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Tennis officials don’t know anything about tennis - 1

The example closest to home is in the scheduling of Davis Cup matches, which though I loathe from the depths of my heart want India to win them all. 

Common tennis sense says that with someone like Rohan Bopanna in the team, a fast hardcourt in an elevated location, somewhere like Darjeeling or Shimla would be perfect to challenge any team in the world, barring Russia, Argentina and Spain. But the geniuses there are, organize the humiliation to take place in Delhi/Mumbai every year. 

If All India Tennis Association (AITA) insists on making money out of these boring matches, they could atleast chose Bangalore as the perfect medium ground between elevation and commerce.

Fortunately, this clownish behaviour is all pervasive and clearly seen in the ATP too, accelerated only by the over enthusiastic MBA types who don’t understand why they should change what they change. 

p.s. For the ignorant, basic mechanics states that higher elevation means the ball travels faster through the air and thus helps faster servers and faster movers.

p.p.s. Not that Bopanna moves fast. But he atleast serves fast. 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 7:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Tennis officials don’t know anything about tennis - 1”

  1. Nav Says:
    November 28th, 2007 at 9:50 pm

    Higher elevation also means less oxygen and hence more demands on the fitness of urban bred players like Bopanna. The advantage in terms of speed/serve is neutralized by the lack of fitness of our players in comparison to Caucasian or even other Asian athletes.

  2. Gasquet Fan Says:
    November 28th, 2007 at 10:01 pm

    Its a 3 day tournament, with a day in between singles matches. There’s no question of fitness creeping in. The speed of the game will ensure that the rallies are short and there are plenty of tie-breaks, where Bopanna will have an advantage.

    With this technique India can atleast remain in the world group, without having to play this hide and seek game between Oceania group playoffs and first rounds.

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