Ban errant tosses, institute VAR, have curfews and play lets: The rule changes tennis needs

Tennis needs a good old-fashioned house cleaning because, when it comes to implementing solid rules, enforcing the ones that do exist, and keeping current with technology, the game is messier than the area around Frances Tiafoe’s chair late in a match on a hot day.

Most of these proposed fixes could be easily implemented, and all of them would improve the product at a time when leadership has been experimenting with all sorts of novel shortcuts and rules intended to “speed up” the game. They would also make the happenings on court more transparent and digestible.

So let’s look at some of them.

Ban Errant Tosses

Catching a toss instead of hitting the serve is one do-over too many in a sport that already allows two serves—a quirk unlike anything else we find in major sports. You can argue that allowing two serves makes the game richer and more tactical in a good way, but you can’t say the same for the do-over toss.

Repeated false starts are sloppy and annoying. They can be subtle attempts at gamesmanship—messing with the receiver’s head. In a notorious Monday evening fourth-round match at the 1998 US Open, repeated false starts by Karol Kucera (who was known for the tactic) eventually goaded Andre Agassi into entertaining the crowd by mimicking him, not entirely in jest. (Kucera still won the rain-interrupted match the following day.)

Determining that the point is in play once the ball leaves the server’s hand on the toss would put a little more pressure on the server, for sure. But it would also slightly level a playing field already heavily tilted in the server’s direction.

Adopt VAR, ASAP

Adopting Video Assistant Referee in tennis would be challenging because so many courts are used in the sport until the final days of a tournament. Mandatory VAR would hurt the smaller 250-level and Challenger tournaments in particular, given the financial outlay. But the advent of the Hawkeye Electronic Line-calling System a decade ago was also used on select courts. Some VAR is better than none.

The call for VAR gained volume this year in two widely known incidents—the first involving Coco Gauff, who exploded in anger and ultimately succumbed to tears during and after her Roland Garros semifinal against Iga Swiatek. In dispute: whether an incorrect “out” call of a Swiatek serve caused Gauff to make a return error. Later, Gauff called the lack of VAR “ridiculous.”

Later in the summer, at the Cincinnati Masters, Great Britain’s Jack Draper was the beneficiary of a controversial match point during his fourth-round win against Félix Auger-Aliassime. Draper won the match on what was clearly a double-hit (per subsequent video review) half-volley. He later took heat from some who felt the point should have been replayed, if not awarded outright to FAA. Draper, mortified by attacks on his integrity, also subsequently lobbied for VAR.

Soccer is one of the most hidebound of all pro sports, but even FIFA is using VAR, and the system proved its worth at the recent Olympic Games.

Set a Curfew

Matches that end in the early-morning hours get a ton of publicity. They also generate repeated calls for reform, and they often have an adverse effect on numerous people, including the winning player. The bounce-back time, especially in a best-of-five-set Grand Slam, is just brutal.

Yet the late finishes continue. As the saying goes, “Follow the money.” That trail leads to the ever-increasing embrace of night tennis, which is now viable even on the largest of stages because of roofed stadia that make premium-quality night sessions doable. Split sessions double ticket revenue, and they may have greater appeal than daytime tennis to media outlets including television.

Andy Murray won a second-round, five-set, midnight marathon over Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Australian Open in 2023. The match started well before midnight and lasted well into the following day, ending at 4:05 AM. Murray’s brother, the doubles star Jamie, tweeted during the match: “We can’t continue to have players compete into the wee hours of the morning. Rubbish for everyone involved—players/fans/event staff.”  Depleted, Murray lost his next match.

Since then, there have been numerous other dawn-patrol endings, at least four at Grand Slam events alone this year. There is no easy solution to this problem because it is tied in with the economics of the game. But the least the Lords of Tennis can do is agree that there must be a curfew. When a match hits the midnight or 1 AM mark after a 7 PM start, postpone it until the following day.

That’s already a reality at Wimbledon because local civic authorities demanded it. Nobody has complained about it.

Manage the Interruptions Better

Tennis has been willing to experiment with all sorts of rule changes to “speed up” the game. So it was doubly ironic when, during a delay for a long bathroom break in an Olympic Games match, commentator Martina Navratilova tweeted: “Guess how many times I went to the bathroom in my whole career in some 1700 matches?”

The answer, presumably, is “none”—or some number very close to it.

Point made: we’ve all joined the slide down that infamous “slippery slope” that explains why everyone in tennis these days seems to have a weak bladder. Could it be that bathroom breaks often have less to do with bodily functions than the urge for a session of auto-therapy—sometimes a lengthy one, like Swiatek’s nine-minute-plus break during her match with Danielle Collins at the recent Olympics?

It’s unnecessary to review that controversy here. Like many similar ones, it was less a case of a player violating the rules as of badly written and/or poorly understood rules. In Swiatek’s case, court officials apparently told her there was no time limit on the break—even though the International Tennis Federation limits the break for either gender to three minutes, or five if the player wants to change clothes.

Curiously, the WTA allows players to take a bathroom break at any point in a match, preferably before a player serves. There is no time limit on the break. The ATP allows one break per match, but it must be at the end of a set, and it follows the ITF’s three-to-five minute protocol.

The cat is out of the bag now, and bathroom breaks are here to stay. The least tennis can do is negotiate a consistent policy that applies to tour events, Grand Slams, and special events (Davis Cups, Olympics, etc.).

Play the Let

This one truly seems like a no-brainer. The let is another sop to servers. Please write to me if you can explain why letcord shots must be played during a point but not when serving. Sheesh!

Last But Not Least, Stop with the Goats!!!!

I get it. The game today is so good, so full of champions, so fast and tough and beautiful and whatever else that it seems a shame to say just one person—say Novak Djokovic, or Serena Williams—is the Greatest of All Time. So now even some commentators idiotically use the oxymoronic plural, “GOATs.” If you can’t make up your mind or accept a GOAT, go find some other word to misuse.