DW: PUT UP OR SHUT UP, ANDY!

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

When ATP officials quiz Andy Murray about his match-fixing allegations, they should surely censure him for his lack of discretion if they fail to squeeze names out of him. The governing bodies are fully aware that the integrity of the sport is jeopardised as much by speculation as by hard evidence that players have been taking bribes to throw matches.

Hard evidence would at least give them the opportunity to impose a swingeing penalty on an errant player to act as a much-needed deterrent to others. Until that moment arrives, the ATP and their counterparts in the WTA must rely on tightening up their anti-corruption procedures. An ATP spokesman has stated: "Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and the ATP has shown that it will act where it has information which requires investigation. Our anti-corruption programme has stringent procedures in place to deal with any suspected corruption." The plan is to tighten this up further by ruling that players will risk disciplinary action if they fail to inform the authorities within 48 hours if they have been approached to throw a match. ATP chairman Etienne de Villiers has disclosed that he will meet with the ITF, the WTA and the grand slam tournament organisers to consider setting up a tennis anti-corruption unit. "A dedicated global tennis integrity unit is a key priority for the sport and plans to create one are well-advanced," he said.

Certainly, some joined-up thinking would be nice. The approach to sports betting legitimacy is handled in a wildly inconsistent fashion around the globe. Bookmaking is highly regulated in some countries, criminalised in others. And those committed to curbing the industry now find themselves thwarted by the proliferation of online gambling websites. Gambling policy is riddled with contradictions anyway. It's an embarrassment that governments become so reliant on the revenue raised by the taxes they introduce ostensibly to control the social damage caused by excessive gambling.

The suppression of gambling on moral grounds is an untenable notion. Laws that are blatantly ignored and routinely violated are worse than useless. Gambling may be a vice, but it's a matter of personal choice. People who succumb to excessive eating, drinking, smoking or gambling have only themselves to blame. It's highly debatable if governments should be in the business of protecting people from themselves. But the rigging of sporting contests falls into the category of external harm and the state does have a duty to protect its citizens from it.

Anyone who cheats at sport and profits by betting on their action should be subject to the full rigour of the law. Until procedures are in place to facilitate the apprehension of these criminals, players like Andy Murray must put up or shut up. They must cooperate promptly and fully with the authorities if they have any incriminating evidence. If they are merely spouting uninformed conjecture, they would do well to reflect on the effect of their "revelations" on the reputation of their sport.

Copyright 2007, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide
Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at http://www.tennisontheline.org/.

Technorati Tags: tennis andy murray

DW: Hawk-Eye Needs More Carrots!

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

Hawk-Eye may have been "killing" Roger Federer during the Wimbledon men's final but the All England Club has hailed the introduction of the electronic line-calling system as a resounding success. "It's been an overwhelming success and it will be here to stay," a Wimbledon spokesman announced. However, Hawk-Eye's creator, Dr Paul Hawkins, has been forced onto the defensive by Federer sympathisers and other assorted Luddites.

Already trailing by a break of serve in the fourth set of the final, Federer, serving at 30-30, declined to play a ball that appeared to have landed beyond the baseline. The line judge, the umpire and all those who saw the BBC freeze-frame replay were also persuaded that Rafael Nadal had missed the opportunity of another break point. But the Spaniard's challenge was upheld by Hawk-Eye, prompting an uncharacteristic meltdown of Federer's concentration that threatened to cost him the match.

Dr Hawkins explained: "The ball will be in contact with the ground for about 10cm. In the very first impact, it will compress so that the bottom half is flat. Then it will start to roll and skid and uncompress. The freeze frame the BBC used showed the ball about 7cm after it touched the ground." Having repeatedly insisted the technology is accurate to within 3mm, Hawkins provoked some ridicule when he was quoted as saying that the contentious ball had been "definitely in by 1 mm". When the designers say Hawk-Eye is accurate to within 3mm, one assumes that means plus/minus 1.5mm accuracy (giving a maximum deviation of 3mm), but if it means plus/minus 3mm accuracy, a Hawk-Eye replay could potentially mislead everybody by as much as 6mm!

