After all the hype of the new rules introduced by the Next Gen finals, it’s interesting to listen to the comments of the top players in the world. While Federer, Nadal, and Dimitrov didn’t express strong opinions, Zverev, Thiem, and Cilic were a bit more straightforward, and all of them were pretty vocal about how useful would be to introduce the shot clock.
Zverev
Even if Sascha doesn’t like the idea of innovating the sport too much, he thinks that the shot clock and the Hawk-Eye Live were great to comment “I don’t think many of the new innovations will transfer to the ATP World Tour. I think the automatic line calls will, I was positively surprised by that, and also the shot clock. That has potential and could be transferred. Everything else will not happen in my opinion.”
Cilic
Marin also liked a lot the shot clock, and the Hawk-eye Live to say “I’ve watched some of the matches. It’s been quite interesting and seeing what the coaches are saying at the end of sets, how the Hawk-Eye line calling is working. The Shot Clock is something I think we can be introduced straight away in tennis. I’m not a fan of no let cords and the number of games per set. It’s slightly too short. If a guy loses serves, it’s tough to come back in the set. I liked Hawk Eye calling the foot faults.”
Thiem
Dominic doesn’t like any of these innovations with one exception to say “I don’t like the scoring system, but I like the shot clock, so everyone knows when a player needs to be ready again. It’s not on the umpire to decide. That’s a very good rule. Everything else should stay the same.”
The shot clock may be the first innovation to be introduced… and it was about time!
| NOT MUCH FOR INNOVATING WITH 2 EXCEPTIONS |
| Embed from Getty Images |
