Possibly controversial...
I submit this squash video of World #1 Nick Matthew v Daryl Selby in the Swedish Open to show that 44-shots was just half the length of the rally. 75+ shots. 1:50 mins. And they just played on, no taking a rest for a minute, then bouncing the ball 20 times before serving again. Serve again in 10 secs.
Does anyone from Dyvours think that a male world tennis pro could stand toe-to-toe with with a squash pro, based on this evidence?
And that is without allowing the 50-60 seconds Nole/Rafa take between points compared to 5 sec max between points in squash or badminton. Never mind fiddling with the net cord rule on serve, enforce the 20 sec rule, tennis. If is 60 secs at the changeover, not between points.
What chance has Murray got when Djokovic and Nadal view every rally as a 60 sec break for towelling, crack-picking and ball bouncing.
For the record, here is the badminton one which is even better than the squash one and really shows up tennis...
6 comments:
rue, but I don't think the squash players play 6 hour matches !
Yes, I agree and there is also the environment in that squash/badminton play in air conditioned spaces whereas Melbourne and New York can be oppressive outdoors.
On the other hand....
A 6 hours match between two of the slowest players in Nadal and Djokovic equates to ? hours for anyone else though.
55 games, so that is 26 mins changeover time, fair enough. Say each game averages 5 rallies, they take 40 secs per serve, that is 180 mins. 3.5 hours of not playing total.
You are left with 2.5 hours of actual hitting time, long squash and bandminton matches are not far off 2 hours.
The squash / badminton / tennis players at the top of their sports really are fantastic athletes, but I reckon the tennis matches are spoilt a bit by the time that's wasted between rallies. Wipe your face and racket, tap away balls you don't like, get two chances to serve in
Radio Five was talking about the length of time that was taken between points in tennis on Sunday morning. They said that tennis has rules about the maximum time that is allowed. I can't remember how long it was, but the commentators said that the rule was very rarely enforced by the umpires.
I'd like to see the second serve rule taken out of tennis. There's an awful lot of time hanging around between serves.
Richard McI
Good comments.
From the APT rules book:
A maximum of twentyfive (25) seconds shall elapse from the moment the ball goes out of play until the time the ball is struck for the next point.
The rule changes to 20 seconds for Grand Slam events.
I don't know why they do not enforce it, at the very least they could ease court congestion by half an hour per match.
Squash used to have 2 serves, and they got rid of the second serve in 1986. Can't see tennis doing that though.
Then again, squash or badminton players would give their right arm to get the coverage that tennis does and earn the sort of incomes tennis players do.
Someone did a comparison of the respective playing times against rest periods in the Wimbledon Men's final and the British Open. Playing time was the time the ball was live and rest was everything else. In the squash final the ratio of play to rest was 9:1 and in the tennis 1:9. This was probably 20 years ago and I would guess rallies at wimbledon have got a bit longer since then but it is a striking difference.
ESClubber
Wow, good data point there, ESClubber.
Even if that was back in the good old serve-volley days of Becker/Edberg, they didn't dawdle with their serve-routines like Nadal/Djokovic do.
I wonder what the ratio for cricket would be: 1:90 ;-?
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