Hawkins says the TV cameras do not work at a high enough frame rate to capture the precise initial moment of contact with the ground and he makes a valid point about balls compressing and skidding. It explains discrepancies where the naked eye and video replay show balls to be 'out' when Hawk-Eye judges them to be 'in'. Unfortunately, though, some of the disputed judgements involve balls shown as 'out' by Hawk-Eye when the naked eye, backed up by freeze-frame video, perceived them to be 'in'. There are rumours that the reason Hawk-Eye is not used at the French Open is that when they tested the system on clay, the ball marks frequently proved the technology wrong!

Some players already exploit Hawk-Eye's unreliability by making speculative challenges on big points. If you see your shot go a fraction long on a big point late in a set and you've got a couple of challenges left, why not take a "chance" card? It could get you out of jail free.

Whilst acknowledging that ball-tracking technology is better than the alternative, I believe tournament organisers should be a little more circumspect in their assessments. Gushing praise might encourage Dr Hawkins to rest a little too much on his laurels. The Grand Slams and the Tours missed an opportunity when they awarded contracts to just one supplier. If a rival system such as Auto-Ref was also allowed a slice of the action, there would be a scramble for the carrots and the technology would improve quicker.

Copyright 2007, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide
Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at http://www.tennisontheline.org/.

DW: Wimbledon's Special Friendship

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

If it's true that individuals do more to promote peace than governments, the renewed pairing of Indian Muslim Sania Mirza and Israel's Shahar Peer in the Wimbledon ladies doubles event is a significant one despite the pair's insistence that they are not making any kind of religious or political statement.

"We've grown up together. We're great friends," explained 20-year-old Mirza, who was once the subject of a fatwa issued by radical Muslim clerics who took exception to her on-court attire. "So we said, why not? I have to keep saying this: I'm here to play tennis and so is she. That's the end of that. It has nothing to do with anything else." Mirza and Peer, seeded 16th, overcame Lisa Osterloh and Sofia Andersson in the first round. "We're just here to play tennis and we're here to perform and be the best we can be," Mirza added. "Everything we do or everything we say, we're normal human beings, and we're not here to make statements with every move that we make. We're just here to play tennis and we're here to perform and be the best we can be."

The two have been close friends since their junior days and played together at the 2005 Japan Open where they reached the semi-finals. However, Mirza got cold feet and broke up the partnership before the 2006 Bangalore Open, fearing a violent reaction from Islamic hardliners. "It's best that we don't play together . . . to prevent protests against my cooperation with an Israeli," Mirza said at the time. "There is no reason to arouse their ire." Peer is ranked just outside the top ten and could well qualify for the end-of-season WTA Sony Ericsson Championships next year when the event moves to Doha. Like other Arab Gulf states, Qatar does not recognise Israel.

Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi was threatened with suspension by the Pakistan tennis federation when he competed in the Wimbledon men's doubles with Israel's Amir Hadad in 2002. The pair were awarded the ATP Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award the following year. Like Mirza, Qureshi insisted he never intended to make a political statement with his choice of partner. He nevertheless believed he had delivered a positive message. "I have had quite a lot people come up to me at the airport or on the airplane and ask me when I was going to play with the Pakistani player again," he said. "I never heard anybody say: 'Don't play with him' or something like that. In Israel everybody is pretty supportive about it . . . It's good for the game. They were telling me to keep it up."

Uprooted people are the most vulnerable and desperate of all. Arabs will never accept that the dispossession of Palestinians was a legitimate price the world had to pay for Hitler's oppression of European Jews. A just solution continues to elude world leaders as political intransigence threatens to obscure any shared vision of a peaceful future. In the absence of such a vision, the only way tensions can be relieved is through the humanity of individuals.

If they continue to progress through the draw, Mirza and Peer will cause quite a stir at Wimbledon. Their first match attracted a throng of people wearing saris, turbans and headscarves and they were very warmly received. One can understand them wanting to distance themselves from any political or religious symbolism arising from their reunion, but their friendship is none the less gratifying as an indication that humanity will prevail.

Copyright 2007, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide
Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at http://www.tennisontheline.org/.

Technorati Tags: tennis

DW: Appearance money devalues sport

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

It's not long ago that tennis was an elitist amateur game of starched white flannels and white balls and wooden racket presses. The notion of making money out of playing the game was anathema to the sport's governing bodies.

Today, the game has made great technological advances and is both accessible and attractive to a much wider player base. But the amount of money washing around at the top level of the game threatens to corrupt the motivation of players and turn away the fans.

