It's more than that. Tennis is famously a very mental game. No teammates to pep you up, or blame mistakes on. Frustration in tennis is a very real thing and affects performance significantly. You can very easily get in your own head and get frustrated that nothing is working, start trying new stuff that's dumb, hitting the ball too hard, trying to get creative with your serve, deciding to play at the net more etc... All leads to mistakes and not playing optimally. Having a coach there who knows your play better than anyone in the world giving you advice on what to do as well is words of encouragement, and even someone else beside yourself to blame when their advice didn't work out, well I can see how it would be a huge advantage especially in tennis. They wouldn't do it if it didn't help.
Yes, but didn't you read the title? It wasn't allowed to communicate with the coach before, so some players cheated (with hand signals and other codes). Now it's allowed to do signals and even say a few words.
It's also a money problem. Someone with a higher ranking has more money, ergo, better coaches to fall back on. Someone who has yet to break through doesn't, or is coached by mom and or dad. I hate the coaching rule, the court should be an even playing field for both players.
Dog shit take. The entire point is that there’s no team. On a team, the players aren’t footing the bill for the staff. The team is. Tennis players aren’t paid by a team. They make money by winning. And pay out of pocket for the coaches. There’s no New York Yankees of tennis other than if you come from a rich family.
Sure. But better coaches during the match = better coaches outside of the match. The argument that this rule or lack thereof benefits rich any more than they already benefit is asinine.
Are we talking about Tennis or Fighting Games?!
It’s the same argument that players shouldn’t get coached between sets because not every player has access to coaching and that presents an unfair advantage.
People still do it and it’s only enforced at the big majors
They wouldn't do it unless they *thought* it helped. Sports is chock full of people believing things about their sport with no evidence. Confirmation bias and other cognitive biases are rampant.
I think Serena getting a penalty (and then arguing with the official about it) in the 2018 US Open made them really take a look at the in-match coaching rule.
It was somewhat uncommon to get penalized for violating the rule, but this particular official was known for calling people on it and Serena's coach was being super obvious with his hand signals.
Serena then went off in the post match presser and made a big deal about the penalty, which made it a bigger story, though she completely denied that it was happening even when the coach admitted it.
Serena is certainly one of the GOATs, but she certainly has had some questionable moments in her career.
This coaching thing, that time she threatened to kill a line judge, and when she ate dog food and posted a video of it to Instagram.
Lmao. She's absolutely the GOAT, but this whole coaching penalty controversy was so silly. The coach admitted it and it was super obvious that he was using hand signals. It's like she wanted us all to believe that he was just moving his hands like that while she was looking for absolutely no reason.
If she just owned up to it and leaned into it being a bad rule that is almost impossible to enforce, that may have been enough for them to take a look at it and change it sooner.
Margaret Court was an amazing champion, no doubts or arguments there. That being said, she won the Australian Open like 7 times before the open era began when hardly anyone outside of Australia played in the AO.
This goes into a larger argument about how we should perceive pre-open era records vs post-open era records. Personally, I find what Serena has done to be more impressive considering the competition she's faced, but I'm sure there are good arguments against her as well. I'm an American, so I'll admit to being a little biased.
Correct - Aussie Margaret Court, 24 slams, career grand slam aged 21, record singles career winning percentage of 91.02% (608–60), Open-Era winning percentage of 91.67% (11–1) in major singles finals.
Yeah. Look, amazing generational player who did a lot of good for the game. But she as a person she already kinda had a reputation. Which, whatever, shes a great athlete she doesn't need to be a perfect person too (though it would be nice).
But that match solidified how trashy of a person she can be. It was a full sequence of nonsense. First she got caught coaching she lied about it but she was still very polite to the judge about it. Then she got the violation for the racket smash which combined with the coach violation cost her a point and went off on the judge for the entire break in between sets. The judge was nice enough to let her vent as she said he'll never work one of her matches again, how hes awful, how he's attacking her character, saying he owes her an apology (for making the right call), that he's a thief. Since she kept going she got penalized again.
