Quote:
Originally Posted by Nadal Fan
This title means a little more to me as a fan because he won a tournament with a shot clock. How many times do people complain about how long he takes to serve, I guess it doesn't matter he still just wins.
|
I don't think anyone here said that the reason Rafa wins tournaments is because he takes the maximum allotted time to serve (if so, please link I'd love to read that). pretty sure the primary complaint is that it's irritating to watch, because it's the same 25 seconds of ritualized ticks before his serve, whether the previous point was 1 shot or 20. it doesn't actually bother me anymore, because now I'm just folding laundry or doing dishes while watching his matches, and I know to look up when I hear the serve grunt. you can't do that with a Fed service game for example, because that can be over in the span of 2 Rafa service preparations.
anyhow, the shot clock worked great even for slow servers because it didn't start until the ump announced the score, and they would delay doing that if the players just finished a long rally. in fact in some cases it might have slowed things down because quicker servers now knew how much more time they had, so they could now reliably take more of it. I still doubt the rule will be enforced much in more important matches at key moments with top players, but at least it gives the appearance that things are more fair.