#did that for wimbledon. i'm sure they did i just wasn't paying attention

[cowboyhorsegirl]

Oh! Some tennis things that are not super well known but will pop up from time to time

Many tournaments will not allow the players to have their coaches talk to them. They are often in the stands and if the players are caught receiving any information or advice from them, lip reading, hand gestures, etc they can get a “coaching penalty”. It’s part of why singles tennis is considered the loneliest sport and it’s also like a chess match, you have to problem solve you way out on your own

Bathroom breaks are strategic and political. Losing players will often leave the pitch to go for a 10 min bathroom break to break their opponent’s momentum and it’s a dirty trick tbh. You only get so many bathroom breaks and medical time outs as well

Grunting and yelling are also strategic and political. You cannot yell or grunt when an opponent is about to hit the ball. If you celebrate to early you can lose the point for potentially distracting the other player. Some players have also been penalized for having too loud of a tennis grunt because they are putting it on to distract or annoy their opponent

Shot clocks are also strategic and political. You only get say 25 secs to serve, and if you take to long it’s a time violation. Players like the big 3 are accused of favortism because they will often go over or should go over but the timer starts late or they just don’t get called out for it. Nadal is infamous for taking 5ever go serve and not get penalized. He takes forever because

Nadal is… superstitious about things. He HAS to do his serve routine JUST so, it involves wiping his face, touching his ears, etc. the routine has gotten longer and longer as his career progresses as he adds more steps and it’s been accused of existing so he can get more recovery time since he runs so much, and to annoy his opponents. He is also very particular about his water bottles, he must place them JUST so at his bench and he’ll spends like a minute lining them up right. It’s happened that they get knocked over in the wind and a ball kid will go over and put them back JUST right because everyone knows how he does them (his opponent sent to ball kid to go put them back hilariously). Tho once an opponent knocked the bottles over during the change over to mess with him and that was considered very unsportsmanlike

If you act more hurt and tired then you actually are, it’s considered being “dramatic” and also unsportsmanlike, since people think it’s a way to “trick” your opponent. How hurt you actually are vs perceived is judged by who you are cheering for tbh and people get mad about “fakers”. Djokovic get accused of this a lot by Fedal fans and Djokovic fans accuse Nadal of it right back. On the opposite end is Nadal’s infamous last Wimbledon where he sustained an injury that’s kept him out for over a year, as he was is clearly hurting and refused to retire and won the match while his family yelled at him to stop or at least stop trying so hard and just finish the match. He won but had to drop out of the tournament right after and people were like, now the other player doesn’t get to keep going because he refused to stop

The overhead smash is a risky move because if you get it it’s almost always a point and if you miss it you look stupid. Djokovic is infamous for his Djokovicsmash because he misses/over hits them way more often then he should at his level

Nadal’s serve is not a weapon he relies on, which is also weird at his level. He does not get a lot of aces (getting a point off a serve without the opponent hitting the ball) and he is generally getting his points by winning rallies. Serena and Federer could “serve their way out” by getting ace after ace and focusing on that, as can Djokovic. Nadal just gets the ball in so he can run after it generally

The Hawkeye Camera and shot challenges exist because Serena was fucked so badly over by a clearly wrong call several times in one match the umpire got removed for it. And back then couldn’t do anything about it. You only get so many challenges and if you are right you get the challenge back. More then once, against their own self interest, a player has told their opponent to challenge a call since they had a closer look and are being good sports

He won but had to drop out of the tournament right after and people were like, now the other player doesn’t get to keep going because he refused to stop

Wait I'm confused so in this scenario, if a player continues playing while injured and then after their match faces serious medical repercussions for doing so, is their opponent then penalized for not forcing the game to stop?

Also so fun that you mentioned coaches not being able to talk to players during matches & nadal's routines bc these things were just barely brushed upon in that documentary but not really expanded upon so it's cool to get more context for those details!

I was wondering abt bathroom breaks! and just generally when they get to rest at all bc it seems so intensive playing until first to win 6 games for at least 3 sets and the games can go on for so long.

And with serving, that's v interesting that they have a timer bc I hadn't noticed that yet, but also does the opponent get a point if the player serving hits the net twice in a row? Bc i'm currently watching the Medvedev v. Djokovic 2021 US Open final and i think i saw that happen to medvedev but i wasn't sure if that was the rule or if maybe i was misinterpreting what was going on or smthng

Another thing with serving, I know you said in another ask that Djokovic will sometimes just throw the first set (for ????? reason? why does he do that lol) and it was insane how many points medvedev got just through his serves! and for serves that i thought djokovic could've hit back if he tried but he just didn't. Is there a reason for that, when players don't bother trying to return the serve?

lol @ the grunting thing and lol @ djokovic missing overhead smashes and extremely disappointing but very unsurprising that a whole new camera rig system was put in place bc serena was getting fucked over by officials 😠😡👿

but also More then once, against their own self interest, a player has told their opponent to challenge a call since they had a closer look and are being good sports aw :'))