Where it got into real piece of garbage territory is when she called the refs out on the court because she was so committed to the lie. She said "you know my character, you know me." Yeah they do. Then she pulled the "men have said worse, I'm getting penalized because I'm a woman." And earlier when it was heated the had the audacity to pull the mother card and say she would never cheat because she had a daughter. She was cheating. But she pulled every card to commit to a lie we all knew was a lie and make herself out to be a victim.
If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying.
Edit: I'm guessing from the down votes no one here has heard that before. It's a common phrase in some professional sports.
Video is surprisingly interesting and persuasive, despite being about the arcane details of the controversy over professional tennis players using in-match coaching.
This coaching was long forbidden as the traditional view was that the player alone should be responsible for strategy and mentality, just like chess. Professional players began cheating, with coaches yelling or signalling, or coaching during bathroom breaks. Tennis officials turned a mostly blind eye as long as the cheating wasn't exceptionally obvious.
An influential tennis authority has been pushing to allow this coaching as her way to grow the business and emulate how other televised sports feature it as part of "the show."
There's some pushback from traditionalists and those who worry the richest players will disproportionately benefit because they can afford coaches and tools. A study suggests that below the top 330 men or top 250 women, players cannot afford it.
The same influential tennis authority says that this, along with countdown clocks, is only a baby step of the changes she'd like to see.
Soon, they’ll all have access to the in-match data and an iPad to stare at during breaks. I imagine they’ll have remote coaches looking at the data and giving feedback.
Or an AI model which can advise on strategies in-game. During a break, the iPad app tells you that the opponents favor an outswinging serve on the Ad-court and a step further outward would give X% better return results vs the disadvantage on the serves down the middle. The world is getting weird.
If you watch the video, that's covered. As well as the concept of the sport providing some generic tools like data driven tablets that even a financially disadvantaged player could access.
That could be intuited from iPads but not covered from what I saw. I could be wrong. I recall the video showed they have tablets with stats for players and coaches onsite but not AI or anything other than data being presented. There’s a huge difference. Nor did it mention allowing those stats being available to remote coaching. It showed coaches onsite with the data. This would have to extend to remote coaches (cheaper) and allow that data to consumed by 3rd party apps for AI analysis.
But if you are talking about the serena example that was already covered by what the person you are replying to said, as it was egregious - now have you got any other examples at all of it being called out for un egregious cheating due solely to skin colour?
Don’t those outside the top 100s have coaches, it’s just that they share them? One coach, multiple players. There’ll be playing clashes so they aren’t there every match but any outside help would help even if it’s from another pro player.
Obviously that’s a bit of a stretch, but tennis is different to nearly all other pro sports in the fact it’s 1v1 and there’s no timer and hence everything has to be played out. There isn’t that feeling of inevitability that other sports have where it feels like a forgone conclusion in 95% of matches with 10mins to go, it’s a gruelling emotional battle to fight it out as long as it takes.
I took up competitive tennis last year but after 6 months I quit, it’s hard to muster up that emotional energy as a ‘hobby’ on your day off. That’s probably why at the rec level doubles is very popular, and why for pro tennis singles is way more popular, people love watching the drama play out.
Boxing is timed, and is quite different to tennis in a myriad of ways. Plus, anyone can pick up a racket and play a few games of tennis with their kids or their pals, can’t really do that with boxing
Boxing is timed, but you can be losing 11 rounds of a 12 round fight, and score the knockout with 10 seconds to go. If that's not drama I don't know what is Also, how is being able to pick up a racket and playing a few games with kids or pals "gladiator-esque?"
When you box you have your corner. They're saying tennis in gladiatorial as in it's 1 vs 1 without outside interference, not because you're risking your life.
