LONDON: The Grand Slam Board on Tuesday announced a number of changes that will come into play at the four tennis majors in the coming years.
The announcements are the outcome of decisions arrived at after two days of meetings here last week:
— A player who retires from a first-round match or “performs below professional standards” could face a fine as high as the entire prize money due a loser in that round.
— A 25-second serve clock will be tried out at the Australian Open in January, but like at this year’s US Open, only in the qualifying rounds.
— Players could be fined up to $20,000 for violating “strictly enforced” pre-match timing, which will give them one minute to meet at the net after walking on the court, five minutes for warming up, followed by one minute to be ready for play to begin.
— The Grand Slam Board “intends to revert” to seeding only 16 players, instead of 32, as of 2019.
The 25-second shot clock was trialed in the qualifying rounds of the 2017 US Open in August and also at the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan in November. Currently, Grand Slams have a 20-second time limit between points though shot clocks aren’t used to enforce this limit.
This year at Wimbledon there were seven first round retirements, all the players who retired from their matches earned £35,000. At the 2018 Australian Open, if a similar situation happens and any player retires or performs below professional standards in the main draw first round, the player will be suitably fined.
With regard to the reduction of seeded players from 32 to 16 (as it used to be until 2001), SportzPower seriously doubts this will be actioned as long as the Big 4 of tennis – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray – are still active.
Fans and sponsors are unlikely to take kindly to any system that increases the probability of the current generation of tennis royalty getting knocked out in the early rounds of any Slam. More so considering the fact that all four are now on the wrong side of 30 and there is no telling how long they will continue to enthrall the tennis universe.
As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
