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Grand Slam Events Take Steps to Curb Mid-Match Retirements
One of the fundamental rules of professional tennis is that for someone to get paid, the player must actually play the match. But the four Grand Slam tournaments are making a rules change to ensure the integrity of the competition in the first rounds of their events.
The four-member Grand Slam Board, stung by the high number of first-round retirements because of injuries in recent years, announced on Tuesday that injured players who withdraw in the days before a Grand Slam tournament begins will receive 50 percent of the prize money normally given to first-round losers.
They will split the money evenly with the so-called lucky losers — players who lost in the final round of the qualifying draw and replace the injured player in the main draw.
The purpose of the rule is to eliminate players hobbling into a first-round match with a pre-existing injury and then quitting after a few games, seemingly just to get the paycheck. The money at stake — $50,000 for a first-round loss at the 2017 United States Open — is a significant incentive for players to battle through injury for at least the beginning of the match.
But the rash of player retirements, like the seven in the first round of men’s singles at Wimbledon this year, has infuriated fans paying high prices for tickets expecting to see genuine competition. It is a particular problem in men’s tennis, where the best-of-five-set format at Grand Slam events makes playing through injuries a more arduous task.
Under the new rules, any player who competes in a first-round singles match and retires or performs below professional standards may be subject to a fine, which could be up to all of the player’s first-round prize money. It is not clear who would determine what is “below professional standards.”
The rule, which will be used at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the United States Open, is a variation of one introduced this year by the ATP Tour, which grants 100 percent of the first-round checks to a player who withdraws because of an injury.
“We were very happy with the way it worked,” said Justin Gimelstob, the player representative on the ATP’s board of directors. “It has been a successful initiative. It makes sure that the right players are competing at any given tournament and that injured players are afforded the ability to care for their bodies properly.”
The Grand Slam rule states that in order to get 50 percent of the prize money, a player must officially withdraw after noon on the Thursday before the tournament begins.
The Grand Slam Board also continued its push to improve the pace of play. During its two-day meeting in London, it voted unanimously to support the Australian Open’s petition to the International Tennis Federation to use a strict 25-second serve clock, which was tried out at certain events at the 2017 United States Open. The clock begins at the end of a point, and the server has 25 seconds to strike the ball. A player would be subject to warnings and eventually point penalties for clock violations.
But the board also added a new rule to prevent players from dawdling before the match begins. They will now have one minute after they walk onto the court to be ready for the prematch meeting, and one minute to be ready to play after the five-minute warm-up. The announcement said the rule “will be strictly enforced” and violators can be fined up to $20,000.
In another significant change, all four major tournaments intend to reduce the number of seeds in the main singles draws to 16 from 32 in 2019, potentially creating more danger for the higher seeds in the early rounds.
The seedings system is designed to evenly disperse the top players in the 128-player draw so they will not meet until the later rounds. The more seeds, the less probability of top players facing off in the early rounds. But in 2019, with fewer seeds, the 17th-ranked player could be randomly drawn to play the No. 1 seed in the first round.
There have been 32 seeds at the Grand Slam tournaments since 2001. The new format will increase the chances of more competitive matches in the early rounds, but could potentially reduce the likelihood of marquee matchups later in the draws.
If the system had been in effect for this year’s United States Open, No. 17-seeded San Querrey could have faced No. 1 Rafael Nadal in the first round. With the current 32-seed system, both players reached the quarterfinals.
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