No one would begrudge the world's best players the right to earn what their market value dictates, but there is an increasing perception that under-the-table appearance fees or guarantees are beginning to warp the integrity of sporting commitment. One of the main problems with such payments is that they are shrouded in secrecy. Lack of transparency invariably breeds distrust. People naturally become suspicious when rumours of six-figure appearance fees abound and a star player unexpectedly loses in the early rounds of a lesser event. When one of these stars pockets a huge fee at one of the minor tournaments and then pulls out of a Masters Series event the following week, citing exhaustion or injury, suspicion turns to outright cynicism.

The impenetrable wall that separated amateur and professional tennis players in the early part of the 20th century crumbled during the era of "shamateurism" in the 1950s and 60s when the top so-called amateurs received under-the-table payments of hundreds of dollars a week. Having belatedly got something so right with the advent of open tennis in 1968, tennis then contrived to get it all wrong again, ushering in a new era of deceit and hypocrisy in 1990 when the ATP Tour started encouraging tournament directors to wave the carrot of guaranteed fees on top of prize money. These guarantees often dwarf the amounts of prize money on offer and distort the economic realities of life on the men's tour. Although the WTA has steadfastly refused to sanction the practice, marquee attractions like Maria Sharapova get around it by signing up for extra promotional appearances.

Shortly after securing the appearance of Rafael Nadal at the Stella Artois Championships in 2007 and 2008, tournament director Ian Wight recently conceded:

We are killing our game. It is the economics of the madhouse that a player can receive more than three times the prize money not for winning a tournament but just for turning up.

ATP Chairman Etienne de Villiers is unmoved by such protestations. "It is impossible to stop the practice in the same way you can't stop people opening the fridge to see what's inside," he said. "We are introducing measures we hope will allow us to understand the practice better. Yes, we have to manage our tournaments better to improve the incentives and player commitment. Doing that, you will bring the situation involving guarantees back into some kind of equilibrium. What I must emphasise, though, is that this is not a huge crisis."

Personally, I think it would only take one episode of high-profile "tanking" to make this issue a crisis. The fridge should have a transparent door.

Tournament directors should come out in the open concerning appearance fees, so everyone is clear just what is guaranteed and what is actually at stake in any given competition. Better still, the practice of offering such payments should be outlawed altogether. After all, if tournament directors can afford to offer players vast guarantees, they can afford to increase the prize money instead.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

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tennis

DW: Save Tennis from Frankenstein!

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

The scientific landscape was still relatively pastoral half a century ago when Albert Einstein warned: "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity". Today, when scientists are applying for permission to create part-human, part-animal embryos, it seems pertinent to consider how scientific and technological innovations have blurred the lines between reality and fantasy, between authenticity and artificiality, even in the world of tennis.

It was way back in 1818 when Mary Shelley's famous novel, Frankenstein, drew attention to the danger of scientists running amok and crossing thresholds that ought not to be crossed. In tennis, a significant threshold flashed by when Jimmy Connors started brandishing his metal Wilson T2000, consigning wooden rackets to junk shops, museums and attics within a decade. Nowadays we have electronic line-calling technology. We also have "smart" rackets.
Piezoelectrics in the form of lead zirconate titanate fibres are embedded into composite frames. When these "smart materials" contort, they generate electric energy which is harnessed to increase the stability of the racket and dampen vibrations. Is it cheating to use a microchip to produce a counterforce in this way? Apparently not. But how far will manufacturers be allowed to go? What if the next innovation were to allow players to adjust string tension "on the fly"? Would that be acceptable?

Technological advances tend to elicit reactive responses. Innovators seldom anticipate controversy. Actually, perhaps that's too kind. Innovators have plenty to gain from the postponement of ethical debate. So, clearly, the onus is on decision-making bodies to anticipate and plan for the future.

Being proactive is the only way to avoid being presented with faits accompli. A good example of the creeping introduction of new technology is the advent of pitch-correction in the music industry. Fans are just beginning to wrestle with the thorny ethical question of authenticity as it dawns on them that their favourite artists utilise auto-tuning to make them sound better. Singer-songwriter Allison Moorer brought the subject to the forefront of public attention when she noted on the liner notes of her 'Miss Fortune' CD: "Absolutely no vocal tuning or pitch correction used in the making of this record." She was drawing attention to the fact that the use of auto-tune was the rule, not the exception. But what about integrity, she appears to be asking? What about authenticity? It's difficult to imagine Johnny Cash would have taken advantage of auto-tuning. But it's Ms Moorer's misfortune (!) that she is a great singer at a time when it isn't necessary to be one. In fact, pitch correction technology has been prevalent in the music industry since the 1990s and poor Allison is simply whistling in the wind, albeit with pitch-perfect delivery.

