ATP’s Shock Rule Makes Life Difficult for Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Andy Murray, and Others in Halle and Queen’s Club

Modernization brings along with it many changes. The sporting world is no exception, with the advancement of technology being at the forefront of this change. A symbolic effect of this is the change in rules, as sports like tennis have seen many tweaks here and there as far as the rules are concerned. Recently, the governing body of men’s tennis, the ATP announced another set of rule changes that are set to take place immediately. As a result, the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Andy Murray are set to face a major blow.

The ATP is testing and trying out new rules this week at the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle and the Cinch Championships in London. It is regarding the shot clock, a timer between the points. Earlier, the clock used to start after the umpire called out the score of the previous point. However, the new rule will have the clock starting immediately when the previous point finishes instead of when the umpire calls out the score. The aim of this rule change is to reduce the time between the points and eliminate subjectivity as some umpires are stricter than others.

While the shot clock will stay at 25 seconds, it is set to make life difficult for the players. Stars like Carlos Alcaraz and Andy Murray at the Queen’s Club and Jannik Sinner in Halle are set to face a major blow as they’ll have to rush in between the points. In what is a packed tennis schedule, this new rule will only add more burden on the players. Meanwhile, The Big Three Twitter handle termed this rule as turning tennis into a ‘military academy’ and taking away the authenticity of the game.

As rule changes have become a common sight in tennis, many bigwigs have actively spoken about it. Earlier this year, Coco Gauff’s coach, Brad Gilbert also had some suggestions to improve the game.

Coco Gauff’s coach wants tennis to learn from pickleball

In pickleball, the doubles partner isn’t allowed to stand inside the forecourt (kitchen) when the partner is serving. However, tennis allows players to stand at the net while their partner is serving. In order to make doubles tennis more interesting, Brad Gilbert took a cue from pickleball’s rule to suggest it for tennis.

He said, “I Would like to see net man when partner serving not allowed to stand on top of net. Maybe a pickle kitchen line, would be more interesting.”

‘The kitchen’ in pickleball refers to the 7-foot zone on either side of the net which is also a non-volley zone. While Gilbert gave this suggestion, the ATP had even introduced a new rule to make doubles more interesting. In a trial of the innovative rule, the ATP restricted the slots to 16 based on doubles rankings and the remaining 16 slots were to be filled by top singles players. This would ensure a matchup between the top singles and doubles players.

The rule was implemented at the Madrid Open to breathe life into the doubles format, which has been dying slowly. Do you feel that the ATP should bring in more innovative rules to revamp the sport? Let us know your views in the comments below.