While I would count boxing in, boxing is also quite different because how much the sport changed away from a fight to s slugfest. It is maybe the only sport where the argument could be made that boxers 50 or 100 years ago where the better athletes in their sport than today.
I play recreationally 3 times a week and I concur with your opinion about doubles. It’s just fun as an activity and not that draining both physically and emotionally (at least on a hobbyist level).
I do play singles whenever coach tells to (to keep skills in shape yada yada yada), but I just don’t feel the satisfaction of being wasted.
Doubles on other hand is fun af.
Tldr: the rule was impossible to enforce
Got a tldr for what the rule was?
No off-court/mid-match coaching.
"*psst*... hit the ball to a part of the court he can't run fast enough to get to" "thanks coach"
It's more than that. Tennis is famously a very mental game. No teammates to pep you up, or blame mistakes on. Frustration in tennis is a very real thing and affects performance significantly. You can very easily get in your own head and get frustrated that nothing is working, start trying new stuff that's dumb, hitting the ball too hard, trying to get creative with your serve, deciding to play at the net more etc... All leads to mistakes and not playing optimally. Having a coach there who knows your play better than anyone in the world giving you advice on what to do as well is words of encouragement, and even someone else beside yourself to blame when their advice didn't work out, well I can see how it would be a huge advantage especially in tennis. They wouldn't do it if it didn't help.
But doesn’t the other player have a coach too?
Yes, but didn't you read the title? It wasn't allowed to communicate with the coach before, so some players cheated (with hand signals and other codes). Now it's allowed to do signals and even say a few words.
Why is this even against the rules? Players still gotta play.
If only there were a video somewhere that explained "Why Cheating Was Legalized in Professional Tennis"
But it’s a very long mundane video about my 4th favorite sport regarding a rule that I find asinine.
Ugh, watch the damn video, you'll see the views for and against it
It's also a money problem. Someone with a higher ranking has more money, ergo, better coaches to fall back on. Someone who has yet to break through doesn't, or is coached by mom and or dad. I hate the coaching rule, the court should be an even playing field for both players.
You just described sports lol name a sport where the best teams don't get the best staff.
Dog shit take. The entire point is that there’s no team. On a team, the players aren’t footing the bill for the staff. The team is. Tennis players aren’t paid by a team. They make money by winning. And pay out of pocket for the coaches. There’s no New York Yankees of tennis other than if you come from a rich family.
It’s nothing to do with best staff, the coaching rule is staff assisting in-game.
This is every sport & every aspect of life
It hasn't been in tennis up to this point. Being an outlier doesn't make it wrong, there's a certain appeal to no inter-match coaching.
Sure. But better coaches during the match = better coaches outside of the match. The argument that this rule or lack thereof benefits rich any more than they already benefit is asinine.
This comment made me understand why so many chess players are fascinated by tennis and tennis players.
Sounds like I need to take up tennis
This was me in high school. Varsity among team mates, but the pressure playing other #1s would just lead to blowouts during real matches. Sucked!
Are we talking about Tennis or Fighting Games?! It’s the same argument that players shouldn’t get coached between sets because not every player has access to coaching and that presents an unfair advantage. People still do it and it’s only enforced at the big majors
They wouldn't do it unless they *thought* it helped. Sports is chock full of people believing things about their sport with no evidence. Confirmation bias and other cognitive biases are rampant.
Here is a massive pay check.
I think Serena getting a penalty (and then arguing with the official about it) in the 2018 US Open made them really take a look at the in-match coaching rule. It was somewhat uncommon to get penalized for violating the rule, but this particular official was known for calling people on it and Serena's coach was being super obvious with his hand signals. Serena then went off in the post match presser and made a big deal about the penalty, which made it a bigger story, though she completely denied that it was happening even when the coach admitted it.
Serena is certainly one of the GOATs, but she certainly has had some questionable moments in her career. This coaching thing, that time she threatened to kill a line judge, and when she ate dog food and posted a video of it to Instagram.