Unlike the music industry, tennis is not primarily profit-driven. The marketability of the product is important - crucially important, according to tournament organisers and tour executives - but the sport must be managed in a way that ensures its integrity. No one would wish to stifle innovations that are targeted at injury prevention, but the time has come for the ITF and other tennis organisations to start defining what aspects of the game should be preserved and protected. They must then legislate accordingly, before tennis stealthily mutates into something undesirable.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

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DW: Round-Robin Rashness

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

The Next Generation Adelaide International, starting on the first day of 2007, will be the first ATP event to use the new experimental round-robin format. ATP chairman Etienne de Villiers appears to have sold the idea to tournament directors, members of the ATP Player Council and a whole host of concurring players and pundits who may well have paid scant attention to the detail. "We will have 12 tournaments or so experimenting next year," said De Villiers, who is keen to make the new format mandatory for 2009. "Most of the players are very positive about this."

Tournament directors would not have needed much persuading. Delray Beach tournament director Mark Baron was just one of those voicing unreserved approval. "Spectators will get to see all the seeded players at least twice, which is great," he enthused. "Before, if a top seed had a bad match, he was out. Now, you could see him in the final. And we'll start on Sunday, which allows us to have a big family day, something we've always wanted. All in all, this is great news for our event."

The round-robin has previously been used only at the year-end Masters Cup and the World Team Championship in Dusseldorf.

Apparently, the French phrase rond ruban derives from an 18th century French military practice. When officers sought redress of a grievance by means of a petition, their superiors were sometimes inclined to seize and execute those whose names headed the list, so it became customary to sign such petitions in a circular form.

If Etienne de Villiers heads the list of round-robin advocates, the name of Rafael Nadal is not far behind. "People want to see Federer or Roddick. Now perhaps me," the world number two told reporters recently, "and this way they will see them at least twice, instead of once. If the world number two or the number one lose in the first round, it is a catastrophe for the tournament." It's rather ironic that Nadal should attribute his recent run of poor form to fatigue because round-robin tournaments will certainly make the tour schedule even more onerous than it is already. While tournament directors rub their hands at the prospect of starting the round-robin events on Sundays, overlapping with the final day of the previous week's tournaments, the Spaniard will see his seven-day working week become an eight-day one! Tournaments like the pre-Wimbledon Stella Artois Championships in London will probably opt for a 48-man draw, with 16 groups of three. The finalists will therefore play six matches instead of the five required previously. Ouch! No wonder Roger Federer has turned against the idea.

Even if the Tour eventually sees the light and replaces groups of three with groups of four, other worrying factors will surely surface. One such drawback is the potential for players to indulge in "tanking" or not trying too hard once they have ensured their progression to the elimination stage. Lindsay Davenport is concerned about such dubious tactical ploys. "There (could be) a lot of fixing if your friend needs you to win or lose or whatever," she warned. "A lot of things could happen. There are some kinks to be worked out for sure."

"I'm very, very excited because this is something I petitioned for for a long time," said Mark Baron. I hope he and his fellow advocates had the foresight to sign their names in circular fashion. Otherwise, it's off with his head!

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

See Dave's profile and an index of all his posts here.

DW: On-Court Coaching Is Bananas

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has experimented with on-court coaching at tournaments in Montreal, New Haven and Stuttgart so far this season and wider experimentation is anticipated in 2007. Dee Dutta, Corporate Vice President and Head of Marketing for Sony Ericsson explains: "For Sony Ericsson, our sponsorship of women's tennis is all about connecting players to fans, be it through our technology or through introduction of innovative entertainment concepts. We are committed to respecting the great traditions of women's tennis and the one-on-one gladiatorial battle that makes tennis so exciting, while also testing creative ideas that will enable the sport to continue to compete and succeed in the entertainment marketplace."

Illegal coaching became a hot issue during this year's Italian Open when Roger Federer claimed that Rafael Nadal was being coached from the stands.

