No ad scoring

Are you for it or against it? Personally, I think it’s stupid. It turns Chess into Checkers and that’s a fact. It tips the scale towards the weaker player. Any tennis player (any good tennis player) knows it’s harder to win two points in a row than one point.

“It makes it more exciting.”

That’s a load of crap. It takes away from the game planning of a player who “thinks” and uses their “brain” to set up points.

During lessons, I give players the choice, “Win by one, or win by two.” Nine out of ten times they choose two points. I laugh. “You want to choose one,” I say. “The odds are better for you.”

(I like the players who still choose to win by two. It shows their toughness. Their mental fortitude. They don’t want things easy. They want to EARN it. But, today, we are living in a want, want, want, world. “I wanted this done yesterday,” the losers say).

“It shortens the college matches and the junior matches.”

As if time is your concern. This shows the level (lack of) commitment coaches and tournament organizers have for the tourneys they run.

“College kids have school work to do (which is more important than tennis).”

OK!

That’s crap too.

Before they even step on the court, players are already under the assumption that the match doesn’t have much value. It’s just a game.

(Like that American Lit class is soooo important. How many college grads look at their college years and say, “What a waste!” other than the partying of course?

How many college tennis players look back at their career and remember all the matches they played (or at least most of them)?

A LOT.

Do I want to watch five-hour matches?

No, I do not.

But, I don’t want to watch quick matches either.

(Playing lets is dumber than dumb. Most club players don’t realize why it exists. It’s because of cheating. During the Finals of the Division 1 college team tournament back in the day a player kept calling lets on Aces (which is bullshit. What kind of shitty person does that? Rich Kids? Privileged kids, who can’t lose? Cuz mummy and dada gave them everything? Who knows? Someone with morals doesn’t do that).

Is there a solution?

If they asked the right people!

Here’s the easy (and BEST) solution.

Each game gets three deuces. After the third deuce, it becomes a No-Ad point.

Everybody wins.

The better player gets to prove he’s better and the weaker player gets “rewarded” if he can make it to three deuces.

This is for college and junior matches only.

It should be left alone at the pro level.

In life, the people who are making the decisions are usually the wrong people in charge. They’re not the ones with “boots on the ground.” And in tennis, they’re rarely above a 4.5 rating (In youth sports today, the people who are calling the shots are hacks. People who never made it to Division 1 level in “their” sport (There are plenty of Turds on the other spectrum too).