I love watching the tennis but..

...and just the 60 posts since 2003

Nice rant though so it must have been worth the wait to post!

I must say I agree with your first point - juggling balls is annoying when done by servers endlessly.

I don't agree about single serving though - I like the spectacle of big scary serving which would pretty much become boring if they were all treated as a second serve effectively.

Ha ha stu.  Re. your first response.  Yes I'm a man of few words, and I think this is probably the first thread I've ever started!   Probably just as well because I'm a grumpy old git now.

Yes I get it re. the serves, and obviously it's built into the rules of the game so would be very surprising to see that change!  I think it's interesting how tennis has developed as technology has improved. I was getting a bit bored with the base line exchanges over recent years, but actually more recently the variety of shots seems to be improving slowly but surely because players are realising they've got to do something different to win rallies.

Probably just as well because I'm a grumpy old git now.

In the right place then, join the club here

I agree it's good to see different skills in tennis play, but I still think the better players can cope with the serve-bots in the current game, there's not really any serve-bots that are massively high up the elite levels. But, they're fun to watch sometimes - it's really interesting to watch how the very best players cope with them, or occasionally not.

re picking balls, I would say 95% of picking a fresh ball is because it's harder for the opponent to return it (the more worn the ball is, the more it favors the receiver) and 5% about being superstitious/having OCD.

I remember playing club tennis, many years ago - we'd play with balls that had been battered around for months! Can't believe the almost factory new balls change all that much in a few games, do they...?

The one serve idea has been debated for as long as time itself. 2 serves make the sport more dynamic and fairer, it's a very difficult skill to serve into the service box and speed and with accuracy, one serve would be like returning to old skool tennis with players forced to serve slower, you'd then get returning players deploying the SABR attack followed by a load of short serve and volley type points at the net, no thanks.

It is irritating when you hear Courier, McEnroe and other Yanks pronouncing Djokovic's name that way especially when he's already said it's Djok-o-vich and not Joker-vich, but it's all to do with the shape of your mother tongue, some people say Tomaytoe, some people say Toemartoe, some people say France, some people say Frarnce, the American speak from the back of the mouths so it's natural to pronounce it that way, the English speak from the front. There was one Journalist chump at the World Cup in Qatar last year who pulled up an American player for pronouncing his country Eye-ran” instead of “Ee-rahn”, he was praised for his calm reply but really was just painfully submissive.

The marketing people do poor jobs with players names in general though, two good examples are Swiatek and Rybakina, they'd both be far more marketable and memorable with a chance to transcend the sport if they allowed their names to be pronounced the way it looks to us, Swy-a-tech and Rye-bakina, but no, they instead of the ugly Slavic-esque versions of shvee-AWN-teck and Ry-back-ina, Iga thinks it sounds better in Polish but it's doesn't.

Sometimes looking at the balls for a while trying to pick the right one is just another tactic to waste time to get their breath back just like the fake ball t0sses followed by the 'sorry' almost before they've even gone to throw it up.

Kind Regards.

they need to get rid of the let for the serve. the amount of perfect winners servers have hit but its disallowed because it barely clips the net.......it doesnt make any sense these days since all the rallies are from the baseline. they would need to tighten the net to USO tight. notice how loose the net is at wimbledon. way more occasions there where the ball hits the net and goes over.
the problem with institutions like wimbledon is that they think they are perfect and dont like to change. look how long it took for them to go tie break for the 5th set. that should have been the case decades ago.
getting rid of the let for serving would speed up the game no end. but i bet wimbledon dont want to do it. these guys are stuck in the dark ages.
the tennis grand slams are by far the best sporting events in the world. look at all the classics we have gotten from fed/novak/rafa and murray playing each other over the last 20 years. ive started watching basketball in last few years and the game is totally flawed. u can get a foul for the slightest touch. watched the european league final last week roma v seville. an absolute disgrace. pretending to be fouled/injured and ranting at refs non stop. subjective decisions deciding outcomes. when was the last time we got a european cup final classic.............2005 liverpol v milan. soccer is totally flawed. nfl and rugby - one wonders will they still be around in 20 years time given the brain injury problems.
tennis does has a problem with the 4 slams totally dominating the sport. lets face it, the rest of the tournaments dont mean much anymore, especially with novak missing  the 4 north american masters events over the past 2 years. nick kyrgios recently said the 4 slams are the only things that matter in tennis.

They trialed no-let on the challenger circuit a few years back and the players are said to not have been too keen on it.

nick kyrgios recently said the 4 slams are the only things that matter in tennis.

Similar to snooker IMO - the majors are decent events, all the others basically 'meh'