opponent foul.
- Best of 25 (Any odd number).
- First server decided by a coin toss.
So why the complicated scoring? Without looking into it, it seems to be a class thing. All the ‘upper-class’ games such as tennis, rugby and cricket have non-simple scoring systems. Football on the other hand, is as simple as it can get. Football being a game for the masses.
The Weather
Why stop play when it’s raining? Are you a girl? Wait, half of you ARE girls (though some of those are questonable).
I just don’t understand this one. The rain starts, the covers go on. What’s wrong with a little bit of mud, would make for some interesting pitch gymnastics.
If you’re that worried about it, go back indoors all the time.
The Real Reason
A tennis game runs for an indeterminate amount of time. Thus if it’s being televised, it will more than likely cut into whatever is following it in the schedule.
And yes, that is quite often the cycling. We got 45 minutes of the Paris-Roubaix this year, because some frenchman no-one had ever heard of was playing some other similarly famous frenchman in a qualifying round of some random tournament. Meh!
I therefor propose a second scoring system:
- Time limited to an hour.
- First server determined by a coin toss.
- No breaks or time-wasting allowed.
This would make for a far more TV-friendly game. It would fit into a TV schedule, and be a lot faster than the pace of the game as it currently is.
Rant over.
