Wimbledon Brings Changes in its Tradition

The Championships, Wimbledon, has decided to incorporate a tie-breaker in the final set. The organization has agreed to stop the final set at 12-12 and proceed with a tie-breaker to decide the outcome of the match. The AELTC announced that “the time had come” to get the changes in proceedings by introducing the tie-break at “a reasonable point” in the fifth set.

“While we know the instances of matches extending deep into the final set are rare, we feel that a tie-break at 12-12 strikes an equitable balance between allowing players ample opportunity to complete the match to advantage, while also providing certainty that the match will reach a conclusion in an acceptable time frame,” said chairman of AELTC, Philip Brook.

According to the  chief executive of AELTC, Richard Lewis, the players have a collective ‘yes’ towards the introduction of the tie-breaker in the fifth. In an interview with BBC radio five live, he said- “There were mixed views but predominantly players favored the final set tie-break”, he said. “They recognize, that the quality of tennis goes down and players start playing not to lose in a long final set rather than the determination to win, and they recognize it affects the quality of matches in subsequent rounds.”

“I think players will play better because they know it will finish at 12-12 in a tie-break and they don’t have to save energy. And a final set tie-break will be incredibly exciting in its own right”, he continued.

However this decision has not gone down well, with a lot of the other tennis followers. They have a point though; in the past five years out of the 635 matches that have taken place at the Championships, only 5 matches have gone on to go beyond 12-12. Which makes it only a 0.7% of the total number of matches that have taken place. It will be seen in the coming few days, how the players and other pundits react to this new change of tradition at the Championships, Wimbledon.