What major changes are coming to tennis in 2018 and when will we see the new rules take place?
There are several modifications that the Grand Slam Board announced, but when are the new rules expected to realistically go into effect?
It’s been a month since the Grand Slam Board and the International Tennis Federation announced the voted-on changes for tennis tournaments. After deliberating all year over adjustments to the rules, using some proposed changes in trial fashion at a few events,and threatening to put in place drastic measures, we’ll see some of the rules implemented in the new year, some delayed until 2019, others still in the research phase and still others shelved completely until a doomsday scenario when legends Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are retired (I kid, but not really).
Here’s our breakdown on what these changes mean and when we’re likely to see them in practice.
Coming in 2018: the new shot clock timing and shorter warm-ups to be debuted at the Australian Open
We’re all familiar with Rafael Nadal’s quirks and rituals — from setting up his multiple bottles right by his bench to adjusting his shorts before serving out a point — but this is the exact type of delay that the Grand Slam Board wants to minimize, voting to limit the nips and ticks to a 25-second “serve/shot clock.”
“I believe it is not something that is good for the future of the Tour,” said Nadal while at the ATP Tour Finals.
But he also said that he’s not terribly worried about it either.
“I don’t want to play for 10 more years. I can adapt easily to that.’’
But Nadal is worried that the 25-shot clock rule might result in less entertaining matches.
“It depends on what the fans want. If the fans want short points and players playing without thinking, maybe it is good,” he told PA Sport back at the U.S. Open in August.
“If you want to have matches like I played here with Novak [Djokovic], the three finals, the kind of match that the crowd is more involved in because the points are so long, well, you cannot expect to play 50-shot rallies and in 25 seconds be ready to play the next tennis point.
“I think that’s not possible for a great show. But if you don’t want a great show, of course it’s a great improvement.”
Players who violate the new rule will receive a $20,000 fine. Federer — ever the traditionalist — doesn’t seem too thrilled either, saying it would be “quite stressful” for the players.
But the Grand Slam Board granted the Australian Open’s request for a waiver of the rule change. The shot clock will only be used in the qualifying rounds on a “trial basis,” much like the U.S. Open did last year. I know one person who will be happy about this, and it’s Rafael Nadal.
There will be shorter pre-match warm-ups as well. Players will have to be ready for the pre-match toss after just one minute from walk on. They will get five minutes to warm up. After that, players will have to be ready to play in one minute. Again, a $20,000 fine will result from any infraction.
Also debuting in the new year: new fines for “tanking” a match
Player infractions will be strictly enforced for lack of performances at the grand slams. If a singles player isn’t ready to play after seven minutes of walking on court, the player will be fined $20,000.
Fifty percent of prize money will be forfeited if the player withdraws the Thursday before a grand slam starts. The other 50 percent will then go to the player’s replacement.
The new rules also fine players for performing “below professional standards” or retiring in the first round, fining the player an amount up to the first-round prize money.
These are no-brainers and don’t seem to bother any of the more famous tennis players, who are not accused of “throwing their matches” anyway.
These rules are probably a response to the controversial amount of first round losses that prompted even Roger Federer to ask for a change in rules at this year’s Wimbledon. Seven players retired after starting their first round matches, with many accusing players such as Feliciano Lopez for showing up in their first rounds to collect their paychecks when they knew they weren’t 100 percent ready to compete up to standard.
“A player should not go on court if he knows he should finish,” Federer said at the time.
Nadal famously criticized Andy Murray for withdrawing at this year’s Wimbledon at the last minute, preventing Federer from being granted second seed status at the event and increasing the chances of the two great rivals facing each other in the U.S. Open final with higher seeding.
Expected in 2019: 16 seeds only
Another safe change is the reduction of seeds from 32 to 16. This is how tournaments managed top talent in the past, until 2001, when the U.S. Open asked for an increase in seeding to help their stars shine. Roger Federer has said that giving the lesser ranked players a better fighting chance isn’t such a bad thing.
So what does this mean? With less seeds, there’s a greater chance that the higher ranked players will face each other sooner and might not make it to the ratings-high second week of a grand slam. It’s a risk that the governing board is willing to take — especially as we get closer to the retirement age of the sport’s icons of Federer and Nadal. The governing board probably sees more depth of field in the younger generation and wants to give these young guns as much opportunity to prove themselves as possible.
The consensus on this seems to be that it will make the early round matches more interesting.
Of course, if the changes had been implemented this year, then #17 Roger Federer, and then #9 Rafael Nadal could have potentially faced off in the first round of the Australian Open instead of setting the stage for the entire year with their first epic five-set final match. What a tragedy that would have been.
Potentially for 2019: limited medical time outs, very likely to pass
The ATP is currently gathering more analysis on this proposed change, but the governing board would like to limit medical timeouts to one, three-minute time-outs per match.
Bathroom breaks are not included in the proposed changes, but there are several notables in the sport who have been advocating for a change in this area too, including Chris Evert.
But the ATP is gathering consensus for now.
“We are currently in the process of gathering feedback from various stakeholders, including players, media, broadcasters, sponsors, and fans,” said Simon Higson, ATP VP of Corporate Communications and PR. “No conclusions will be drawn until we have completed this process and gone through the necessary review process with our members. As such any potential changes would be with 2019 and beyond in mind.”
There will be no-on court coaching for the time being. An unpopular suggestion, this concept was debuted at the NextGen ATP Finals. Although it made for interesting drama, Wimbledon was adamant about opposing it, saying that it would take away from the concept of tennis players performing as lone “gladiators” at grand slams. Many of the major tennis players agreed, including Roger Federer and NextGen sensation, Alexander Zverev.
“Don’t panic. We’re not rushing into doing mad stuff, but what I do want to do is to test things that maybe five, 10 years down the line can be used, and we’ll see whether they work,” said ATP Executive Chairman and President Chris Kermode.
Other changes to traditional elements of the game being scrapped are no-ad scoring, getting rid of “let” during serving, no line judges with reliance on “Hawk-eye” only and only going up to four games in a set instead of seven (a terrible suggestion in grand slams, in my opinion).
Perhaps U.S. Open semifinalist CoCo Vandewegh had the best reaction to the new rules, which were decided by the Board only.
But since Kermode is a fan of these changes and liked the look and feel of the Next Gen ATP event in Milan last month, we may see them again being proposed in the future, particularly when the traditional Big Four (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray) get closer to retirement and the ATP keeps staying worried about the next generation stars who could emerge.
Next: Check out holiday greetings from some top tennis stars
As I’ve said before, this argument comes up with every generation. We heard the same after Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras left the game. Just one year later, we had our answer: Roger Federer. There are always talented guys hungry to emerge among the pack. We may not know who it is next, but with younger players Alexander Zverev and Alexandr Dolgopolov breaking through this year, we may find ourselves pleasantly surprised by the next upstart.
Tennis just seems to always produce greats.