This isn’t a line call, it’s the rulebook being opened. Since the US Open, three ideas have been going round to make tennis more attractive: best of three sets instead of five, a deciding point at 40-40, and doing away with the let on serve.
Jessica Pegula rejects two of them. “I hate the idea of bringing in the deciding point at 40-40. I hope we never lose the chance to play with the advantage.” And on the let: “I think it’s stupid. Why would you want to win a point that way, just because the ball touches the net and drops in just behind it?”
On the format, she floats an idea she doesn’t believe in: best of three until the quarter-finals, then best of five, “but would that fix the problem? No.” And this line, in among the rest: “Honestly, I don’t know what the solution is.”
The deciding point, I said it back in January, and I was against it. Well, I was for it, but with reservations, which comes to the same thing, you see.
Monique, for her part, mostly noticed the ball you get to play again.
So they want to take away the ball you start over, the one that brushed the net. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing. At the parish, back home, when the reader lost his place he went back to the beginning of the sentence, and nobody in the pews gained a thing by it. The lady says it’s stupid. One word, and it’s well chosen. Whoever wants the let gone wants to win without playing.
It’s true, we checked: We Love Tennis.