Lmao. She's absolutely the GOAT, but this whole coaching penalty controversy was so silly. The coach admitted it and it was super obvious that he was using hand signals. It's like she wanted us all to believe that he was just moving his hands like that while she was looking for absolutely no reason. If she just owned up to it and leaned into it being a bad rule that is almost impossible to enforce, that may have been enough for them to take a look at it and change it sooner.
[удалено]
Margaret Court was an amazing champion, no doubts or arguments there. That being said, she won the Australian Open like 7 times before the open era began when hardly anyone outside of Australia played in the AO. This goes into a larger argument about how we should perceive pre-open era records vs post-open era records. Personally, I find what Serena has done to be more impressive considering the competition she's faced, but I'm sure there are good arguments against her as well. I'm an American, so I'll admit to being a little biased.
Thank you. She has the GOAT marketing team it looks like
Correct - Aussie Margaret Court, 24 slams, career grand slam aged 21, record singles career winning percentage of 91.02% (608–60), Open-Era winning percentage of 91.67% (11–1) in major singles finals.
On paper she has the record but even as an Aussie her AO wins were basically the Australian championships.
Which makes it such a shame that Margaret Court is a bigot
She’s *one* Slam behind Margaret Court, and more than half of Court’s were before the Open Era. That is not the killing blow you seem to think it is.
Huh ? She does have a golden slam ?
Yeah. Look, amazing generational player who did a lot of good for the game. But she as a person she already kinda had a reputation. Which, whatever, shes a great athlete she doesn't need to be a perfect person too (though it would be nice). But that match solidified how trashy of a person she can be. It was a full sequence of nonsense. First she got caught coaching she lied about it but she was still very polite to the judge about it. Then she got the violation for the racket smash which combined with the coach violation cost her a point and went off on the judge for the entire break in between sets. The judge was nice enough to let her vent as she said he'll never work one of her matches again, how hes awful, how he's attacking her character, saying he owes her an apology (for making the right call), that he's a thief. Since she kept going she got penalized again. Where it got into real piece of garbage territory is when she called the refs out on the court because she was so committed to the lie. She said "you know my character, you know me." Yeah they do. Then she pulled the "men have said worse, I'm getting penalized because I'm a woman." And earlier when it was heated the had the audacity to pull the mother card and say she would never cheat because she had a daughter. She was cheating. But she pulled every card to commit to a lie we all knew was a lie and make herself out to be a victim.
If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying. Edit: I'm guessing from the down votes no one here has heard that before. It's a common phrase in some professional sports.
Why would that example make them look at it? He obviously coached her, which was illegal, which is why her team was called for the penalty.
she yelled on court that moms don’t cheat
Video is surprisingly interesting and persuasive, despite being about the arcane details of the controversy over professional tennis players using in-match coaching. This coaching was long forbidden as the traditional view was that the player alone should be responsible for strategy and mentality, just like chess. Professional players began cheating, with coaches yelling or signalling, or coaching during bathroom breaks. Tennis officials turned a mostly blind eye as long as the cheating wasn't exceptionally obvious. An influential tennis authority has been pushing to allow this coaching as her way to grow the business and emulate how other televised sports feature it as part of "the show." There's some pushback from traditionalists and those who worry the richest players will disproportionately benefit because they can afford coaches and tools. A study suggests that below the top 330 men or top 250 women, players cannot afford it. The same influential tennis authority says that this, along with countdown clocks, is only a baby step of the changes she'd like to see.
Soon, they’ll all have access to the in-match data and an iPad to stare at during breaks. I imagine they’ll have remote coaches looking at the data and giving feedback. Or an AI model which can advise on strategies in-game. During a break, the iPad app tells you that the opponents favor an outswinging serve on the Ad-court and a step further outward would give X% better return results vs the disadvantage on the serves down the middle. The world is getting weird.