Temperatures rose higher at the US Open when cameras clearly revealed Maria Sharapova's entourage communicating with her by means of visual cues and signals. Her father, Yuri, and fitness coach Michael Joyce were seen at various times motioning her to drink and eat bananas. The discontent threatened to boil over. It was the bananagate scandal. "The cheating is out of control," Daniela Hantuchova complained. "There are signals and words instructing the players. I've complained to the umpires, wondering how they can't hear this when I can." Meilen Tu went further. "There's so much cheating going on as it is, they might as well legalise it," she said.

Sharapova was unrepentant. "Right now I'm sitting here as a US Open champion," she said. "And the last thing I think people need to worry about is a banana."

On-court coaching has all the signs of being a half-baked effort to address these concerns. But it will not stop clandestine coaching from the stands.

Nor is it fair. Many lower-ranked players cannot afford to travel with a coach. There are many logistical problems too. What happens, for example, if two players drawn against each other share the same coach? 'Miking up' the coaches is a pretty lame idea if viewers are not provided with some kind of language translation service.

Innovative ideas are fine, but they should be treated with the utmost caution when they involve rule changes that would skew the fundamental nature of the sport. It can hardly be considered a "one-on-one gladiatorial battle" if, at the moment a combatant's shield bites the dust, he simply scratches his head and, in the parlance of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire', opts to phone a friend? At the US Open, Andre Agassi summed it up: "Tennis is ... a sport that forces you to solve problems by yourself. It's a vehicle for education, a great thing for somebody's life. That message needs to be sold better."

All in all, on-court coaching is not just a misguided experiment, it's bananas, it's an unacceptable interference with the very principle of singles competition. It's nonsense for Sony Ericsson to claim that the traditions of the game are being respected. Since when did entertainment become the raison d'etre of sport anyway? Tennis may happen to be entertaining but it does not and should not have to sell itself in the "entertainment marketplace". The WTA Tour seems to be kow-towing to its sponsors in a manner that jeopardises its very integrity.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

See Dave's profile and an index of all his posts here.

DW: Never, Never, Never

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

Someone recently told me she was going to give up having tennis lessons because she knew she would never be any more than an average player.

Martin Luther King once said: "If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say: 'Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well'". At first, that may sound like a blueprint for underachievement and reinforcing the status quo, but it's not.

You do not underachieve if you strive to make the best of what you have. We may not all be blazing trails like Roger Federer or Serena Williams but we don't have to be stuck in a rut.

I've always been impressed with King's philosophy. It may sound trite. It may come over as preachy, homespun wisdom, but you should endeavour to hang in and do your best at all times at whatever you do. Don't let what you can't do get in the way of what you can do. Set yourself realistic, achievable goals and don't lose sight of them. You will then succeed or fail on your own terms.

Be prepared to set bigger goals if the opportunity presents itself. It's a scaleable philosophy. It applies equally to the broadest ambitions and the nitty-gritty of particular game situations. A positive mindset is the only requirement. Mario Ancic illustrated this recently at the Hamburg Masters.

The Croat was trailing by a set and 4-1 in his quarter-final encounter with Nikolay Davydenko. Undeterred, he went over to his coach and asked for a couple of rackets to be restrung! It was a great demonstration of his positive and resolute approach to playing tennis. You doubtless want to know whether he went on to win or lose the match, but the outcome isn't really the point. Truly, it's not the point!

Okay, okay. For the record, Ancic went on to win in three sets.

Never, never, never give up!

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

DW: The Holy Grail of Tennis

You'll love this one. Dave tells me he wrote while hanging upside down in gravity boots. See what a little extra oxygen to the brain can do? --KK

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

It's shamelessly topical to do so, but I must address the issue of the Holy Grail before the trail goes cold. The Grail of which I speak is nothing to do with Mary Magdalene or any other entertaining but ultimately risible hypothesis advanced by the likes of Dan Brown and other descendants of Erich von Daniken (remember Chariots of the Gods?). No, I refer, of course, to the Grand Slam of the four majors - the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open - first achieved by Don Budge in 1938. Budge's feat has been replicated by only one man - Rod Laver, in 1962 and again in 1969. Three women have won a Grand Slam - Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Smith Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.

An emotional Roger Federer received his Australian Open singles trophy from Laver earlier this year and now only needs to win in Paris to hold all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously. That will be a tremendous achievement, but it will fall short of a Grand Slam in the strictest sense of the term. Federer's name will only appear alongside Budge and Laver in the record books if he wins all four majors within a calendar year.

