Billie Jean King, through her X account, has spoken out on the future of tennis, focusing on best-of-5-sets matches, like those played in the men's singles of the Slams. Could this measure improve the game of tennis and bring younger people closer to our beloved sport?
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The legendary American talked - among the various aspects of the Tour that she would change to make this sport attractive - also about the format of matches.
"People always ask me about the future of the game we all love and what I would change if I could. Here are my thoughts, some of which may surprise you," she wrote, before making a real list.
The first measure, rather curious, concerns the scoring methods with which the result of a match is decreed. According to BJK it should be similar to that of football.
"I think that new fans who are approaching this sport, especially the younger ones, don't really understand what 15-40 or 30-15 means. What I would do is a simpler score: 1, 2, 3 and 4. At that point it doesn't matter what you have to do to win the match with a possible 2-2, whether or not a gap of two is necessary, what is clear to me is that I would put aside forever 30-30 and all those names," she added.
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The second, always in line with sports, concerns the personalization of the shirts, with the names of the tennis players who take to the court.
"Every player should have their name and number on their jersey, because right now we need to promote our players like they do in other sports. Look at how they do it in basketball, soccer or baseball. Everyone has their name and number on their jersey," she explained, before focusing on the elimination of best-of-five sets: "Everyone should play best-of-3sets, so that everyone can fight for the same amount of money, both men and women. Here what is paid for is the content of the media, so women can lose because their content is much shorter because they don't play five sets."
