Choice of Ends and Service: Changing Your Mind
Once the toss has been decided, the outcome cannot be changed. However, the choices each player/team makes can be later changed under certain conditions.
Choice of Ends & Service: Strategies for Singles and Doubles
The fundamental truth about the choice of ends and service is that the selection really does not matter all that much. Due to the structure of the game, any advantage from playing from either end evens out over the course of a match.
Choice of Ends & Service: Deferring
Yesterday we discussed how ITF and the USTA have turned us all into degenerative gamblers via the mandatory casting of lots before each match starts. Today we turn our attention to the spoils of victory. Exactly what happens after the coin toss is executed?
Tennis Gambling: Choice of Ends & Service
Once upon a time, I gambled away the toss for choice of ends and service to my opponent prior to being assigned a court at a USTA Major Zone tournament. The side bet was on which of two other players in the draw would be the last to arrive for the first round matches. At the time, I considered the act to be brazenly outside of the rules.
The Tennis Server and Receiver, Ready… Play!
Rule 8 of the ITF Rules of Tennis, as printed in the USTA Friend at Court, is titled “Server & Receiver.” This section essentially does nothing other than to define those two terms.
Rule Changes in the News, 1994 Edition
When I was looking for a media source of the events described in the “An Inconvenient Truth” post, I mentioned that a random twitter userRead More
We Shall Discuss the Match Tie-Break Today
While the rules of tennis are fairly straight forward and compact in the main body, the appendices are extensive, convoluted, and the place where all hell breaks loose such as shortened scoring and other alternative formats. This brings us to the topic of the match tie-break.
Equal Promotion Takes Center Stage
The US Soccer Federation shocks me. Not because blatant misogyny is a a clear problem for that organization, but rather because it is so deeply rooted that it is regarded as a valid legal claim. So what does this have to do with tennis?
Best-of-five: Number Crunching the 2020 Australian Open
When I started in on the best-of-three and best-of-five set rules for matches, I mentioned that the format is inextricably linked to gender politics. InRead More
WTA Player Age Eligibility Rules Genesis: Summer of 1994
I think that I would have skipped on past the nuance that the WTA Age eligibility rules emerged from the insane summer of 1994, butRead More