The penalty Olivier Canton is talking about isn’t a fine. It’s one set fewer.
The Eurosport journalist takes issue with Alexander Zverev for using all 30 seconds on serve with 25 ball bounces, and with Iga Swiatek for her attitude against Zheng Qinwen: leaving the court at the end of a set she had just lost, then calling the physio at the following changeover. Keep doing that, he said, and “you end up making people believe the only solution is to reduce the length of sets”. He cited the head of Tennis Australia, who spoke during the US Open about shortening sets and match durations in the future.
That was the line that made Céline, our C30.4 (a club-level ranking), look up from the folder of statistics she was sorting.
Shorten the sets, fine, but which one are you taking off me? I win my matches in the third, when the woman across the net starts thinking instead of playing. Take away my third set and you take away my intentions and my patterns. And people don’t realise: the level has gone way up, there are no short matches anywhere any more. Thirty seconds between points, in winter, under an air dome you rent by the hour, nobody takes them, believe me. Two practice sessions away, mind you.
She adds that a set isn’t a unit of time but a zone, which is debatable, and that she already has “a whole plan for a short format”, which is also debatable.
Silly question, but if the sets get shorter, do the thirty seconds stay thirty?
Canton isn’t asking for anything to be shortened. He’s asking for players to be held responsible and told they may be wrecking their own sport.
It’s true, we checked: We Love Tennis.