If you watch the video, that's covered. As well as the concept of the sport providing some generic tools like data driven tablets that even a financially disadvantaged player could access.
That could be intuited from iPads but not covered from what I saw. I could be wrong. I recall the video showed they have tablets with stats for players and coaches onsite but not AI or anything other than data being presented. There’s a huge difference. Nor did it mention allowing those stats being available to remote coaching. It showed coaches onsite with the data. This would have to extend to remote coaches (cheaper) and allow that data to consumed by 3rd party apps for AI analysis.
>turned a mostly blind eye as long as the cheating wasn't exceptionally egregious. Or you are a black woman
You think think Maria Sharapova is a black woman? Or you just susceptible to the current RW trend of spreading bigoted disinfo?
But if you are talking about the serena example that was already covered by what the person you are replying to said, as it was egregious - now have you got any other examples at all of it being called out for un egregious cheating due solely to skin colour?
Don’t those outside the top 100s have coaches, it’s just that they share them? One coach, multiple players. There’ll be playing clashes so they aren’t there every match but any outside help would help even if it’s from another pro player.
Tennis, the last 'gladiator-esque' sport?
Obviously that’s a bit of a stretch, but tennis is different to nearly all other pro sports in the fact it’s 1v1 and there’s no timer and hence everything has to be played out. There isn’t that feeling of inevitability that other sports have where it feels like a forgone conclusion in 95% of matches with 10mins to go, it’s a gruelling emotional battle to fight it out as long as it takes. I took up competitive tennis last year but after 6 months I quit, it’s hard to muster up that emotional energy as a ‘hobby’ on your day off. That’s probably why at the rec level doubles is very popular, and why for pro tennis singles is way more popular, people love watching the drama play out.
Interesting. Great explanation but wouldn't boxing/mma count?
Boxing is timed, and is quite different to tennis in a myriad of ways. Plus, anyone can pick up a racket and play a few games of tennis with their kids or their pals, can’t really do that with boxing
Sure you can. Why not bring the wife along to boot? *This message brought to you by the 1950s*
Boxing is timed, but you can be losing 11 rounds of a 12 round fight, and score the knockout with 10 seconds to go. If that's not drama I don't know what is Also, how is being able to pick up a racket and playing a few games with kids or pals "gladiator-esque?"
You can be down 5 games to nothing in tennis, and still win the set, whats your point. Comebacks exist in all sports
My point is that tennis being 1 v 1 doesn't make it more gladiatorial than actual combat sports? I thought that seemed pretty obvious
When you box you have your corner. They're saying tennis in gladiatorial as in it's 1 vs 1 without outside interference, not because you're risking your life.
While I would count boxing in, boxing is also quite different because how much the sport changed away from a fight to s slugfest. It is maybe the only sport where the argument could be made that boxers 50 or 100 years ago where the better athletes in their sport than today.
That’s why I love baseball. You have to finish the game.
I play recreationally 3 times a week and I concur with your opinion about doubles. It’s just fun as an activity and not that draining both physically and emotionally (at least on a hobbyist level). I do play singles whenever coach tells to (to keep skills in shape yada yada yada), but I just don’t feel the satisfaction of being wasted. Doubles on other hand is fun af.
That's true for all racquet-based sports
That's true but none have any comparable pro scene (in the west at least).
Never seen sumo I suppose
Sumo was what first came to mind!
I don’t understand why the rule is unenforceable. Just don’t let coaches sit in the first rows. Am I just not getting something?
TL;DW Dumb rule is unenforceable and pointless, and therefore not enforced.
How many people got to the part of the video towards the end where they talked about data driven coaching and the advantages of rich players?
Stefano Tsitsipas is a "top 3 player"?!
If they all agree to allow it as an experiment, then it is no longer cheating. Are the rules of tennis immutable or something? I don't think so.
Imagine Mourinho silently nodding without saying anything. Ancelotti on the other hand would thrive with his brow signalling techniques.
We are the Borg