I don't know if the Merovingian bloodline has found its way into Federer's veins, but his divinity on the tennis court has at any rate been seriously challenged by Rafael Nadal in recent months, especially on clay. The Spanish teenager now boasts a 5-1 lead in their head-to-head series. However, recent scorelines, most notably in the Rome Masters final, suggest that the Swiss has picked up vital clues on his quest. A fifth set tiebreaker was all that separated the pair in their most recent encounter and Federer may well prevail in Paris if they both reach the final, particularly if the conditions are warm and dry.

Close examination of Da Vinci’s "Last Supper" clearly reveals the tentacles of the Flying Spaghetti Monster believed by many to have created the universe. I believe I have empirical evidence that Ilie Nastase is the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Bear with me. You will probably be aware that when Nadal takes to the court in the first round of the French Open, he will be attempting to break Guillermo Vilas' record of 53 consecutive wins on clay. What you may not know is that Vilas would have extended that winning streak by another twenty-odd matches but for Nastase's so-called "spaghetti racket". In the final of a tournament in Aix-en-Provence, Vilas stormed off court after being totally bamboozled by the spins produced by Nastase's double-strung racket made of non-intersecting strings on independent planes. The racket had already been outlawed by the tennis authorities but the ban did not come into effect until after the tournament. And so it was that tennis history first became entangled with the great Flying Spaghetti Monster. It only remains for me to wish Noodle, sorry, Nadal, the best of luck.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.

DW: Hawkeye: Using the Right Technology the Wrong Way

By Dave Winship
OnTheLine.org

When Hawk-Eye technology made its debut at the Nasdaq-100 a few weeks back, there was plenty of scope for tournament directors, referees, umpires and players to use the right technology in the wrong way. Well, that's pretty much exactly what's happened.

Before the instant replay system was installed for the Miami tournament, line-call blunders threatened to undermine the integrity of the professional game. Injustices witnessed by television audiences often had a significant bearing on the outcome of matches. In 2004, USTA Chief Executive Arlen Kantarian was moved to apologise to Serena Williams after overrules and bad line-calls during her US Open quarter-final encounter with Jennifer Capriati cost her a place in the last four. So the stakes were too high to resist the implementation of a system that eliminates human error. Unfortunately, the movers and shakers of the tennis industry spied an opportunity to inject an uncalled-for element of drama and entertainment into the sport and the skewed system of limited player challenges was born. Kantarian, a former marketing executive for the National Football League, was clearly influential in the decision to approve a policy similar to the instant replay challenges adopted by the NFL in 1999.

Instead of ushering in a new era of fairness and accuracy, the fanfare in Miami has produced nothing but a half-cocked Hawk-Eye which isn't even under the control of the umpire. It's as if the window of opportunity has been opened only for officials to put up some eye-catching curtains. The powerlessness of the umpires has been compounded by the inhibition of players disposed to save their challenges for potentially critical moments late in each set. The arbitrariness of limited challenges produces intrigue and strategy, but players will soon feel short-changed when they realise that inconsistency and unfairness have merely been reconstructed when they could have been eradicated. Fans will also share the frustrations when the novelty starts to wear thin. There must be serious misgivings over a system that is restricted to a select few on the show courts at tournaments.

Hawk-Eye should be a discretionary tool in the hands of chair umpires empowered to view an instant replay to resolve doubtful calls whenever they see fit. On clay courts, umpires already respond to limitless appeals by players. The use of instant replay technology is quicker and less intrusive than the spectacle of an umpire jumping in and out of the chair to inspect marks. Implementation should not depend on the installation of big screens, but, where they are available, they can be used to satisfy those who insist that the entertainment factor is exploited.

Instant replay technology is too good an opportunity for tennis to waste. The various authorities should be constantly reminded that the goal is the elimination of erroneous calls and there should be nothing else on the agenda. Every effort must be made to deploy it on all courts at those tournaments that choose to sanction its use. Above all, the technology must be put in the hands of the umpires.

Copyright 2006, Dave Winship -- all rights reserved worldwide

Dave Winship is an L.T.A. coach at the Caversham Park Tennis Club in Berkshire, England, and the author of OnTheLine.org magazine at www.tennisontheline.org.