John Isner is an American professional tennis player. In 2010, he played in (and won) the longest tennis match ever. The final score: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68.
That is not a misprint. The final set, which at Wimbledon (and other tournaments) doesn't go to a tie breaker and must be won by 2 games, went 138 games.
The match lasted 11 hours, 5 minutes. The only thing I've ever done for 11 hours and 5 minutes is sleep. I'm not sure who sat in the stands and watched the whole thing, but I'm sure whoever did is an asshole.
Today, at the French Open, John Isner just played another marathon match. He lost 7-6, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 16-18.
It is not a coincidence that Isner played in both of these matches. He is 6'9" tall, and has an unstoppable serve. He has little else.
So Isner wins his service game just about every time, and loses when his opponent serves. A perfect recipe for a never ending match, and John Isner plays in an incredible amount of never ending matches.
My question is: why should a great serve have this much of an effect on the game? Serving is just one aspect of tennis, and doesn't really tell you that much about someone's overall skill. You take a big oaf (see Isner, John), teach him how to swing overhand, and you're gonna have a tough time returning that serve.
If Isner was any good at the rest of the game, he'd be able to break his opponent's serve and not have so many long matches.
I don't think this is what the inventor of tennis, Howard E. Tennis, had in mind. He probably never even met anyone over 5'5". And the people who were over that height died at the age of 19, because things were tough in olden times.
This style of play is destroying the game. It's boring. It makes rallies rare. It lasts too long. And it's not indicative of how good a tennis player someone is.
So here's my proposal:
Overhanded serves should be outlawed.
That's right, from now on, only underhanded serves.
I firmly believe that this would save the game of men's tennis. It would induce exciting long rallies, get rid of serving contests, promote more strategery, craftier shot making, and expel from the sport people with one dimensional games like John Isner.
Congratulations, you're a 6'9" white guy, now go play basketball at BYU and then disappear forever like God intended.
I don't understand how this wouldn't be contemplated. Oh wait, I know why - it makes too much damn sense!
This isn't like taking away dunking, or something cool that we all like. Serves aren't fun to watch. Nobody gets excited about a second serve with some spin on it. It's not all that important to our enjoyment level. There's no pro-serve lobby! Get rid of it.
As part of this proposal, all matches would be reduced to the best 2 out of 3. I wish I was better at statistics, if I was, I'd be able to offer you proof that the longer it takes for people to play a sport, the less people are inclined to watch it.
There's probably some graph where more and more people like to watch a sport up until about the 2 and a half hour mark, and from there, viewership drops off precipitously.
But I'm not that smart, so you'll just have to take my word for it, or go try and sit through a Yankees/Red Sox baseball game.
There you go, underhanded serves. That's the answer. I've done it again.
11 comments:
Seems like you just create a similar problem by making it inordinately easy to hit a winner off the return of serve. You'd get guys like Nadal camping out at the service line, no? At the very least you'd be encouraging the returner to take the short ball (i.e. the underhanded serve) and rush the net, which would seem to discourage the long exciting rallies you're trying to create. The game would just become "return and volley" rather than "serve and volley".
ah, excellent point, but you're thinking too small!
here's what we do: we eliminate the service boxes! you just have to hit it to the opposite side, but not short into the box like you do now. so you can hit your underhand serve to the back line and keep the returner honest. a serve would become a solid forehand.
I must make mention that the elimination of the service boxes was not part of your original proposal. I now feel justified in taking partial credit.
I can't believe after all of these years of reading your blog my first comment is going to be about tennis, but couldn't you get a similar result with less of a drastic change to the game by eliminating the service fault rule? If you only have one chance to get it in the service box (that sounds vaguely dirty), you better take something off the serve to make sure you're accurate.
hey, we're spitballing! this is exactly the post you should comment on, we're revolutionizing a sport here.
one serve is an interesting idea, but i feel it doesn't go far enough. i know there's gonna be some 6'10" kevin durant type who can hammer a serve in perfectly every time. i say, get rid of that height advantage thing all together, even the playing field, and play the game the way it's played the rest of the time.
I think you just explained what could be the tennis version of slow-pitch softball.
-Jenna
Hmmm, as someone who has played against you repeatedly, I find it mighty coincidental that your "game" was to return the ball repeatedly with little pace. The frustrating part is that you beat me far too many times emphasizing my consistency weakness. I see EXACTLY why you want the speed taken out of tennis. So you can win -- it's only about you winning isn't it? ISN'T IT???!!!!
JE (still smarting over high school)
The most workable solution is to only play 2 out of 3 for all matches men and women and all matches that are tied 6 all go to tie breakers. The tournament at Indian Wells has this and it is the most enjoyable tournament I go to. And I go to a lot of tournaments. I might give the one serve only a try. Could be some good strategy going on.
Just to be clear: that 11 hour game wasn't played non-stop. It was spread over 3 days (I think), so ease out on the asshole comments, because there are plenty of things that you can do for ~4 hours at a time. I just jerked off for that exact amount of time. In fact I'm still a little bit sweaty from it as I'm typing this.
Just to be clear: that 11 hour game wasn't played non-stop. It was spread over 3 days (I think), so ease out on the asshole comments, because there are plenty of things that you can do for ~4 hours at a time. I just jerked off for that exact amount of time. In fact I'm still a little bit sweaty from it as I'm typing this.
je - i feel your pain. well i don't, but i've seen it in oh so many of my opponents through the years. the amazing thing is, i don't need the rules to be changed to win, my #1 seed at campo is proof of that. but i understand why a tall man such as yourself is so attached to the serve.
the only reason the match was spread out over multiple days was because of darkness! but the match itself did last that long. i will take some jacking off lessons from you though, cause that is quite impressive.
Post a Comment